The Somali Café Owner
"She's thirty-five, divorced, and owns the best Somali café in Shepherd's Bush. He's the twenty-five-year-old chef she hired to help during Ramadan. Their late-night kitchen sessions turn into something neither expected."
I swore off men after my divorce.
Three years of marriage to a man who thought a wife was a servant with benefits. Three years of cooking, cleaning, and silent resentment. When it ended, I promised myself: never again.
Now it's Ramadan, and my café is packed every night for iftar, and I need help.
"His name is Dalmar," my cousin says. "Just graduated culinary school. Needs experience."
"I need someone who can cook Somali food, not French pastries."
"His mother is from Mogadishu. Trust me."
I trust her.
That's my first mistake.
Dalmar arrives on the first day of Ramadan.
Twenty-five years old. Tall. The kind of handsome that makes customers suddenly need extra napkins to fan themselves. He moves around my kitchen like he was born there—confident, precise, tasting everything before it goes out.
"Your suugo needs more basil," he says on day three.
"Excuse me?"
"The tomato sauce. It's good, but it could be great. Fresh basil, not dried. And a pinch of sugar to balance the acid."
"I've been making suugo since before you were born."
"Then it's time to try something new."
He adds the basil. The sugar. Hands me a spoonful.
It's better.
I hate that it's better.
By week two, we've found a rhythm.
He handles the stews. I handle the rice. Together, we feed two hundred people every night—families breaking fast, students far from home, old men who come as much for company as for food.
"You love this," he says one night, watching me greet customers.
"It's my livelihood."
"It's more than that." He leans against the counter. "The way you talk to them. Remember their names. Know who's diabetic and who's mourning and who just needs someone to smile at them."
"That's just good business."
"That's love." He holds my gaze. "You pour love into this place. Into every dish. Into every person who walks through that door."
"You're very observant for a pastry chef."
"I observe what interests me."
I look away first.
I have to.
The last night of Ramadan, we stay late.
Everyone else has gone home. The café is quiet, cleaned, ready for the Eid rush tomorrow. But neither of us moves to leave.
"Can I show you something?" he asks.
"What?"
He goes to the walk-in fridge, comes back with ingredients I don't recognize.
"I've been working on this all month. A fusion dish. Somali spices, French technique." He starts prepping. "I wanted you to be the first to taste it."
I sit on the counter—something I never do when staff is here—and watch him cook.
His hands are beautiful. Sure and steady. He moves between stations like a dancer, building something I can't predict.
"You're staring," he says without looking up.
"You're worth staring at."
The words slip out before I can stop them. He pauses. Looks at me.
"Maryam—"
"I'm sorry. That was inappropriate. You work for me, and I'm—"
"You're what?"
"Old enough to be—well, not your mother. Your much older sister, maybe."
"You're ten years older than me." He sets down his knife. "That's nothing."
"It's something."
"Not to me." He walks toward me. "Not when I've been watching you for a month. Not when I lie awake thinking about—"
"Don't."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm your boss. Because you're young. Because I swore I wouldn't do this again."
"Do what?"
"Feel things." I look at my hands. "My ex-husband killed something in me. I've spent three years rebuilding. I can't let anyone—"
"Hurt you again?"
"Exactly."
He reaches out. Tips my chin up. Makes me look at him.
"I'm not him."
"I know."
"Then give me a chance to prove it."
He kisses me between the prep station and the walk-in.
Soft at first—asking permission. I give it. Pull him closer. Feel his body against mine, young and strong and wanting.
"Maryam—"
"Don't talk." I pull at his chef's coat. "I've spent a month watching these hands. Show me what else they can do."
He lifts me onto the prep counter. The same counter where we've made a thousand meals. Now he's making something else—spreading my legs, pushing my skirt up, his fingers finding me already wet.
"You've thought about this—"
"Every night." I gasp as he slides inside me. "Every night after you left, I touched myself and pretended—"
"No more pretending."
He replaces his fingers with his mouth.
He eats me like I'm the best dish he's ever tasted.
Thorough. Appreciative. Taking his time despite my urgency. I grab his hair, ride his face, let the pleasure build to something impossible.
"Dalmar—I'm going to—"
He sucks my clit and I shatter.
Scream into the empty café, my voice echoing off the industrial equipment. He doesn't stop—he pushes me through it, licks every drop, makes me come again before I've recovered from the first.
"Please—I need you—"
He stands. His cock is hard, straining against his chef's pants. I reach for him.
"Here," I say. "Now."
He takes me on the counter where we make bread.
The surface is floured from the morning's baking; by the time we're done, we're covered in white, laughing and moaning at the same time.
"This is—we're going to have to sanitize—"
"Later." He thrusts deeper. "Right now I just want—"
"What?"
"You." He grabs my hips, changes the angle. "All of you. Every part you've been hiding."
I let go.
Let him see me—not the strong café owner, not the divorced woman who doesn't need anyone, but the person underneath. Hungry. Lonely. Desperate to feel something again.
"I'm close—"
"Me too—" He reaches between us. "Together—"
We come at the same time.
His release fills me while mine breaks over him, and we cling to each other in the floury mess we've made.
After, we clean the café together.
Sanitize every surface. Mop the floors. Make sure there's no evidence of what happened—except for the way we keep looking at each other.
"Eid tomorrow," he says.
"Biggest day of the year."
"I'll be here early."
"I know."
"And after?"
I put down my mop. Walk to him. Kiss him once, soft and promising.
"After, you take me to dinner. Somewhere I don't have to cook."
"Like a date?"
"Exactly like a date."
He grins. "You're the boss."
"I am." I pat his cheek. "Remember that."
Six months later, he moves into my flat.
His mother disapproves—I'm too old, too divorced, too independent. My family whispers—he's too young, too pretty, too good to be true.
We don't care.
Every morning, we wake up together. Every day, we run the café side by side. Every night, we create new dishes—in the kitchen and elsewhere.
"I love you," he says one morning, out of nowhere.
I've been waiting for him to say it. Dreading it, too.
"Dalmar—"
"You don't have to say it back. I just wanted you to know." He kisses my forehead. "Whatever your ex-husband took from you—I'm going to spend my life giving it back."
I cry.
For the first time in three years, I cry because I'm happy.
"I love you too," I whisper. "Even though you were right about the basil."
He laughs.
And I know I made the right choice—taking a chance on the young chef who saw me before I was ready to be seen.
Sometimes the best dishes are the ones you didn't plan.
Sometimes the best love is too.