Claudia peels her carrots as she stands next to Tina and Richie. She listens in when Richie was talking about his date from last night. He showed Tina some photos from her profile. Claudia took a glance until Richie tilts the phone more to Tina.

"No sense of humor, you know?" Richie tells Tina.

"Maybe because you're not funny? Ever think of that?" Claudia says as she walks away to the back to get more carrots.

"Yo! Listen up!" Everyone drops everything and looked at Manny. "Okay i just yelled like that?" He turns to Carmy, shocked to see eyes on him. "Take this green tape off before it gets to us. It takes five seconds, cause once its soapy and our fingers are pruned, we cant fuck with this shit, cool?"

"Yes chef!" They all synchronized.

"Thank you for your time." Manny heads back. Claudia got her hands full with the carrots, now heading back to help Tina. Shes behind Richie, who looks at her but doesn't move.

"Behind." She tells him. He doesn't budge. "Behind!" She raises her voice. He doesn't move. "Richard! Move!" She yells, finally he gets out of her way.

"Oh! T, she has no sense of Chicago history." He goes on again about his date.

"She has nice eyes tho." Tina tells him.

"Yeah, she does." He smirks down at the photo.

"Nice eyes? She went on a date with you. Poor girl probably has bad sight." Tina laughs at her comment.

"Why are you a bitch this morning." He scuffs at her. "What, your fuck buddy canceled and now i gotta handle this?" He looks at her.

"Again, not funny." She frowns.

"Women find me hilarious, by the way!" He gets in front of her.

"Really? Is it because they just feel sorry for you or..." She pretends to think. "No, i think its just that."

"I bet men are excited to see you coming." He sarcastically said. Claudia puts away her knife and looks at him.

"Oh they are, when i tell you, they are hoping to come home with me. Im not just a pretty face." She walks away from him. Richie looks at Tina.

"Don't get me involved." Richie rolled his eyes.

—

Claudia stayed in the front, texting as Richie came out with her. She ignored him, not wanting to deal with him anymore. She texts with her old coworker, she takes a glance at Richie. He stands away from her, looking at the shop across the street. It looked like he was dislocating himself. She flips her phone on the table and tilts her head. Claudia was almost like worried about him.

"You good?" He looks at the ground as she snaps him back from his thoughts. "Yo? You okay?" She sounded so sincere. Something Richie didn't know she could do.

"Yeah." He said as he crossed his arms, chill. "It feels weird out there." Claudia looks around the room. Is he on something? What is this? What is he talking about? "Bar closed."

"You close with it? Go there a lot?" She goes on. Still felt weird.

"Nah. The owner and I dont really see eye to eye." You dont say she thought. "But it was nice to know it was there. It was like a fixture."

"Like Logan, Wicker, Pilsen." She lists on.

"They all suck now." She frowns.

"Well, they are different. Doesn't mean they suck."

"Yeah, they are different. Thats why I keep telling you guys stop fucking with this place. You know, you let up a little bit...everything changes." Claudia just blinks her eyes, frowning and curling her lip. "You know, you don't realize, this is a delicate ecosystem, and its held together by a shared history and love and respect. She has no face. People are like, where the fucks her face?, an, uh, a-architect John Storrs, right? John Storrs goes, Well when we put it up there, it was the tallest building in the city and no one really gonna see her face, so we didn't bother to put one. But now, every goddamn building is taller than the next one and they all just look out at this chick with no face and its just-" Claudia jumps to the floor as bullets hit the glass. Richie immediately goes and ducks, covering Claudia. Claudia held to his arms as the coast was clear. Richie felt the grip she had on him, squeezing his biceps. "Yo? You good?" He looks down at her. She looks up at him and sees the concern look on his eyes. Everyone comes in, seeing what happened. They saw Richie and Claudia.

"Get off me." She cuts the moment and pushes him off.

"Everyone alright?" They get up from the floor.

"Mother fuck!" They see the broken window. Claudia nods at Tina as she walks to her and asks if shes okay. Claudia watches Richie get his coat and walks outside. What the fuck is he up to now?

"You must be Claudia." She turns to see Natalie coming up to her. "Carmy talks about you."

"I hear he talks about me more than my own ex did." They both smiled. "Natalie, right? Sugar?"

"Yes, well its finally nice to meet you."

"Same here." Richie comes back, heading towards Claudia. She stands tall, shaking her hair out of her face.

"You alright?" He lowers his head to actually look at her.

"Fine, you?" She holds her neck.

"Yeah. Fuck, i don't even know anymore." He hesitated but touched her arm as he walks past her. She watches him, following his hand off her arm. She looks to see Sydney, staring at them. Claudia clears her throat and heads back to the kitchen.

Shop was now open. They all ran around the kitchen crazy, making orders fast. Claudia sneaks in a bite or two from Sydneys dish she made. She hums as she eats and walks to her station. She overhears Carmy telling her its not ready to be doing specials yet, but she was definitely hurt by him shutting her down. Claudias eyes followed her out to the floor and talking to a man, giving him the plate that she gave Carmy.

"What the hell did you do?" Claudia pulls her to the side.

"What?" She acts surprised.

"Did you just give that guy something that wasn't on the menu?"

"Nobody was going-"

"One thing working in the kitchen, dont ever go behind your head chefs orders." Sydney was feeling sick as she sees Claudia in a whole new way, and it was scary. "You do that, that's disloyalty, disrespectful to us, to the shop."

"Its just a random." Sydney tries to ease up the tension. "I wasn't going to let it go to waste."

"Never go behind a chefs back, you understand?" She nods. Sydney walks away and does her station. She voided to look at Claudia. Here comes Richie, rushing in, knocking over pots and bowls. "Hey! Respect the kitchen!"

"Fuck! Wheres my gun?" Her eyes widen. "Any of you motherfuckers take my gun?"

"Im sorry? Gun?" She follows him.

"No Claudia, my water gun."

"You keep a gun in here!?"

"Can we do this later sweetheart?" He panicked and runs to find that gun he hid. She looks outside to see a bunch of guys arguing and the customers watching from inside. As Sydney tries to calm the customers down, Claudia goes outside and tries to get them to stop.

"Hey!" She yells, nobody paid attention. "Shut the fuck up! Please!" She yells louder. Now everyone got quiet. "Thanks. Someone tell what the fuck is going on?"

"This isn't his place!" One of the guys spit out. Claudia takes a deep breath. Children. They start to argue again. Tina and Sweeps came out to help Claudia.

"Hey! Hey!" She brings them back. "Lower the tones! Im Claudia, lets start from there."

"John."

"Mr. Carl." Claudia really tried to hold in an eye twitch. She swears if these are Richies 'friends' shes sooo going at him and Carmy for it.

"Alright, John, Mr. Carl. You all know Tina and Gary, great we are on a first name basis now, how can we fix this?"

"Cant be fixed because this guys a bitch." Mr. Carl goes off.

"Oh, you fuckin said it for the last time." John goes off too. Claudia gets in the middle and pushes them off. Claudia finally lets them listen in, telling them the plan, working out a deal. She hands them sandwiches, agreed to the terms. Claudia heads inside as she sees Richie. He looks at her with so much worry in his eyes, for her. She stops. She looks at him, her dark eyes looking down at his waist and sees his gun.

"Its handled." She said in a bothered tone and heads inside.

"Claudia!" He chases after her. He finally gets to her, grabs her arm. "Look-"

"Listen." She claps her hands. "Whatever that shit was, its handled. But-" He lets her go. "You are involved with it, deal with it. You talk about how you respect Mikey and how we drive the customers away if we change shit, but that, that is shitting on him and this is some how falling on you. First the window, then you and the gun," She pointed at the weapon in his pants. "Than that," she referred to outside. "Fix it." She shoves him out of her way. Richie sighs and realizes that shes right. He watches her walk away.

—

Claudia goes to the bathroom and changes into a dress and fixes her hair and does some touching up. She sprints to the locker room, puts her heels and shoving her work shoes and clothes into the bag.

"Mama, wanna come get some drinks?" Tina walks up and sees Claudia wrapping her heels up. "Woah." Claudia blushes.

"I would but-"

"Looks like you got a date." Sweeps comes in, smiling. "Lucky guy."

"Rain check? I can't be late." She rushes.

"You owe us a round." Manny laughs as he sees her.

"Deal." She runs out and shoves everything in her car and meets her date at the bar. He was already there, drinks waiting and once he sees her, he smiles. "Hey." They kissed. She had been seeing her old coworker Kent for awhile, but things have been so busy between them, bartending and the restaurant, their schedules never lined up.

"You look good." She blushes again. "And you smell like beef." She pushes him as he cracks a smile.

"Shut up." They both stood together, his arm wrapped around her waist, making her get closer, drinking their drinks.

One the other side, Tina, Sweeps, Manny, Ebra, Marcus and Richie were all together having their drinks. They talked about work to destress. They kept ordering and ordering, until Richie spoke his mind.

"Can I say something? I need to let this off my chest." He clears his throat. "Claudia, what do we think of her?"

"Shes good."

"She knows whats shes doing."

"She doesn't bother me." Richie hated the worship.

"What?! Shes just so fucking annoying and bossy. I cant get her out of my head." Richie shakes his head.

"Papa, i think you are in love." Tina smiles, rubbing his back as she told him the truth. Richie slowly turns his head to look at her. There was no way.

"Me in love with her? Absolutely fucking not!" Everyone was telling him, its obvious. "Never! Shoot me if i am!"

"Pow!" Marcus finger guns him. Richie rolled his eyes. "Come on, Claudia isn't even bad."

"Oh yeah, shes such a precious angel-" He couldn't believe it. Claudia was there. Right in front of him. Shes laughing and smiling. It was almost a scary sight. But she looked almost unrecognizable. She looked better, looked pretty. It was almost like she had a double life. How can someone that dresses the way she does but when shes out and about, she looks even better. They all looked to see what he staring at. Marcus and Angel laughed.

"Richie, baby, don't go embarrassing her." Tina tells him.

"Too late." Something came over him. He had a a fiery pit in this stomach. Once he saw them kiss, it was over. "Hello!" Claudia's eyes widen as she sees the lanky man in front of her.

"Fuck." She whispers. Kent frowns.

"Richie Jerimovich, nice to meet you." He reaches over to shake Kents hand.

"Kent Butcher." The men shook on it. Claudia hid her face away from table of her coworkers staring down at them. "You know each other?" He turns to her.

"I wish i haven't."

"We work together. Im her boss." Richie smiles.

"You are not my boss." She twitches her upper lip.

"She hates that. But its true." He takes a look into her eyes. What will he do? What is he up to? Claudias heart quickens. "How you love birds know each other? Whats the story? She has you under a spell?"

"Uh no." Kent laughs. He looks back at Claudia. Eyeing down Richie. "We used to work together."

"Oh! Isn't that cute." He claps. But Kent starts to get uncomfortable as Richie had his eyes on Claudia, not once pulled away. "I see its a trend."

"Shut it Richie." She stares him down.

"Isn't she a handful? Bossy? How can you deal with her? Give me some tips, i need it." Kent just gets laughs. "Brother to brother come on."

"Shes fine, nothing wrong with her."

"You should see her at work, and especially with me-"

"We should go." Claudia says to Kent. "Thank you, Richard." They both left the bar. As Kent and Claudia get to her car, Kent sighs. "What?"

"Is there something going on between you and that guy?" Claudias eyes widen.

"Richie? Fuck no."

"It sure does feel like there's something." She lets out a laugh.

"Trust me, theres nothing." Kent puts his hands in his pockets and looks down. "Kent?" She tries to make him look at her.

"I don't think this is going to work." Her heart stops. "Im sorry Claudia." He kisses her cheek. "See you around." He leaves her by her car. Claudias eyes start to water.

Marcus goes out to get some fresh air and sees her standing there on the sidewalk and her date leaves her, he knew. He was about to go to her, she gets in her car and drives off. The fuck did Richie do.