Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

I look around for another moment, soaking in the quiet, empty kitchen. The gleaming surfaces, the clean floor, the labeled canisters and jars on the shelves. The sense of stillness only possible in a place that’s normally busier than the Tokyo subway at rush hour.

Aside from this kitchen torch incident, my last night at Le Faisan Rouge went beautifully. All my staff turned up when they were supposed to. Only two wine glasses got broken, which is pretty good. Not a single diner sent their food back, which might be a record.

I did have to check the men’s room for a dead body, but even that was a false alarm.

I sigh and lean over the sink, the stainless steel edge cool against my palms, and contemplate the masterwork of redneck engineering inside.

I liked this job, I think, surprising myself.

When I took it, I wasn’t sure I would. It was a three-month temporary gig while the head chef was on maternity leave — decent pay, a decent restaurant, but the real reason I applied was for the chance to go home for a while. That’s what I wasn’t sure I’d like, but I guess I did, because I’m starting a permanent gig next week at a wedding venue in town.

I grab the contraption out of the sink and start unwinding layer after layer of duct tape from it, the whole time wondering who on earth did this and then left it in an oven. That’s the really baffling part — I’ve been around plenty of rednecks in my life, so I’m familiar with the mindset that leads someone to duct-tape together a misguided solution rather than ask for help, but the oven is the real kicker.

I’m just lucky that nothing melted. Then I’d be on the phone with the owner, trying to explain what happened while trying to guess who should be fired. Truth is, there are a couple of candidates, and I’m not at all sorry that it’ll be someone else’s problem.

But despite all that, I did like it here. I like being home more than I thought I would.

Finally, I remove the last of the duct tape and the propane canister falls away from the kitchen torch, both things scratched up pretty good. I don’t really trust the kitchen torch any more, so I grab it and the mass of duct tape and push open the door to the dishwashing room, where the back exit is.

I stop in my tracks.

There’s a stranger washing dishes.

That isn’t what’s peculiar. A dishwashing position in a restaurant tends to have a near-weekly turnover rate, so more often than not the people in it are strangers to me.

Infrequently, they’re female.

But never before has a dishwasher been wearing a turquoise sundress and heels. At least, not that I’ve ever seen.

I’ve also definitely never seen a woman who looks like this washing dishes. The dress hugs her perfectly — small waist, full hips, great ass — but doesn’t go into detail, so I’ve got an idea of what’s going on but not the full picture.

It’s a great dress. It’s an even better rear end, and as she turns to the left, hoisting another huge stock pot into the industrial sink, I’ve practically got my head tilted like a curious cocker spaniel, watching her.

She shoves her hair back off her face with her wrist, tilting her head side to side, like she’s trying to work some tension out of her neck. She balances on one foot and then the other while she leans slightly forward, waiting while water runs into the pot.

I stare. I memorize. I practically take notes. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something in the way she’s standing, the way she moves, that sings to me. There’s poetry in the flick of water off of her yellow dishwashing gloves as she shuts off the water, starts scrubbing out the pot.

I lean against the doorframe, busted torch and duct tape still in my hands. I drink in the way the hem of her dress skims her knees, the tilt of her body over the sink, the muscles in her shoulders working, until I can’t stand it anymore.

“Leave it for the morning crew,” I finally say.

She jumps. The pot clatters back into the sink, splashing water on her already-wet dress as she whirls around, startled.

The front of her matches the back, only better: big blue-gray eyes and high, wide cheekbones, her honey-brown hair pulled it into a messy knot on top of her head, strands flying wild around her face.

She’s beautiful. She’s otherworldly, even standing there in the bright fluorescent of the restaurant’s back room, so much that it shocks me into silence for a moment, doing nothing but appreciating her face.

Then I realize she’s something else, too.

She’s familiar.

She narrows her eyes with equal parts wariness and suspicion, and it only makes her look more familiar. My stomach tightens for reasons I can’t quite name, a bad feeling quickly rising inside me.