My ADHD brain has two speeds for matters of the heart: obsession to the point of madness, or a forgetfulness so instant it should be a government weapon. The rest of the day is busy enough that my conversation with Tanner falls into the second trap. I put it to the back of my mind, and it falls out like it never happened. Not because I don’t care, but perhaps because I do.
Either way, it’s gone. I don’t think about it. I get my kitchen ready for service, and when the doors finally open and Molly skips the first order to the pass, we smash that shit out of the park. For the next few hours, the only problem in my life is that damn kitchen door. No matter how carefully the servers dance around each other, they collide. Trays tip. Plates fall. I’m on my knees scraping mashed potatoes from the floor when I feel him.
Kai.
My hands shake, adrenaline from a crazy-busy day combining with the sheer fucking thrill of sharing oxygen with him. I finish cleaning the mess of Molly’s latest crash. Sweep up fragments of the ruined plate.
He’s getting closer.
How I think I know, I have no clue, but I’m unsurprised to find himright therewhen I come upright. “Smashing the joint up again?”
His words are familiar. I hand the rubbish to a passing server and let a grin warm my face. “It wasn’t me.”
“No?”
I start to shake my head, but I’m distracted by Kai’s appearance. His construction clothes are dusty and white speckles litter his brown hair. I want to tousle them out with my bare hands. Run my palms up his glorious forearms and squeeze his strong shoulders.God, he is so fucking beautiful. “Busy day?”
Kai shrugs. “Not as busy as yours. You doing okay?”
Am I? With him so close, it’s hard to care that I have a hundred plates to cook before I’m done for the day. That it’s highly likely we’ll sell out of fish and chips before the evening rush.
Then I remember this morning and his gentle, probing question makes sense. “All good, mate. Sorry if I was weird last night. I forgot my morning meds and…” I wave my hand. No more words.
I don’t need them.
Kai gets me, and his hands twitch at his sides, but he smiles in lieu of touching me. “You climbed in my bed and fell asleep. Not sure you were conscious long enough to be weird.”
“You don’t think that’s weird in itself?”
“Nope. I was ten seconds away from climbing in yours.”
A server rushes past us, reminding me that we’re in the bar. Thathe’sin the bar and he hates it. I move to grab his arm and tug him into the relative safety of the kitchen, then it dawns on me that the sacred space he built for me is no longer a quiet place either. I have two college kids washing dishes and prepping for the dinnertime madness bearing down on us, plus servers blowing through every two seconds.
It’s havoc, and I’m not sad about it. I just want Kai to myself, just for a fucking moment.
Life ain’t about getting what you want, though.
Kai reads the room beyond me and seems to remember the crowds at his back. “I need a shower.”
He absolutely does not.
Not without me.
But this is the real world, and he leaves anyway, his shy, heated smile a parting gift I carry with me for the rest of the night.
It’s late when Jax strolls into the kitchen and tells me it’s time for dinner.
I scowl at him over the counter I’m cleaning. “You want me to batter your fucking balls and dunk them in the fryer?”
“Lovely, but no. I want you to come out the back and eat pizza with me and Kai.”
He has my attention in an instant. I drop my dishcloth.
Jax smirks. “You really like pizza, eh?”
I swallow down a joke about sausages and give him the finger instead. “There’d better be beer.”
“You can trust me, old friend.”
