All Hours

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “No,” Joaquin said. He wasn’t about to get hooked on narcotics like his mother had been. “No opioids.”

  The doctor smiled and pushed the paper at him. “Just a heavy dose of naproxen.”

  Joaquin was relieved. He didn’t want to have to explain the reason he didn’t want OxyContin with his grandmother in the room. He knew that she still felt pain and regret about how her daughter had gotten hooked on drugs without her here to intervene. He wished he could make Lola see that nothing she would have or could have done would have worked. His mother had only gotten better because she wanted to.

  “And you’ll call this orthopedic surgeon. He’s the best in Miami.” The doctor handed him another slip of paper. The idea of having surgery made Joaquin’s stomach dip. The idea of going under anesthesia, losing control like that, didn’t sit well. And the hollow feeling in his middle reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything since around lunchtime. He never sat down to the staff meal. There was always too much work to be done. Perhaps Lola had a point, and he needed to take better care of himself?

  “How long before I can go back to work?” he asked, standing up. He couldn’t be away from his restaurant for more than a few days.

  The doctor put his prescription pad in his lab coat. “With physical therapy, it will be six to eight weeks. And you still won’t be able to lift more than ten pounds above your head.”

  Joaquin had never fainted before, but that amount of time would sink his business. He could have sworn that the floor dipped and moved closer to him. He sat back down on the exam table and tried to blink away tears. The doctor was incredibly flippant about something that meant more than anything to him. He couldn’t stand to be away from his business for that long. The restaurant would lose its star, and the place would probably go out of business.

  Even Lola just patted him again on his good shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, conejito. We’ll get you sorted out.”

  That was just what he was afraid of.

  Chapter 3

  Felix was deeply in love with Joaquin Delgado’s kitchen. The man himself wasn’t so hard on the eyes either, but he’d expressed zero prurient interest. Which meant the man himself was a no-go. Working in Joaquin’s kitchen, however, was going to be more than enough to take his mind off his ex-boyfriend and give him enough time to figure out what he wanted to do with his future.

  Lola had called him in the middle of the night, long after he and Maya had returned from the restaurant.

  “Mijo.” He didn’t know why she called him that, but he kind of liked it. He didn’t have a mother anymore, and having Lola express maternal feelings toward him warmed him up inside. “Joaquin has been hurt, and his sous chef walked out. I need your help.”

  Now, he knew that Lola wasn’t some sort of sweet, old, helpless lady. Just because she’d tried to set him and Joaquin up and failed didn’t mean she was backing down anytime soon. That just wasn’t how she was made. From her great-niece Carla to her own grandchildren, she had no compunctions about meddling and interfering in other people’s lives. It was as though she couldn’t help herself when it came to matchmaking.

  So he’d almost said no. The word had been halfway out of his mouth before he heard the deep timbre of Joaquin’s voice cursing on the other end of the line.

  “He tore his rotator cuff, mijo.” Then she yelled at Joaquin, the Spanish equivalent of Lie the fuck down, you stupid and stubborn man.

  And Felix, more than a little bit because of his attraction to Joaquin, but mostly because of his affinity toward Lola, found himself saying, “How can I help?”

  That’s how he found himself looking into the expectant faces of Joaquin’s staff. His palms and the back of his neck sweating. Felix knew he was a good cook—a great cook—but that didn’t make him a chef on the caliber of Joaquin Delgado. He hadn’t gone to a fancy culinary school in Europe. Hadn’t done apprenticeships in some of the other kitchens. And though he knew his way around a sous vide machine, he didn’t use molecular gastronomy in his cooking.

  Felix knew how to make delicious food, but that was more from his mother than the classes he’d taken at the community college in New York. And he knew how to make a kitchen work—he’d seen enough that didn’t work while he bounced around restaurants in his early twenties to know what not to do. But he wasn’t a Michelin star chef, and never would be.

  The people standing in front of him were more qualified to run this kitchen, down to the last person. He felt like a total fraud, and that thought almost had him turning around to leave.

  Almost.

  The only thing that kept him standing there, had him inhaling the cool air in order to speak, was the fact that he’d never backed down from a challenge. It wasn’t in his nature to say he couldn’t do something or wouldn’t try something. Maybe it was the New Yorker in him. Perhaps it was the hardscrabble way that he’d grown up. But he wasn’t going to turn and run. Not when he’d made a commitment to Lola, who was part of a family that had grown to mean a lot to him.

  And not when he had the chance to wipe the smug grin off Joaquin’s face when he returned to his kitchen to find everything working as smoothly as when he had left.

  “We should go around and introduce ourselves.” He pointed at his chest. “I’m Felix Pascual, and I’m going to be helping out for the next few weeks while Joaquin is away.”

  Everyone smiled, and he worked hard to commit every name to memory. Each person looked kind of nervous, as though they were afraid that he would jump down their throats if they said the wrong thing. And that had to be about Joaquin. Even though the other man’s gruff exterior gave him a little shiver, he could see how it would intimidate and cow his staff.

  Maybe he could do one thing to improve the restaurant’s function while its executive chef was away—he could improve the restaurant’s morale.

  When the last dishwasher introduced himself, he smiled at them again, more confident this time, and said, “We’re going to have fun.”

  * * * *

  Joaquin walked through the back door of his restaurant after almost a week away, despite the strong urge to survey the front of the house to make sure the place wasn’t falling apart. He needed to be sure that his remaining, skeleton waitstaff wasn’t falling down on the job without him there. But he couldn’t because no one could see his arm trussed up in a sling. If any of the local restaurant critics sensed any weakness at all, they would circle like vultures ready to pick at his flesh.

  No. No one could know that he was injured, and he’d have to be back in less than the five weeks his doctor had told him to rest for.

  When he’d come out of surgery, his grandmother had mentioned that she’d hired some temporary help, but when he’d questioned her further, she’d told him that he just needed to rest. That response made it impossible to rest. That response and his stubborn refusal to take anything stronger than an NSAID for his pain made sleep impossible. The last thing he needed was to get hooked on opioids like his mother. Developing a drug habit would make him such a cliché in the restaurant industry too.

  As he approached the kitchen, he heard music playing, which was strictly forbidden. Snippets of people talking and laughing also floated in the air. It didn’t sound like his kitchen at all, and it deepened the knot in the center of his back—the one that had been there long before his injury. His kitchen was the one place where he’d always felt like he could be at home, and the idea of his temporary absence turning his space into a zoo or some sort of frat house made his pulse race and his vision cloud with anger.

  But a little music and laughter was nothing compared with the spectacle that greeted him when he finally entered the kitchen and saw Felix Pascual dancing bachata with one of his servers.

  No one noticed him at first, and he was stunned into silence for a moment. Not by the way his server twirled and laughed as Felix spun her toward the expo station, but by
the way the man’s hips moved. The way his ass filled out a pair of chef’s pants should have been illegal. And Joaquin needed to put a stop to this immediately. But he couldn’t seem to find his voice. His mouth was dry, and all the blood that usually populated his brain rushed south for a crazy long moment until all he could think of was smacking Felix Pascual’s tight cheeks. Not just for causing chaos in his kitchen, but because he truly wanted to feel the flesh give and rebound against his hand.

  He shook off the thought and cleared his throat. As soon as someone on the staff spotted him, the music stopped, and Felix’s dancing stopped abruptly along with it. He turned with ruddy cheeks and a half smile still on his face. Unlike the other times that they’d met at family functions—times during which Felix had seemed duly intimidated by Joaquin—there was a cocky smirk on the other man’s face.

  Joaquin had obviously noticed that Felix was handsome before finding him destroying his restaurant, but he’d never had the urge to bite the man’s mouth and then sink his dick between his lips before. The defiance in his eyes was just so compelling that it made Joaquin want to burst. So much so that he had to reach down and cover his growing erection with his good hand.

  “You’re supposed to be in bed.” Of course, that sounded like the kind of seductive, intimate thing a lover would say—not a temporary employee who wasn’t even qualified for the job.

  Joaquin had a hard time breaking his gaze away from Felix, but he did—had to—for his own sanity. “You’re all supposed to be working.”

  That spurred everyone back to work, but he could feel their attention on him and Felix as the other man walked toward him, still smirking and loose hipped from the midshift dance break he’d been indulging in.

  “Don’t get mad at them.” Felix’s words weren’t going to help at all in that regard. And they weren’t going to let him keep his employment here. “We were just having some fun.”

  “This kitchen isn’t about fun.” Joaquin straightened his posture, puffing his chest even though it sent a stab of pain through his shoulder. “This kitchen is about excellence, not that you would know anything about that.”

  The dig landed exactly how Joaquin had intended it to, and he immediately regretted it when Felix’s eyes widened in shock and the sexy smile disappeared completely. “You’re supposed to be in bed.” Felix stepped closer and brought with him hints of kitchen smells along with his own clean scent. Joaquin fought the urge to step back and to duck his touch when he clasped his good arm.

  What was wrong with him? He’d seen this man the night of his accident and hadn’t been affected nearly this much. At countless family weddings and casual barbecues, he hadn’t sprung a hard-on, even when Felix had brushed up against him in the kitchen. What was with this sudden attraction to a man who was entirely inappropriate for him?

  Felix Pascual was too loud, too much, way too extra. Nothing that Joaquin had ever prized in a partner. He’d had less than a week in his kitchen and turned it into something that he couldn’t even recognize. Joaquin should be furious with the other man.

  But, instead, he found himself on the verge of wrapping his hand around the back of the other man’s neck and kissing him in front of his staff.

  If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that the surgeon had removed the sensible bits of his brain while he was fixing his bum shoulder.

  “Walk-in.” Joaquin turned and walked toward the cooler. He wanted to let his staff assume that he was giving Felix a proper dressing-down, even though he wasn’t sure he could manage it along with the confusion that this sudden attraction had brought on. If they were in private, maybe he could get rid of Felix quietly. When Felix didn’t immediately follow, he added, “Now.”

  When they were in the sudden cool, Joaquin began shivering. He didn’t have a fever, but he was so tired from his injury—his body just felt off—that getting in and out of his house and the cab and into the restaurant had made his skin all sweaty and clammy. He wasn’t used to feeling weak, and he hated it. Maybe that was why he suddenly felt a pull toward Felix. Dancing in his kitchen.

  The other man was so vital, and Joaquin had felt his energy among his staff like a palpable thing.

  Once the door to the cooler closed, Felix spoke. “Everything’s going fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Fine isn’t good enough.” His response was reflexive. “Perfection is the only option.”

  Felix smiled and shook his head, looking down then up under his unnervingly long lashes. None of this helped Joaquin’s hard-on go down at all. “Everything is perfect, Joaquin.”

  “Not if there’s dancing in the kitchen when guests are waiting for their food.”

  “We weren’t holding a dance marathon, but I like music.” The other man shrugged. “And I’m in charge for the time being.”

  “Not right now. Not when I’m in the building.” That made Felix’s smirk come back and Joaquin’s desire to feel it against his mouth, his neck, and his cock return.

  “You need to go home and go to bed. I thought Lola was going to sit on you to keep you resting.”

  Even though he’d just mentioned his grandmother, which should be enough to kill all the dirty scenarios that popped into his head every time this man said “bed,” it didn’t. And then Felix did something that was truly dangerous for his sanity—he rubbed his hand over the skin bared by the V-neck of Joaquin’s T-shirt.

  It was the second time he’d touched him, the second time that Joaquin had a reaction to this man’s touch. But it was the first time that they were skin to skin, and the shiver that went through his body wasn’t about the cool air anymore. Felix placed his other hand over his forehead, and Joaquin knew he should stop this. This man had never touched him before, and his caresses weren’t necessarily sexual now, but they made his whole body heat and clouded his thoughts in a way that wasn’t acceptable.

  He’d brought Felix in here, intended to get him to leave his kitchen to him, but he’d made a miscalculation. Thinking he could be alone with Felix after really seeing the man for the first time was a huge mistake. Now, all he could think of was how he wanted the other man to not be checking to see if he had a fever with his long-fingered, callused hand. He could only think about how he wanted to go back to bed, but he wanted Felix’s hands to coast all over his body.

  “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” Felix looked into his eyes, and they were almost embracing. He had to know that this was highly inappropriate.

  “You can’t touch me.” He didn’t keep the words calm enough, because they made Felix look down and see his tented fly.

  When the other man stepped back immediately, leaning against the shelf and looking at him with what could only be referred to as sex eyes, Joaquin struggled against a groan of loss. “You have to go.”

  “No. You have to go.” Felix smirked and looked down at Joaquin’s traitorous dick again. “Home. To bed.”

  “But I didn’t hire you.”

  “No one hired me.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Helping you out.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “But Lola did.”

  “Lola isn’t in charge of this restaurant.”

  “No.” Felix shrugged again, and it was so sexy that Joaquin wanted to punch something. “I’m in charge right now.”

  “But it’s my restaurant.” Why was he losing an argument he really should be winning? Why wasn’t Felix hopping to his whims and running out the back door with an apologetic look on his face? Why did he feel like this would only end one way? With Felix in his bed?

  None of it made sense, and it made him think that maybe this whole past week after surgery had been a dream. Maybe he was still under anesthesia, and he would wake up to live through every single painful moment again?

  “Do you need me to get someone to drive you
home?”

  “You didn’t change anything on the menu, did you?”

  Felix shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “This is temporary.” He said it as much to himself as he did to bring home the point to Felix.

  “Of course it is.” Felix pulled his phone out of his back pocket and tapped on the screen. “After you’re back to yourself.” His gaze dipped to Joaquin’s traitorous cock again before he continued. “I’m thinking about moving to New York. This will be a good thing to have on my résumé before I make that move.”

  Joaquin ignored the disappointment he felt at Felix saying that he would move. It was really for the best. He hadn’t asked to feel this sudden desire for the other man, and it was likely only an aftereffect from surgery. That was a thing, right?

  He told himself it was, even as Felix sent him a look that could have burned his boxer briefs to embers. “Good.”

  “I promise that I won’t let anything bad happen to your spot.” Joaquin was serious, not one to make sexual jokes, especially not in the workplace, but he couldn’t help but think about what other spots that Felix could take care of. “I might steal the recipe for your sofrito, though.”

  “That’s proprietary.” But he couldn’t help but smile. That sauce was his pride and joy. The fact that people took pleasure in his cooking, especially people who loved food, was the one thing in life that consistently gave him pleasure.

  “I’ve guessed about eighty percent of the ingredients, though.”

  He’d never guess all of them, although Joaquin should probably never say never after sprouting wood for the guy in front of his entire staff. He should probably never underestimate Felix Pascual.

  Felix’s phone chimed, and he looked down. “Your Uber’s here. I had them pull out back in case you don’t want to be seen by paparazzi. I promise that no one will be able to figure out that you aren’t back here in this kitchen, terrorizing your staff until you’re back on your feet.”