All Hours

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  But he couldn’t let Joaquin fuck him before breaking up with him. They hadn’t had sex since Roman had shown up at the restaurant, and he knew that Joaquin would feel betrayed if they fucked right before they broke up.

  He pulled back reluctantly. He couldn’t help smiling down at Joaquin. “Coffee?”

  “I don’t need coffee.” Joaquin swiveled his hips, grinding their dicks together through their clothes with the lewd and sexy gesture. “I need you.”

  Summoning all of his self-control, Felix pulled away. “I need coffee.”

  “You’re feeling better?” Joaquin looked so fucking adorable looking into the kitchen from his prone position on the couch that Felix’s chest ached.

  “A little.”

  That wasn’t a lie. His allergies might not be preventing him from breathing, but this thing between him and Joaquin, the guillotine blade of his past hung over both of their necks was making it hard to take in air.

  He got the coffee started, using that as an excuse not to meet Joaquin’s gaze as he walked into the kitchen. His whole body stiffened when Joaquin came behind him and pushed a hand underneath his shirt to rub the skin of his back. “Still hot, but no fever.”

  “I’ve got to get breakfast. Didn’t eat much yesterday.” Felix pointed at a chair on the other side of the kitchen island.

  He couldn’t match Joaquin’s smile when he said, “I love it when you cook for me.” Because, after today, Felix cooking might serve as a reminder that being in a relationship with him had fucked him over royally.

  “Is there something wrong?” Joaquin’s question caught him off guard, even though he hadn’t been covering his agitation well. Felix put the carton of eggs he’d just removed from the fridge down so hard he probably broke half of them.

  “We can’t see each other anymore.” There. It was out. He couldn’t say the reason. Roman bought the building that houses Cielo, and he’s going to kick you out unless I go back to him.

  The last thing he expected from Joaquin was the laugh that came out. “Are you fucking serious?”

  Tears pricked the back of his eyes as he met Joaquin’s gaze. Disbelief all over his face.

  “Roman came back, and he wants us to get back together.”

  Joaquin crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re going back to him? After what he put you through?”

  “I think he’s changed.” The lie felt heavy in his mouth. Nothing that Roman could ever do to change would make their relationship enough. He’d only ever find enough with Joaquin. He knew that because his relationship with Joaquin felt so fucking different from his relationship with Roman. He’d never felt the complete safety that he did with Joaquin. He and Roman had never felt like a team. “He wants to be monogamous now.”

  “And you believe him?” Joaquin’s face clouded with anger, which just made Felix love him more. “Even I heard the rumors about him cheating on you.”

  “We were ‘open.’ I was okay with it, and I knew it was the only way to keep him.” Felix went to pour a cup of coffee for each of them, knowing that the shame roiling in his gut from lying wouldn’t let him drink any. The truth crowded his head. How Roman would go out of town. He’d known that Roman was fucking other dudes, sometimes in threes and fours, and hadn’t said anything. He’d read about it on a gossip blog when he couldn’t keep his curiosity to himself, and it would gut him every time.

  “And you loved him? That’s—”

  Felix turned around and met Joaquin’s gaze. “I loved him.” Yet another lie. Now that he’d been with Joaquin, he knew what love was. He’d been ready to embrace it whole hog until Roman showed back up. Felix took a deep breath, trying to have faith that the man looking at him with so much tenderness in his gaze wouldn’t hate him forever.

  “I love you.”

  Felix closed his eyes against the pain of hearing those words now. “You shouldn’t.” It only made doing this hurt more.

  Joaquin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What’s really going on here?”

  “You don’t need me anymore.” Felix motioned toward Joaquin’s healed shoulder.

  Joaquin rubbed his palms over his face. “You’re really doing this, aren’t you?”

  “It’s for the best. It was just sex.” It wasn’t for the best. Joaquin was the best, and not just because of how they fit together in bed. Even thinking of sleeping with Roman again had his stomach churning. Not that the sex with him had been bad. If he was honest with himself, it was probably the only thing that had been keeping them together. “But you should know that he always gets what he wants.”

  Joaquin rounded the kitchen island and took the mug out of Felix’s hand. He wrapped his arms around Felix’s waist and pulled him close until their bodies were flush. “Don’t do this.”

  “I have to.”

  “No, you want to.” Joaquin shook his head. “You always do exactly what you want to do. That’s why you’ve never had your own restaurant.”

  Felix wrapped his arms around himself. “I don’t—”

  But Joaquin wasn’t done. “You don’t think you’re enough for me? Is that why you’re doing this?”

  “I know I’m not.” He’d always known, even when that stupid review had come out, that he wasn’t on the same level as Joaquin, and he never would be. Joaquin would regret it if he hitched his wagon to Felix. He knew it in his bones. “I’m not good enough for you.”

  Joaquin looked down at the counter. “If you believe that, I don’t know what I’m doing here trying to convince you.”

  “You should go.” This conversation had gone exactly as Felix had expected it to at the end. He wished he’d told Joaquin that he was in love with him before Roman came in and screwed things up. Telling him now would be a manipulative move in the mold of Roman. It was true but would do more harm than good. Because Joaquin said the words, and he believed them. But they couldn’t be true.

  Joaquin might be grateful to Felix for helping him out while he was injured. He definitely felt a great deal of lust for him. But those feelings weren’t love—they would fade, and all the tenderness they felt would turn sour and die on the vine. And they would have to drink the bitter wine for their whole lives because they wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing each other.

  “So, you’re out of this?” Joaquin sounded resigned. “You’re not opening a restaurant with me either?”

  Felix nodded, his throat too tight to speak.

  “This is exactly what he wanted, you know that, right? He doesn’t want you back, he just wants to know that he can still pull your strings.”

  “I know, but I can’t—”

  Joaquin grabbed his wallet and keys off the counter. “I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “Well, you fucking failed at that.”

  When the front door opened and slammed shut, Felix sat down on his kitchen floor and sobbed.

  Chapter 20

  As though he’d been summoned, Roman swaggered through the kitchen of Cielo, snagging the attention of every person on staff. Roman had always seemed like a cartoon version of a fuckboy, and Joaquin had little use for people without substance. That was probably why he hadn’t really seen Felix when they’d first met. He’d only known of him through Maya and how much Maya hated Roman. Now that he knew Felix—now that he loved him—he knew that Roman was much more problematic than he’d originally thought. From what he’d heard, Roman was emotionally abusive, and cruel.

  “Get back to work.” Joaquin barked the words and nodded toward his office. He closed the door behind Roman, not wanting to be overheard, and sat at his desk. He needed to show the other man that he would not be intimidated by him. He didn’t give a fuck how much money he had.

  “So, Felix told you the news.” Roman quirked up one brow and straightened his cuff links. “That you and I are now bu
siness partners.”

  Joaquin furrowed his brow in confusion and barely squelched the need to punch Roman in the face. He wasn’t sure he had enough power in his shoulder left to do any damage.

  “We’re not partners in anything.” Joaquin thought it prudent to leave the fuckface unsaid at this point.

  Roman laughed. “But I own this place.”

  “What?”

  “One of my holding companies bought the building.” Roman looked far too smug for a guy who was about to get physically taken out like trash. “And I told Felix that he could come back to me, or watch you lose your precious restaurant.”

  Not that he could rely on anything that this asshole said, but it made a whole lot more sense that Roman had bought the building that housed Cielo to force Felix to go back to him. It made much more sense than Felix deciding to go back to Roman out of nowhere.

  That still didn’t solve the problem of Felix not believing he was good enough for him. Joaquin couldn’t do anything to fix that. There was nothing Joaquin could do—outside of proving it to him.

  Felix hadn’t believed him when he’d told him how he’d felt about him. He’d had the words but no action for so long that he didn’t believe the words anymore. Yet he would sacrifice what they had—what Joaquin knew was the real deal—just so Joaquin could keep his restaurant.

  Cielo had always been his dream, but even before he’d returned, his dream had changed. All his dreams included Felix now. And that made the decision he was about to make truly easy.

  “You might own the building, but you don’t own anything inside it.” Joaquin stood up and leaned over Roman, using his size to put the other man back on his heel. “I don’t fucking care about this building. I care about the people working out there in that kitchen and the food that they put out. I care about my customers. And I care way too much about Felix than to let you use me to manipulate him.”

  “So, he broke up with you to save this place?”

  That had been exactly what had happened, and Roman had known that Felix would sacrifice his own wants and needs to save Joaquin’s restaurant. But Joaquin wasn’t about to give Roman the satisfaction of knowing that they’d broken up that morning. Not when Joaquin was going to give Felix a few days to cool off, and then he was going to get him back.

  “I told you, Roman.” The fuckface was even more implied there. “I don’t care about this place other than what I’ve built in it. And I can build the same thing anywhere.”

  He could build more now that he was in love with Felix. His life and his heart were both fuller, and he’d never felt so creative before. It might be trite or a cliché, but colors were brighter, and birds chirped louder. Everything before Felix had been black and gray and not good enough. Now that he had someone outside of his job to care for, the fact that this place might never get another Michelin star or that he might have to start over didn’t hurt nearly as much.

  “You see, you can’t buy Felix. Even if he did break up with me to save this place, you wouldn’t have him back. Because he would have done it for me.”

  “I can give him more than you can—”

  “Dude, you couldn’t even give him your fidelity.”

  “Are you one of those asshole monogamists too?” The look of disgust on the other man’s face almost made Joaquin roll his eyes.

  “I’m not in any position to judge people for the choices that they make about how to conduct their relationships.” Joaquin had participated in some open relationships in the past, and he’d never had a problem with it before. “But Felix didn’t want that, and you knew that. Yet you didn’t even try to give him what he wanted or needed.”

  “I never cheated—”

  “No, but you hurt him just the same.” Joaquin couldn’t even look at the guy any longer. “You took all that he wanted to offer you, and you made a mockery of it. You didn’t really want him, but you can’t stand the idea that he would move on to something better.”

  “You think you’re better than me?” Before letting Felix in, Joaquin hadn’t really thought he could be good for anyone romantically. But everything had changed, and he knew that he could change and grow and become good enough for Felix. Hell, he didn’t even want to punch Roman’s face. Much. That never would have happened pre-Felix.

  “I think you should leave.”

  Roman straightened up, and his mouth got a hard set to it. He pulled on his cuffs again and turned to leave. “Expect to hear from my lawyer.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  * * * *

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Maya asked from the doorway to Felix’s bedroom. “Are you and Joaquin going on vacation or something?”

  “Joaquin and I broke up.” Felix thought it was better to just say the words, even though they felt like acid pouring off his tongue. “I’m going to go ahead and move back to New York.”

  “Like fuck you are.” Maya plopped on the bed and started pulling clothes out of his suitcase as though slowing him down by ruining his perfectly packed luggage would make him change his mind. “You guys were so happy at the baby shower. And now you’re just going to break up with him and move back to New York after your first fight.”

  “I’m getting out now.” He took a deep breath and sat next to his sister. “Instead of waiting around for him to decide that I’m a millstone around his neck. I’m letting him go so that he can keep everything he’s worked so hard for.”

  Maya took his hand. “Tell me what happened.”

  So Felix told her everything—about Roman buying the building and trying to blackmail him back into their relationship, about Joaquin telling him that he loved him, but walking out just the same, about how much Felix loved him.

  After he was done, tears filled his eyes, and he rested his head on his sister’s shoulder. He would miss her so much, but he couldn’t stick around and see Joaquin every other week at a family barbecue or baby shower without dying of want. He’d never be able to move on and start fresh if he could see the thing he really wanted right in front of him. Going back to his original plan of returning to New York was the right move. Even though everything about it felt wrong right now.

  “But what about the place you’re starting together?” Felix had thought of that too. If he couldn’t even be in the same room as Joaquin, there was no way that they could run a business together. That was a recipe for disaster.

  “Joaquin is the real draw.” He knew he sounded extremely insecure, but it was true. Joaquin was the celebrated chef. He was the one with real skill and talent.

  Maya drew back from him. “I hate when you talk about yourself like this.”

  “Like what? When I tell the truth about myself?” Felix stood up and faced her. “I’m not trained as well as him. I’ve never run my own restaurant. Even if we hadn’t broken up, I would have only been holding him back.”

  His sister raised one brow. “Do you remember when we were little, and you could make me ramen or macaroni and cheese every night that Mama had to work—which was every night?”

  “Yeah.” Their diet had been so boring that he’d saved money from his paper route to buy vegetables to make their food more delicious and interesting. “Ramen with a hard-boiled egg is really trendy right now.”

  “You’ve always elevated any kitchen you’ve been in. For a while, when you started dating Roman, you walked around with your chest puffed and knowing that you were the shit. I thought it was because you’d finally started believing in yourself the way I’ve always believed in you.”

  “You have to say that. You’re my baby sister, and I’ve menaced bullies for you.”

  “No. You’re not hearing me.” She stood and hugged him around his shoulders, tall enough that she met his gaze. “You’ve always been the shit. Dating Roman didn’t make you the shit. Sure, it may have gotten you more catering business, but you kept that on
ce your relationship started to fall apart.”

  “I should have been able to do it on my own—”

  “And, you improved the reviews of Joaquin’s restaurant while he was out.”

  “He almost ended our relationship because of that.” Really, that was the problem. He kept dating men who were sure that he would never outshine them. Both Roman and Joaquin were larger than life. Sure, Roman welcomed that mantle, and Joaquin abhorred it. But they would always be bigger and brighter than him. All he’d brought to either relationship was his way with kitchen staff and a nice ass.

  “I see you thinking too hard.” His sister had always known him too well. “You are good enough for anyone you choose to love. You are so much better than Roman, and you make Joaquin—and his food—so much better. You fit together, just like I fit with Javi. I make him less of an asshole; you make Joaquin less of an asshole. He could always be kind of a dick before, and now he actually smiles.”

  “But he walked out.” Even though Felix had told him to leave, that final snick of the door had felt like a dagger in his heart. Regardless of the fact that they were permanently in each other’s family circle, it had felt final.

  “I don’t believe for a minute that he meant for things to be over. Not the way he looked at you at that shower. And he said he’s in love with you. From what I know about him, he’s not a man who says that easily. And, from what I know about all the Delgados, they’re not people who quit on love once they’ve found it.”

  Thinking of Lola and Rogelio, he said, “They might take a few decades off—”

  “Joaquin is not going to let you go.”

  “He already did.”

  Maya motioned to the clothes strewn all over the room. He really would have to repack everything if he wanted to catch his flight. “Were you just going to leave without even talking to me about it?”