Enemies With Benefits: Loveless Brothers, Book 1

by Noir, Roxie

  I still don’t find it.

  I start pulling stuff out.

  An eyeshadow palette I’ve used exactly twice. A tube of mascara. A tube of mascara that has old - do not use! written on the side. Three tubes of chapstick, a tube of tinted chapstick that’s supposed to give you a healthy, vibrant glow but in fact does absolutely nothing, a bottle of Advil, and a water bottle cap.

  No wallet.

  One earring. Foundation. A plastic bangle bracelet. Eyeliner. A pack of unopened index cards, two dry-erase markers, and a tiny notebook that’s rubber-banded shut. A used paperback copy of East of Eden and also a used paperback copy of Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, because I’m a woman of complicated tastes.

  Still no wallet. Still no Todd.

  I’m panicking. My insides are tied in knots, and my hands are trembling with the adrenaline that’s shot through my veins as I think this can’t be happening again and again.

  No wallet means asking Todd to cover the whole bill. No wallet means I’m not the self-sufficient go-getter I like to think I am. No wallet means relying on someone else’s kindness, and I already know that the price tag for Todd’s kindness isn’t one I’m willing to pay.

  I paw through everything on the table. I pat down the lining of my purse and run my hands over the straps, just in case my wallet has wormed itself into a strip of leather one inch wide.

  It’s not there. My whole body is hot with embarrassment. I ignore the sidelong glances from the couple at the next table over as I shove everything back into my purse and wait, trying to slow my heart.

  I look my phone to text Adeline again about my hilarious date mishap and realize it’s been ten minutes since Todd went to the bathroom.

  Well, he’s either dead or gone.

  Or playing Candy Crush on the toilet because he’s a rude jerk.

  I flag the waitress down. Politely.

  “I’m so sorry,” I start, meaning I’m sorry for what I’m about to ask, and also, I’m sorry in general about Todd. “My date went to the bathroom about ten minutes ago and hasn’t come back, and I’m starting to worry he’s had some sort of emergency. Could you ask someone to go check?”

  I’m talking way, way too fast, my words coming out in a frantic rush. Her eyebrows knit together in a look of waiterly concern, and she glances back at the bathrooms, like maybe we’ll both get lucky and he’ll waltz out at this exact moment, looking only slightly worse for the wear.

  Todd does not waltz.

  “I’ll find someone,” she says. “Be right back, okay?”

  “Thank you!” I call after her, my heart thumping too loud in my chest.

  Please be playing Candy Crush like a jerk.

  Please.

  A minute later the kitchen door swings open, almost smacking into a busboy.

  A tall, dark-haired, annoyed-looking man comes out and strides toward the bathrooms.

  I stare.

  I forget about Todd.

  I forget that I’m on a date.

  In fact, I forget everything I’ve ever learned about how to act in public because I unabashedly ogle this man as he crosses the room.

  Did I mention tall? Dark hair and light eyes? Handsome as the devil himself, with sharp cheekbones and a hard jawline, wearing a white chef’s jacket over broad shoulders?

  It takes him about three seconds to disappear into the men’s room, but it’s a very good three seconds. My heart flutters. It flutters enough to make me feel guilty for looking at this man while on a date with Todd. It even flutters hard enough to distract me from my current situation.

  Then he’s gone. I turn around and try to act like I wasn’t ogling.

  Except there’s something else. Something scratching at the back of my mind, a sneaking suspicion that I know the handsome man currently finding out whether my date is pooping and playing games on his phone.

  I don’t know how. I’m not even sure whether I really know him, or whether my processing centers have been scrambled by this disaster.

  You know how it’s hard to recognize someone out of context? Like when you were a kid and you saw a teacher in the grocery store or something, and it would take you a minute to figure out who they were because they weren’t at school?

  It’s like that. He looks vaguely familiar, but in this tiny town, everyone looks vaguely familiar.

  Thirty seconds later he comes back out of the bathroom, shaking his head at my waitress as he crosses the room.

  I get another great three seconds, and then Hotface McChefsalot is gone. My waitress is frowning.

  Shit. Shit.

  “Nobody’s in there,” she says, and my stomach clenches anew.

  “He’s not in a stall playing Candy Crush?” I ask, just to be sure. My voice is high-pitched, strangled.

  “Um…” she says, glancing toward the kitchen door, where the man I just ogled disappeared. “I don’t really…”

  “I’ll check!” I say brightly, and jump out of my seat in a burst of oh-God-I-have-to-do-something energy, and charge for the bathrooms.

  Several people watch me as I hustle across the dining room and into the hallway with the bathrooms, where I knock on the door to the men’s.

  No answer. I shove it open, bracing myself for someone to shout at me, but no one does.

  That’s because there’s no one in there. The bathroom only has one urinal and two stalls, and the moment I open the door it’s clear that they’re all unoccupied.

  I back out. My mind is racing. There’s a trickle of panic-sweat running down the back of my neck.

  Can I barter a dog collar and some paperbacks for dinner and some overpriced wine? Maybe my phone? It’s a year or two old, but I’ve treated it well.

  Just for good measure, I check the women’s bathroom. There’s a middle-aged woman applying lipstick in the mirror. No Todd.

  I keep going down the short hallway, round a corner, and there it is: a giant green EXIT sign. Just like that, I know.

  I push the door open. The cool night air feels good against my overheated, sweaty skin. The stars above twinkle merrily as I scan for Todd’s truck: unnecessarily huge, the kind of truck that belies its owner’s insecurities about his dick.

  It’s not there. I double-check. Still nothing.

  I start laughing, the sound of sheer nerves making their way out of my body via my mouth. I shove my hand against my mouth, trying to muffle the sound, but I can’t stop giggling.

  Oh, my God, I’m losing my mind, I think.

  Another giggle escapes.

  I’m the one who was having a bad time. I was a perfectly good date. I should have been the one to walk out. Todd was a dick, why does he get to do this, too?

  I snort. It’s not a good sound.

  The door opens behind me, and the sudden sound is finally sobering. I take my hand off my mouth and stand up straight, the giggles finally gone.

  The waitress clears her throat quietly.

  “So the check…” she says, her voice trailing off.

  I gather all the nerve I can muster, even though I feel like there’s a hand around my windpipe, and smile at her.

  “Could I talk to the manager and maybe work something out?” I ask.

  Chapter Two

  Eli

  “You got that thing ready?”

  “Yup. Smoke detector’s off?”

  “Yeah.”

  I pause for moment, crouching in front of the glass-doored commercial oven, wearing an oven mitt and holding tongs.

  “You are sure that thing’s a jury-rigged kitchen blowtorch and not a pipe bomb, right?” Travis asks. He’s standing slightly to one side, holding a fire extinguisher at the ready.

  “I’m about ninety-five percent on that,” I tell him. “It looks a lot more like a kitchen torch than a pipe bomb, that’s for sure.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of pipe bombs?”

  “No, but I’ve seen a lot of kitchen blowtorches,” I say, adjusting the oven mitt over my hand.

  I discovered thi
s gem a few minutes ago, since I’m the last person in the kitchen tonight. I’m usually the last person in the kitchen, the one who makes sure that all the food is put away according to protocol, the one who makes sure every surface was wiped down, ready for the next day, even though none of that has been my job for years now.

  Tonight, that seems to include getting a jury-rigged kitchen torch out of the oven. Travis is Le Faisan Rouge’s bartender, and he was unlucky enough to still be here when I discovered this gem.

  “You’re here as a last resort,” I remind Travis, who looks like he wishes he’d left ten minutes ago. “Oven’s been off for an hour. I’m pretty sure nothing’s going to happen.”

  “All right,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

  “On three,” I say, putting my free hand around the oven door handle. “One. Two. Three.”

  I jerk the door open. Travis holds out the fire extinguisher like he’s using it to ward off a vampire.

  Nothing happens.

  “Definitely a kitchen torch,” I say, reaching in with the tongs and grabbing it. “Or at least a former kitchen torch.”

  He just whistles, lowering the extinguisher.

  “The hell?” he asks.

  I stand and walk it to the sink, placing it carefully inside.

  “I believe,” I say slowly as I examine the thing, “someone’s duct-taped a propane canister for a camp stove to the blowtorch we used for crème brûlée.”

  We both stare down at the thing in the sink, arms crossed. It’s not pretty: the propane canister is about twice the size of the kitchen torch, the nozzle stuck into the bottom. The entire package is mummified with duct tape.

  “And why was it in the oven?” he asks.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say whoever came up with this idea also figured that ovens get very hot, and therefore, if something went wrong with the torch, the oven would be the best place for it,” I say. “But that’s just a guess.”

  There’s a brief silence as we both try to wrap our heads around this particular conundrum.

  “Blow torches don’t even use propane, do they?”

  “Nope.”

  “So…” Travis says, then trails off. “Why…?”

  “Why did someone in a busy kitchen take the time to cobble together a solution that clearly didn’t work from camping supplies and duct tape instead of asking someone where the butane refills were?” I supply for Travis. “Beats me. I didn’t even know we had duct tape.”

  Now Travis laughs.

  “Course we have duct tape,” he says. “You need anything else?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I tell him. “I’m gonna dismantle this thing and then head home.”

  “Have a good one,” he says, already walking for the swinging kitchen doors. “I’ll see you around, right?”

  “Right,” I call after him, and then he’s gone and I’m alone in the kitchen again.

  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.

  How the hell could I forget someone who looks like that?

  Her lips part slightly. She takes a step back, toward the sink, her hands coming together in front of her, still yellow-rubber-clad, and we just look at each other for a long, long moment.

  Finally, she speaks first.

  “Eli?” she says.

  Just like that, I know who she is. The cold, hard ball that’s been gathering in
the pit of my stomach falls straight through to my guts and rolls around in there.

  “Violet,” I say, and stop. For once, words fail me.

  Violet could always smell weakness like a shark smells blood in the water. Give her an opening and she’ll bite your leg off. I’m already tense, alert, the duct tape squeezed tight in my fist.

  “The hell are you doing washing dishes in my kitchen?” I finally ask.

  I try to sound casual. I’m not sure it works.

  Violet gives me a full-body, floor-to-head once over and she takes her sweet time about it. Her eyes are the color of sharks. I feel like they’re circling me.

  “It’s a long story,” she finally says. “What the hell are you doing back home?”

  I give her a once-over, too, just to see how she likes it, and because I like it pretty well.

  “Did you try to dine and dash?” I finally ask.

  She snorts.

  “Of course no—”

  “You tried to dine and dash and got busted, didn’t you?” I ask. “Crime never pays, Violet.”

  She rolls her eyes and turns back to the sink.

  Then, suddenly, I put two and two together.

  “Sure,” she says. “That’s me, some kind of —”

  “Your date ditched you,” I say.

  Violet says nothing.

  “He ditched you, you can’t pay, and that’s why you’re here,” I say.

  She sloshes water out of the huge pot she’s washing and glances over her shoulder, eyes blazing at me.

  “And I assume you’re here because you’re all done with med school and you’re just killing time between shifts as the top-rated neurosurgeon in southwestern Virginia,” she says.

  Scrub. Slosh.

  “Or did that not work out as planned?” she finishes.

  Her voice is sharp. Cutting. I don’t want it to hurt but it does, like a scalpel on scar tissue.

  I remind myself that she’s clearly having a shitty day.

  I remind myself that I’m nearly thirty years old and I shouldn’t react to her like we’re both in middle school, because I’ve matured past that. I remind myself what my mother always said about flies, honey, and vinegar, but all the reminders in the world can’t override my gut reaction to Violet.