Page 15 of Angel's Temper

Not much more strongly but definitely more so than the eye roll she’d originally answered with.

“I got eggs Benny and sweet potato corn cakes for table two.” Benny dropped the plates onto the service window’s counter and tapped the bell in time with the beat of his music, more out of his flair for excitement, she wagered, than his expectation for expediency. Lord help the man if Marisol ever caught him rushing Molly.

With another pop on the bell’s tiny tip, the shrill thing rang out, causing Molly’s back teeth to meet in a jarring clash. “Nope! No more. We’re having none of that.” She stormed over to the window and swiped the bell out of Benny’s reach, narrowly avoiding the jab of his tongs. “I told you, we don’t need a bell. It’s only me, and I can hear you just fine.” She hissed the last words and deposited the bell next to the extra stash of napkins on the counter by the register.

Far away from prying tongs.

“Do we need to have a vocabulary lesson on the definition of only? Because last I checked, that fella you dragged up and threw into my kitchen doesn’t fit that bill.” Benny briefly shifted away from her to throw a sizzling pan of browned-butter french toast into the oven. “Man moves so fast, I hardly see him. Where’d you find him, anyway?”

That him was the Adonis-shaped elephant in the room she’d been avoiding all morning.

Molly collapsed against the counter, letting her head relax backward on her neck and forcing her shoulders to drop away from her ears. “He answered the ad,” she replied quickly, keeping the precise details of their prior acquaintances to herself. “And as long as we’re on the subject of definitions . . .” She turned around and braced her elbows on the counter, then leaned in conspiratorially. “The woman over at table three asked whether the corned beef was grass fed.”

Benny snorted. “I can roll it around in the grass for her if she likes.”

Molly tossed her hands in the air but still kept her voice low. “I can’t. I just can’t. If I had started my career off as a server, I can tell you right now I’d never have bothered stepping foot into a professional kitchen.”

“My dear, I hate to break this to you, but . . .” His mouth quirked on a wry smile. “You’re about as personable as a potato.”

She gasped, not only for herself but on behalf of all maligned spuds everywhere. “I am not!” Several pairs of eyes looked up from their breakfasts, and Molly curved her back away from them in an attempt to shield her and Benny’s conversation. “I’m perfectly lovely.”

“Sure, with people you like or you have to work with. But until someone sprinkles some salt on you and fluffs you up a bit, you’re not the easiest thing to choke down. That’s why you’re such an amazing chef. Customer service isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for the job most of the time, especially for closed-off folks who don’t prioritize people skills.”

Closed-off folks? If that wasn’t the most infuriatingly tone-deaf, hurtful, shortsighted . . . and potentially accurate way to describe her, well . . .

“I can’t believe you just compared me to a potato,” Molly whispered through gritted teeth.

“And I can’t believe the itemized instructions you gave that poor guy. You made three pages of lists for the man and scheduled everything for him except when he should hit the head. This is a pretty straightforward gig, and he’s picked it up faster than anyone else I’ve seen. No reason all of his duties couldn’t have been conveyed in a four-sentence conversation.” Benny held out his fingers and ticked off said sentences. “Wash the dishes. Bus the tables. Empty the garbage. Repeat until closing. Unless there’s a reason you don’t want to talk to him?”

God save her from meddling men who prioritized her personal business as their personal business and thought to impart upon her a hard-learned thing or two. Though she loved Benny and owed him more than she worried she could ever repay, she was certainly not above dropping a laxative or two into his coffee. Nothing permanent or even particularly harmful, but just enough to hammer home the ethos of her entire cooking career: Molly didn’t take shit.

At least then she’d get a day or so back in the kitchen to experiment and?—

The steam curling above the two dishes Benny prepared lifted and pulled away as Brass snatched the plates up with brisk efficiency. Where most creatures possessing two hands would simply carry one plate in each, it was abundantly clear that her newest hire was not like most creatures. Shucked of his familiar trench coat, Brass wore a long-sleeve dusty-blue Henley shirt that served as the landing pad for every single dish he’d grabbed. The plate of eggs, which Molly knew to be skin-scorching hot, rested neatly in the crux of his elbow, while the sweet potato corn cakes made their home stretched along a toned forearm that might as well have been armor-plated. Beneath his spare arm, he tucked a large serving tray while also carrying a small rack to accompany it.

All morning, he had moved through the restaurant like a dancer proficient in an entire company’s choreography. He took no extra steps, never stumbled, and generally maneuvered with martial arts proficiency. Molly swallowed around a dry tongue as Brass, literally single-handedly, placed the meals in front of the diners, arranged his rack and tray, cleared the table of finished dishes, and then hoisted the laden tray high on one shoulder. The light blue fabric pulled taut over a flexed bicep, the strain of which caused the hem of his shirt to rise ever so slightly when he turned, occasionally offering a flash of hip bone or a peek at a stomach rippled with just the right amount of muscle.

Around the dining tables, women of every conceivable (and some inconceivable) age sat up and took notice as well. One woman, a grandmother still in the early years of the distinction, scooted her chair away from her toddler granddaughter and rowdy family when Brass stepped by, even going so far as to drop her napkin and place a manicured hand on his arm before asking him to retrieve it. The syrup in the woman’s voice caused Molly to cringe. The stuff was so sugary and thick, it would have been better served on the plate than as a parlor trick.

A well-practiced cougar tactical plan if Molly had ever seen one, though it was obvious the woman’s silver-haired husband, who was still trying to arrange his scrambled eggs on his fork for the third time, hadn’t.

All that was missing from the scene was for Brass to turn around and gift the grandmother with some sort of teasing smile, something to encourage and reward.

Something Molly had fortified herself against, battening down her responses with years of diligent training and painful preparation.

And running. A boatload of running.

Molly pinched her eyes shut, blocking out the inevitable, and grabbed the bell off the counter. “No more bells, Benny. Message received.”

Her nonslip soles carried her with record speed through the rear hall until she punched through the door and was tossed out in the back alley next to the dumpster. She’d never been more grateful for the hideously ugly footwear and had immediate plans to make amends for all the comments she’d made over the years berating her industry’s fashion crimes.

Though the alley behind her restaurant was cleaner than most, it still held some hallmark signs of putridity. General animal funk painted the buildings where the pavement met the brick facades, crusting over into unfortunate icy sheens under the weight of the impending winter’s wind chills. Frozen discarded soda bottles met their fate alongside abandoned bags of empty potato chips, some of which had their corners and seams plastered beneath iced-over puddles of dubious color and even more dubious origin.

Perhaps the deep cleansing breath she’d banked on wasn’t the most advisable course of action. As the heavy metal door slammed shut behind her, taking the restaurant’s subtle sweetness with it, Molly clutched the bell harder and stomped over to the dumpster before stopping short. To her surprise, the lid had been left open, propped up by the two-by-four she always left next to the cement pad for when she needed to throw in several bags of garbage at once.

She’d be sure to thank Benny for his thoughtfulness later with an obscenely large aged prime rib roast. Honestly, it was so easy to shop for a man with meat as a love language.

Molly scuttled back a few steps for good measure, then with her best pitcher’s impersonation, she heaved the bell into the dumpster. The poor thing thwacked against the green metal lid but still had the courtesy to tumble inside the bin and land with a satisfying thud. What was not satisfying was the startling yelp that rose up in an answering echo.

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