Host Club on the Pleasure Planet (On the Pleasure Planet)

THREE

Benedict sat in his aunt’s office—his office now, actually—and stared at the mountain of paper on his desk. He’d always appreciated his aunt’s preference for hard copies—paper had weight, whereas digital copies were ephemeral and prone to being lost—but in this moment, he resented it.

He resented her for dying. And more than that, he resented her for making him her heir, meaning he’d inherited this mess she called an empire and now he had to pick apart the tangled knots she’d left everything in.

He scarcely knew where to start. He didn’t know the first thing about running a restaurant, let alone several of them.

Food, he supposed, was the first thing, so he’d been picking through the papers, trying to find a … supplier list, or something. As far as he could tell, none of the restaurants raised cattle or had a garden, so they didn’t make their own food, not like the brothers did at the abbey. He knew that the brothers sometimes sold food—the year they’d planted a bumper crop of beans came to mind—so logic told him there were people who bought food in mass quantities out there, and a restaurant made perfect sense as one of those buyers.

So far, he hadn’t been able to uncover much—there were plenty of sheets with numbers and figures, but Aunt Belladonna hadn’t left anything like a key or a list that told him who did what. Most of these people, he didn’t even have contact information for.

He sighed. He’d have to start making some phone calls, he guessed.

A rap at the door made him sit up straight. “Come in,” he called, then folded his hands on top of a pile of papers.

Farq—the messenger who had collected him and brought him to Kateria—poked his head in. “’Bout quittin’ time, boss,” he said, indicating with his thumb that he wanted to leave.

“Sure,” Benedict said, tilting his head. He wasn’t sure why the alien was telling him that. From his understanding, his aunt used to work all kinds of crazy hours, long into the night.

He hadn’t expected the restaurant business to be so demanding, but what did he know?

Farq waited a beat, then said, “Gonna pack it in for the night?”

“Er.” Benedict glanced at all the papers. He hadn’t accomplished much at all. It was his first day in the office, his second day on Kateria, and the third day since he’d found out his aunt was dead and he’d inherited a restaurant empire. “I … think I might stay a while longer.”

Farq frowned. He glanced over his shoulder, then leaned against the door, crossing his arms. “I ain’t suggesting,” he said finally, and Benedict lifted a brow.

Who was Farq to order him around?

But he didn’t know what kind of relationship Farq’d had with his aunt—maybe she’d relied on the brawny alien more than Farq was letting on.

Still. He wasn’t his aunt, and no matter what kind of relationship they’d had, Benedict was different, so their relationship would be different.

“I really think I should at least finish looking at?—”

“Bring it with ya,” Farq said sharply. “At least until we can get the new contract with security signed, yeah?”

“New contract?” Benedict felt so hopelessly lost. “Security?”

Farq heaved a sigh, then sidled into the office, closing the door behind him. “Someone murdered yer aunt, yeah?”

Benedict winced. Farq waved a hand. “So stands to reason someone might want you dead too, huh?”

“Oh,” Benedict said, his eyes widening. “I didn’t think of that.”

Farq nodded. “Once we get security in place for you, you can stay as long as you like in the office. Until then, yer with me.”

Benedict tried not to grimace. “Of course.” He rose slowly from his seat, carefully extricating himself from the stacks. He didn’t need to knock anything over and make more of a mess.

Farq clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him into one of the piles. A few sheets of paper went flying. “’Sides,” the alien said, “you need t’ eat. Takes strength to do what La Chef did.”

“I suppose it does,” Benedict agreed, letting the alien guide him out of the office, into the hallway. The building was dingy and smelled like cigarette smoke. Benedict didn’t like it.

“Let’s pop down to Saveur,” Farq suggested brightly, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “You can see how things run down there, and they’ll make sure you get something to eat.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Benedict said, feeling a weight slide off his shoulders. He hadn’t made any progress in the paperwork, but he could go to his own establishment and see how it ran. Maybe he could ask the staff about suppliers. Surely, those in the thick of day-to-day operations would know something.

Maybe he could begin unpicking this hopeless tangle and feel like he was closer to understanding his aunt’s empire and how he was supposed to run it.

They caught a cab—the office building was closer to some of the tenements and slums, which Benedict didn’t understand. If his aunt was so rich, why put her offices in such a shady part of town?

Not that he minded. He would have felt more out of place in one of the gleaming towers that dotted downtown Kateria. Here, he was closer to the poor and destitute—the folks who really needed saving—as demonstrated by the number of rundown temples and churches they passed. Even in a place that Abbot Bartholomew described as a “den of sin,” there were still houses of worship, a testament to the existence of divinity in the universe, as far as Benedict could figure.

He decided not to mention that belief to anyone; the last time he’d said anything about prayer and devotion, Farq had laughed at him and told him it was only proof of how gullible some people were that they’d get on their knees anywhere outside a strip club.

The cab dropped them off at the mouth of the alley that led to Saveur’s kitchen. “Skip the line out front,” Farq said, holding the door open for him.

There was a crash and a bang as Benedict walked in, and the short blonde who had been blushing so prettily when Benedict arrived the other day covered her mouth with her hand, completely ignoring the tray of glassware she’d just dropped on the floor. “Boss-man!” she cried, her voice about as piercing as the shattering glass. Benedict flattened his ears against his skull, hoping he didn’t look too distraught; felid hearing was sensitive, and sounds that didn’t bother other species absolutely made him cringe.

“Uh, good evening,” he offered when the blonde just went on staring at him. He had no idea how he was supposed to interact with these people. How did one treat staff ? At the monastery, he’d been equal with everyone else, and no one was supposed to pull rank. A few of the brothers did, of course, but for the most part, Benedict had felt a connection, a kind of kindredness with his fellow monks.

“Shakes!” barked the felid, the purple one, that Benedict had seen the other day. Then her gaze landed on him. “Oh!”

Benedict wrung his hands. “Um, hello. Farq suggested I might get a meal here, and?—”

A third staff member—the shapeshifter with the chestnut hair and shimmery purple skin—sidled in between the swinging doors. He paused, surveying the scene, then said, “Shakes, clean that up. Sassa, get back on the floor.”

Shakes and Sassa shook themselves, then burst into motion, the purple felid retreating and the blonde grabbing a broom.

Then the shapeshifter turned to Benedict and Farq, his soulful brown gaze glittering in the harsh overhead lights of the kitchen. Benedict couldn’t help but be struck by his features, cast in sharp relief by the shadows—he looked like a painting, one of the masterpieces that decorated the altar at the abbey, a showcase of divinity meant to inspire devotion. While Benedict was staring, the shapeshifter said, “Can I help you?”

Farq clapped a hand on Benedict’s shoulder before he could reply. “You got a table for the boss. Right, Oz?”

Oz boggled at them for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Of course.”