EIGHT
Oz dragged himself out of the archives—if they could be called that—when the streetlights clicked on, filling the now-dark office with an orange glow. He let one arm slither over to the desk and pull the chain on the lamp La Chef had sitting there.
Benedict was nearly buried under a paper fortress. They’d been fruitlessly thumbing through file folders all afternoon. Oz had managed to come up with an IOU to one of Saveur’s clients—Mugsly von Baron—and a list of suppliers for Gastronomique, but that was about it.
Well. He had found one ledger, but it was in code, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He was tempted to take it to Sassa and see if she could figure it out. She’d always been more interested in gossip, picking up more of it from the patrons and eagerly sharing it with the rest of the staff, even though almost none of them cared. Who cared about turf wars between mobsters posing as restaurateurs? Oz didn’t. It wouldn’t change anything for him; a slave was a slave, no matter the owner.
He glanced across the way at Benedict, slowly straightening up. One thing about being a shapeshifter was that if he got sore or stiff, he could simply slide into a new shape, willing his body to change so that whatever hurt no longer did.
He hesitated, then cleared his throat. Benedict didn’t look up. Oz stood there awkwardly staring at—admiring—the new boss, before he finally said, “You, uh, want to get something to eat?”
Benedict almost touched the ceiling, he jumped that high. Papers scattered everywhere, and the felid draped himself over a stack of them with a huge exhalation, like all the tension had just drained out of his body. “Oz,” he said, and Oz took a deep breath to slow his own rapidly beating heart.
Nobody had ever said his name like that before. If they said his name at all, it was usually with exasperation, not relief.
“Forgot I was here?” he asked, readying a self-deprecating joke about how he was terribly forgettable.
He was. All shapeshifters were. It was how they were meant to be—completely non-descript, so you couldn’t pick them out of a crowd.
“A little.” Benedict’s cheeks stained purple, and he raked a clawed hand through his forelocks. “What time is it?”
“Nearly eight,” Oz said, then shuddered. He was an hour late for Saveur’s opening. Fuck . “I gotta get to Saveur.”
Benedict glanced him up and down. “Why?”
“Uh, ’cause I work there?”
Benedict considered that for a moment, then said, “You work for me.”
Oz opened his mouth to argue. Benedict tilted his head to the side. “And you’re here, working for me. You’ve been working for me all day—why would you go to Saveur and work now too?”
“Because that’s my job,” Oz said, but it felt mechanical, automatic. “I’m the only bartender.”
Stars, everyone was going to be pissed—the patrons, new clients, Sassa, everyone.
Benedict got to his feet. He looked out the window, then said, “Let’s go.”
Something in Oz sank, filling his limbs with lead. New boss, same as the old boss , he reminded himself. A slave was a slave, no matter the owner.
The streets were no less crowded at this hour—unless you hit the back alleys, Kateria was rarely quiet. There was always something open, somewhere, and there were always plenty of patrons—tourists and criminals and lowly workers all alike.
“Where the hell have you been,” Sassa hissed when he arrived. She grabbed him by the collar and swung him around, slamming him into a wall so hard the cookware rattled.
“Um,” Benedict said, and Sassa’s eyes widened, her grip going slack. Oz let himself ooze down to the floor, then recompiled himself into his usual arrangement.
“Boss!” Sassa said, affecting a wide grin and clapping her hands together. “Didn’t expect to see you here!”
Benedict considered her, then said, “Oz has been helping me go through my aunt’s papers. I lost track of time; I’m sorry he’s late.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” Sassa said, and Oz nearly shuddered. That tone meant he was going to have to worry about it for the rest of the night.
Benedict hesitated, then asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
That stunned Sassa enough that she dropped the nicey-nice act. “Huh?” she said, tilting her head, letting her brow crunch. “Help? Why would you?—”
“Oz!” Shakes shouted as she popped into the kitchen. “Thank the stars! Drinks are all backed up, and the customers are getting pissed off! Sassa just started serving everyone beers, but nobody comes to a host club for beer , they?—”
Oz didn’t listen to the rest of her speech; instead, he grabbed his apron and headed out to the bar as he tied it on. The last thing they needed was some angry alien taking it into their head to trash the place because they couldn’t get their fancy cocktail.
Sure enough, the atmosphere in the restaurant was charged. The hosts skittered about nervously, and most of the patrons were slouched in their booths, the rotating spotlights illuminating their scowls in shades of purple, blue, and green.
Oz opened up the taps and started filling glasses. He glanced at the long list of drinks ordered and sighed. It was going to take him forever to get through all of this. He needed to make drinks quick, but he also had to do it right—one wrong drink served to the wrong customer would be enough to ignite the powder keg.
He glanced up as someone stepped into the space beside him, and he nearly dropped the glass he was holding as he took in Benedict, now in nothing more than a shirt collar and cuffs, with a red bow tie, tying on one of the leather aprons from the back room.
“What are you doing?” Oz hissed, leaning toward the felid. That was a host uniform.
“You need help,” Benedict replied. “Tell me what to do.”
“You’re the boss,” Oz lobbed back, slamming the taps closed and lifting the glass he’d been filling. He fitted a lime wedge over the rim.
“And that means I shouldn’t help or care about my customers or my business or my staff?”
Oz opened his mouth to retort— your aunt never did— but the words died on his tongue. He wasn’t sure if it was shock at the fact the felid was going to help or shock about how utterly delectable he was shirtless.
No time for that , Oz told himself sternly, trying to focus on the drink he was making, not Benedict’s impossibly toned chest right next to his head.
“The last thing we need right now is a trainee bartender and host,” he snapped.
Benedict ignored him, looking instead at the lengthy list of drinks on the tablet. His brow furrowed. “What’s a … pina colada?”
Oz nearly sighed in exasperation. Instead, he grabbed a few of the bottles that had been ordered, popped the corks, and loaded them up on a tray. He pushed it into the felid’s hands. “Go,” he ordered, then tried to distract himself with his mixology. Pina coladas needed almost all of his concentration. They really did. Certainly didn’t leave him any bandwidth to be sneaking glances at his boss, who was a vibrant streak of green under the neon of Saveur’s lights, crossing the floor to the indicated booth.
Oz felt the urge to grit his teeth, so he simply dissolved them for the moment, letting frustration melt into nothingness in his body instead. It was impossible to stay tense when one could simply shift the tension around until it let go.
Benedict reached the booth and leaned over, transferring bottles to the table and beginning to pour into crystalline glasses, already smoothly talking to the patrons sitting there. Shakes—their host—was grinning up at the boss.
Oz felt liquid running over his hand and shook himself out of his stupor, dragging his gaze away from Benedict’s behind.
Pina coladas. Pina coladas. He was pouring pineapple juice everywhere. He needed to focus.
He set the can down, wiped off his hand, and dumped some of the juice back out of the blender, into the can. He had to focus. As much as he didn’t have to scrounge for tips, he didn’t want to deal with complaints all night, especially not from already-upset customers.
He glanced up at the booth again, unsure of why his heart was pounding in his mouth. So what if Benedict screwed up? Sure, the atmosphere was charged and ready for a fight, but?—
He nearly put the jug on the blender upside down. Benedict had bent right over, leaning his elbows on the table as he chatted up the patrons. The globes of his ass were clearly visible through the slacks he wore, clinging as they were to that tush, which was as toned as the rest of him. His tail swished in the air above him, and Oz wondered what it felt like to have a heart attack. He was pretty sure he was having one.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when a claw pricked at his shoulder. He looked up at Sassa, who quirked a brow at him, then gestured to the rest of the dining room, where patrons were still sulking without drinks.
He swallowed audibly, then nodded and, slowly, turned the container upside-right, locked it onto the blender, and hit blend.