Chapter Six
Temple
I went from slamming my eyes shut, knowing that things were about to get really ugly and bloody, to opening them and finding my brothers gone. It was just me and a man I didn’t know, standing there as my boss opened the door and called me back to work.
My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to piece together what had just happened. And then I did the only thing I could think of. I darted straight inside, mumbling an apology to Gary along the way.
Gary was a great boss and more like a father to me than my actual fathers had been.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have high expectations for me.
Hanging out back while tickets were building up wouldn’t be acceptable on a good day.
And pairing that with screaming he had to have caught at least part of…
it was best I get inside and back to work.
As I washed my hands, I felt bad about whatever the man had witnessed that made him feel the need to help.
He wasn’t from here, and getting dragged into family drama was never a good introduction to a town.
I shivered, envisioning what might have happened if my brothers had lost it on him.
Even in their human forms, they were stronger than most. Three against one? He wouldn’t stand a chance.
The lunch crowd had arrived, and Gary hadn’t been kidding about the tickets piling up.
I grabbed them all and set them in a line.
After scanning what all was needed, I threw burgers on the grill, fries in one basket, chicken in another, and toasted the buns.
At least it was mostly sandwiches and chicken tenders.
Those were pretty easy to keep going all at once, even if they weren’t the quickest cook time we had.
This wasn’t the kind of place people expected to be in and out of quickly, but many were on a lunch break. They didn’t deserve to have me take forever, either.
My hand was still trembling as I flipped the burgers.
It was bad enough when they were holding my money, but then they said “the rest of it,” my stomach dropped.
I knew they weren’t going to give up with just the handful of cash.
And chances were, they had gotten it all, which meant when they found out their gravy train wasn’t still in the station, they were going to be mad all over again.
I’d thought I’d done a better job hiding the money.
Given how long it took them to find it, I hadn’t done the worst job, but I’d been counting on it.
Now, I not only had to begin again, but I needed to be extra careful and probably split my tip money in half for them so they didn’t get too suspicious. Why did my life have to suck this bad?
My only hope now was that they’d drink themselves to sleep before I got home.
With the unexpected cash, they’d have bought booze or, better yet, driven to a casino to try and win even more.
Booze was the better option. They never came out ahead at the casinos, and I’d always pay the price for that, making the couple of days reprieve not worth it.
I looked up to see if there were any new tickets, and I caught him out of the corner of my eye. Him being the guy who was outside when my brothers were being their asshole selves. He was sitting at the counter, looking in the order window.
He’d helped me out there. I knew that much, but I’d been so out of it, I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done. Maybe just another person being there had scared my brothers, but that didn’t sound like them. They were the type to welcome confrontation, not hide from it.
He looked up at me and gave a little nod.
How freaking embarrassing. He saw me nearly pissing my pants in the alley, and now, he was sitting there in my place of work watching me. Or maybe he wasn’t watching me, but I happened to catch his glance.
What did he do to get my brothers to leave?
That question kept appearing over and over again.
As I flipped and dropped and dressed people’s orders, I decided he had to be armed.
I could see him picking up the corner of his shirt like the bad guys did in the movies as a silent warning.
Only he wasn’t the bad guy. At least, he wasn’t in my eyes.
That would work against my brothers more than anything else. They had the physical advantage against humans, but guns—guns always won. Not to mention it was three to one. Yeah, he had to be packing.
The fryer beeped, snapping me back to work.
I hurried and plated everything as quickly as I could, putting the dishes in the pass-through, tapping the bell, and snagging the new orders.
There were nearly as many as when I came back inside.
That was how it worked here. Everyone at once and then nothing.
They were more of the same, burgers and fries and tenders with a couple of orders of pancakes to mix it up, all in the hen scratch of Layla and Gary. Except for one. One order, in Gary’s handwriting, stood out. It was neater than the others and had a note at the bottom:
For the hottie from out back! He punctuated it with a winky smiley face, or at least his version thereof.
If it had been anyone else he’d written the note about, I’d have rolled my eyes and gone back to work, but for this man? It was a relief. It meant that Gary wasn’t mad at me for the disaster he’d walked into and was instead playing matchmaker.
He and Layla were huge into that. They loved getting people together.
It didn’t happen often. Most people around here were born here, and if they were going to fall in love with someone, they’d already done it.
But when someone new came to town, they saw it as their mission.
Maybe he wasn’t just someone passing through looking for a quick meal.
If that was the case, I needed to warn him to stay clear of my brothers.
He might move on, but they were grudge holders to the core.
That was why they hated me. I was proof our omega father did the unthinkable. They were never letting that go. As if I had anything to do with any of what happened before I was conceived.
My knight in shining armor didn’t want anything particularly special, just a burger with grilled onions and cheese.
But I was going to make that the best grilled onion cheeseburger that ever did exist. I even grilled the bun, making sure it was picture-perfect.
The fries had the exact crispness I would want, and I went so far as to turn the orange slice into a little smiley face.
I put it up, tapped the bell, and Layla hollered from across the way for me to get it. “I’m too busy!”
If that had been true, I wouldn’t have thought she was in cahoots with Gary, but she was sitting in a booth drinking coffee by herself. She totally had the time. She just wanted me to bring it to him. So typical.
I walked out of the kitchen and behind the counter to serve him his food. “Hot off the grill.”
In my head, that sounded a whole lot cooler.
“Looks delicious.” He kept his eye on me, not the food, and I kinda wanted that to mean he thought I looked delicious. How ridiculous.
Gary set a cup of coffee down in front of the seat next to him. “Figured you might want this.”
The guy looked at his coffee. “I’m good. Thank you, though.”
“I meant Temple,” Gary said, nodding at me. He patted the seat next to the guy. “Come on, take your break. I got the grill.”
I walked around to the customer side, knowing that a full-on rejection of Gary’s offer would only lead to embarrassment. Since he and Layla were deciding to be all matchmakery, the only way out was to play along.
My gods, this guy was hot.
“I’m sorry, they can be—”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’m Gabe, by the way.”
He picked up his plate, walked over to a booth, set it down, and came back for both his coffee and mine before returning to the seat and sliding into the spot. Looked like I was doing this.