Chapter 5 Isaac #2
Isaac takes a page out of Luca’s book and throws his arms around Elias’s neck, nuzzling his cheek before landing a sloppy kiss on his ear. He grinds his hips against Elias’s hip to show extra appreciation. “Looks really good, Chef. Do you need help serving in there?”
Elias’s eyes glaze over a bit, but he shakes it off. Ever the professional, taking the ‘no bodily fluids in the kitchen, Isaac Fletcher’ rule to heart. So inconveniently responsible.
“Nah, I should be good.” He rapidly shakes his head. “Did you have a good time with Luca?”
“Mmm. He’s really great. We’re going to text about thrifting at Gloria’s sometime.” He picks up a fork from the service tray and uses it to pierce a perfectly ripened tomato. “Want to introduce him to Glo’s daughter, Amber.”
“Nice. She’s the singer, right? Did you order your stuff from the craft store?”
“Shit. No.” It comes out shib no with his mouth full.
“You order while I take the salad out, yeah?” Elias loads up the tray with four plates.
“Good idea,” Isaac winks.
“Okay.” Elias stops just inside the door. “Uh, don’t touch anything?”
Normally, Isaac might be a bit offended, but he’s in such a good mood that he lets it slide.
“Yeah, yeah. Worry ‘bout yourself, mister.”
He winks in gratitude, knowing that it’s cute as fuck when combined with his wrinkled little nose. This man is Isaac’s kryptonite.
Checking the small window in the door before pushing it open, Elias freezes and lets the tray slide out of his grasp and onto the floor. The crash of plates is loud in the cavernous kitchen, and Isaac’s hackles are raised. Claws out, he feels his fangs drop without a single thought.
He’s always been quick on the draw, high-strung, and jumpy. His therapist says it’s a trauma response, but if whatever is on the other side of that window rattles the even-keeled Elias Durand, then it’s worth getting worked up about.
Isaac drops his fork on the stainless steel, making a beeline for the door. He’ll just take care of whatever it is, clean up the mess, and wipe that look of fear right off Elias’s handsome face.
But Elias stops him with a death grip on his arm. “No, Isaac.”
No?
Isaac never hears no. Certainly not from the love of his life, and never while leaving bruises on his arm.
“You can’t.”
“Elias Durand, you have ten seconds to explain yourself. What could—”
“It’s the fucking mob, Iz.” Elias bends over to pick up the salad. “Oh Goddess, the Nashville branch of the Irish Were Mob is in my restaurant. I saw an article on him in Were is Nashville Now. He’s in there with my boss.”
Were is Nashville Now is a local tabloid web-zine—more interested in gossip than fact-checking. And coupled with the affiliated podcast, they’re Elias’s guilty pleasure. It all sounds too crazy to be true. Isaac has so many questions.
“There’s a Were version of the Irish mob in Nashville? No way. And he’s not your fucking boss anymore, Elias. You have to manifest this shit. Say it with me: I am my own boss.”
Elias dumps the shards of pottery into the trash can sitting just inside the door, scrabbling on his haunches for a runaway tomato. “You’re missing the point. There are criminals in my restaurant.”
“Oh, come on. You have to be mistaken. Gideon can’t be related to the mob. He’s so…” Professional? Self-contained? Particular? “That’s crazy.”
He can’t imagine cute little, uber-famous Luca Wilde in bed with the mob. His knee socks had cherries on them, for fuck’s sake.
“Let me see—” Isaac goes to his tiptoes over Elias’s head, only to feel a hand on his ankle.
“I said no.”
It takes Isaac three deep breaths before he can finally speak to his mate without the immediate surge of anger and resentment coloring his words and his tone.
“Let go of me, Elias. I am not your property, and you are not the boss of me. Fuck you.”
Okay, so maybe three breaths weren’t enough.
The other door swings inward, and Gideon pokes his head around the edge.
It startles Elias, who unceremoniously falls on his butt with a squeak.
“Everything all right in here?”
Elias might hesitate, but Isaac has no such issue—and while he might call Elias names to his dumb face when he’s being a jerk, he would never undermine him to his previous employer.
“Elias slipped on the tile.”
Gideon tilts his head, taking in the mess, nostrils flaring at Elias’s sharp, distressed lemon-tea scent that is overpowering his food-grade scent blocker patch.
It’s obviously a lie, because Quest’s floor is so pristine, they could probably put the spilled salad back on new plates—as long as no one minded porcelain chips in with their jalapenos.
“Is everything all right, Elias?” the big man asks again.
Elias has mentioned that Gideon may not suffer fools lightly, but he suffers lying ones not at all.
“Fine. Elias says you’re eating with the Nashville mob. I think maybe the heat got to him.” Isaac scoffs, fully expecting Gideon to laugh as well.
He wants Gideon to deny it, and then they could all laugh about it. But Gideon is staring at Elias like he’d accidentally discovered Gideon was a shape-shifting dragon instead of a Michelin-star chef.
A sudden burst of laughter from the dining room startles Gideon, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Isaac watches as several expressions flicker across his face.
In the end, he must conclude something significant, because he nods. Just once. “My cousin is a businessman here for lunch on a pressing family matter. We can go elsewhere if you would prefer.”
The lack of denial is as good as a confirmation. “Are you kidding?” Isaac screech-whispers. “The real mob?”
The urge to push past Elias, still blocking the door from the floor, and look through the window is almost more than Isaac can bear. The soles of his Converse squeak on the salad-covered floor as his body jerks in that direction without his express consent.
His thighs tense, and the pressure in the back of his head wants to force him into motion, but this is something Isaac deals with all the time.
Intrusive thoughts and compulsions are just part of the way his brain works.
Massive amounts of curiosity coupled with a brain that hurtles at light speed in a hundred different directions means he has a whackadoo of experience getting it under control.
With three more deep breaths, he recites all the prime numbers as fast as he can up to 229. It resets the urge to see the mob kingpin for himself, and when he surfaces, he catches Elias and Gideon in a staring match.
He’s not surprised when Gideon looks away first because his mate is a badass.
“Look. You’re here already, and the food’s prepared,” Elias concedes, climbing to his feet. He throws his shoulders back, and even though he has to look up, there is no mistaking that he means his next words. “This is partly your place, Gideon. But—”
“I understand. We’ll enjoy our meal with gratitude. Thank you for understanding. It’s been difficult for us to find a mutually convenient time. Connall is actually quite…” He tilts his head again, but eventually shrugs. “I was going to say benign, but—”
“Hardly,” Elias mutters.
“Just so. Would you like to meet him?”
Elias says “No” at the same time Isaac hears his own enthusiastic “Yes.”
He really wants to meet the man whom Gideon Carnell—Nashville’s own version of Gordon Ramsay—thinks is benign.
“Which is it?”
“Izzy, please—”
“I won’t say it again, Eli,” Isaac says, squeezing his protective mate’s hand. “I choose what I do.”
“But this is dangerous. I don’t want him to—”
“What? See me? Talk to me? Steal me away?” Isaac has heard it all before from his parents and, yes, from his beloved mate. Back when omegas came out of the shadows en masse, they’d worked hard to help Elias get his fear under control.
“I can’t live like that again. I won’t. I can protect myself. Besides, stealing implies he’s taking something from you. I’m sure that’s not what you meant…right?”
Elias gulps, wiping what must be sweaty palms on his jeans. For a single minute, Isaac thinks he might insist, and Isaac has to push down his urge to soothe him through his distress.
He can’t give in.
Quest is safer than it might have been had they met on the street, or the bus, or anywhere else. He doesn’t remind Elias of all the dangerous places, though—because, well, they both know what that’s like from experience.
“Come with me, Eli? If Gideon says he’s okay, then what could happen?”
At the words, Gideon’s eyes go wide.
“What? Did you change your mind?”
“Not at all,” Gideon chuckles. “I’ve just learned not to tempt fate, is all. But if you want to meet him, I’m happy to introduce you. Then we can eat. You’ll join us, of course.”
Elias slips his hand into his, and their palms slide together as they always do. Steady and warm—the tethering weight to Isaac’s fly-away helium balloons.
And despite the excitement of meeting new people and socializing, Isaac is reminded that Elias is always there—holding him steady but not holding him down.