Time goes by and I finish the dishes before he finally comes. Eleven minutes after our shifts were supposed to start.

"You're late," I mutter, washing my hands with my back to him. Because blunt, cold indifference is what I would've given him in this situation if I hadn't tried to kiss him the night before.

Stupid.

"I know," he simply says.

"Yet you're still late."

"My ride forgot she was my ride," he explains, and I can tell he's closer now.

I take a deep breath in, tucking every trace of panic and every small sign of embarrassment away from sight. His sight.

I turn around, hands still wet. "Don't you have a car of your own?"

He shrugs.

Why does that annoy me? What was I expecting from him? What the fuck is my—

Without warning or request for permission, he takes two long strides to close the distance between us. My breath catches in my throat. Before I have time time to ask what the hell he thinks he's doing, he puts both hands on the sides of my body, leaning in to lock our lips together.

His grip around me is loose enough to let me get away and there is enough space behind me to allow me to step back if I wanted to. But I don't. I stay frozen in place and let him kiss me.

It's sure, but still. Just lips on lips. Yet, that alone is enough to make my insides twist and churn.

When he pulls away, I stay put. The look on his face is a silent question. There's some kind of awe-charged curiosity in it too. I realize then that the kiss was a test.

My head is cold mash. There's no blood supply there at the moment. I'm a dumb, reckless idiot again. And I act like one.

Not knowing whether that means I pass or fail his test, I put my hands, still wet, around his face and kiss him again. Like last night, there's a split second in which he pulls away just slightly, surprised, before coming right back in to meet me in the middle.

My heart shoots out to my throat, pumping too loudly and too fast for him not to hear it. His lips move against mine and my stomach ignites. It's a kind of euphoria I never experienced before. More desperate than I would like to admit. Like a man drinking from a fountain he never thought he'd found in a scorching desert. Or an iced one, in my case.

His hands fill with my uniform shirt, pulling it a little from my jeans, and I recognize the unmistakable heat down there.

Dumb, reckless, idiot. Stupid.

One of his hands slides up my back, pulling us flush against each other. His thigh brushes against my groin and I can feel him smile triumphantly into the kiss.

That's when I come to my senses. Because, fuck, that's Liam Astor. And, fuck, we're at work. And, shit, somebody could walk in from either one of the two available entrances at any moment.

I push him off me, perhaps a little too harshly, making him stumble back a little. Liam stares at me, breathless and disheveled, with his short dark hair wet at the sides from my hands. He clearly has questions. For once in his life, I hope he keeps them to himself.

I grab a towel from the counter behind me to dry my hands, then proceed to tuck my button-up back into my jeans. The double-swing doors open as soon as I'm done and my brother walks in.

Liam turns around at the same time I lift my head to look at Elliott. He looks considerably less composed, though. Like he's still trying to make sense of what just happened. Even though the asshole fucking started it.

Elliott looks between the two of us dubiously, before his eyes finally land on me.

"Your friends are here," he says. He shoots Liam a quick glance before asking me, "Did you serve them hot chocolate and coffee last weekend and put it on my tab?"

"Mhm."

"You know the money you spend on beverages for your friends is money I no longer have to spend on groceries for us, right?"

I stare back at him blankly. "Owen's parents feed me practically every night anyway, so I assumed it would be fine."

Elliott's face falls. I feel only a faint trickle of guilt in my chest. But I bet he's no longer thinking about what Liam and I might have been doing before he came inside.

I walk past my brother out of the kitchen, before his mind has time to zero back in on that.

Dean and Owen are sitting at the dining room counter. Owen already has a book out. Something with numbers. He lifts his eyes from it to look at me.

"Heard you were in a hurry to get to work today," he says. "Wanted a chance to see Chef Armel before his break?"

I roll my eyes.

"Hannah says he's getting worse," Owen tells me as I move to the coffee maker. To make hot chocolate and coffee for my friends. Which I'll later put on my brother's tab.

"When did you see her?" I ask, with my back to them.

"She texted me," Owen says casually.

The kitchen doors swing open and Liam comes out. One look at his still-bemused face is enough to feel a crack form on my casual front. I bite the inside of my cheek, hard enough to feel the sting. He needs to get a fucking grip, before anyone catches onto something.

Well, ideally, I should have been the one to hold myself in and push him off me after the stunt he pulled. Act shocked. Maybe even offended. Deny. It would have been easy. If I played the affronted jock role well enough, he might have even been too embarrassed to remember I was the one who tried to kiss him first last night. He would assume he imagined it all, and do everything in his power to act like nothing ever happened between us.

But that ship has sailed.

Elliott walks out of the kitchen, but he doesn't stick around at all. He doesn't even look at either of us for longer than a second.

I turn back to my friends, deciding that if I ignore Liam's potentially suspicious attitude they will too. 

"Actually, Chef Armel is better," I say, resuming the topic Owen brought up. "When he's around," I add jerking my head towards Liam.

Owen snorts. "Of course the little shit wants to look good for the boss's son."

Liam clears his throat. The blood freezes in my veins.

"I can assure you he has no more love for me than he has for either of you," he says with that cocky smirk of his. His regular cocky smirk. The kind he would put on his face after not making out with a co-worker.

"You force him to make you grilled cheese every time you eat here," I say. Because, if Liam's finally on board, there's no way to ruin this unless I start getting weird now.

Liam looks far too satisfied, though.

"I like grilled cheese," he muses. "When I want something, I have it."

Fuck.

Liam doesn't hang around after that. And he doesn't have to. Because he knows the effect he wanted to have, and he knows it worked.

Owen and Dean smile thankfully when I slide their drinks on the counter. Dean's eyes practically sparkle when he sees the extra marshmallows on his hot chocolate. I watch him pick one up to pop it into his mouth, and I can't help but wonder how it would feel to be him. Easily and effortlessly happy with the simple, small things. Like a child who never grew up to learn about all the reasons in the world to be miserable.

Cordial female voices carry from the bar area, before a familiar fake blonde walks into the dining room. Dean's mouth stretches into a grin when she takes a seat to his left.

"Hey."

Mackenzie Pruitt smiles back at him. "Hi."

"You're not sick."

Owen lifts his head from his book to frown, the creased-eyebrow expression on his face mirroring Mackenzie's.

"No," she says slowly.

"You weren't in class today, so I thought maybe you had a cold or something," Dean says.

She smiles again, but hers is a different kind of smile. "I just slept in and missed Trig."

"Don't you have Trig first thing after lunch?" Owen asks.

Mackenzie shrugs, leaning over the counter to look at him past Dean. "I took a nap in my car."

Owen rolls his eyes, focusing them back on his book.

The kitchen doors swing open and Liam comes out into the dining room. He walks up to the counter and I immediately step away to check on the register.

"What are you doing here?" Liam asks, acting like he didn't notice what I did.

"Chloe and Nat dragged Gus for an off-ice conditioning session." Mackenzie grimaces. "I passed."

Liam smiles. "Shocking."

Dean takes a sip of his hot chocolate, keeping his eyes on the interaction. Putting the mug back down, he makes a point of licking his mouth to get rid of his signature foam-tache. He doesn't get everything, though.

Mackenzie bites back a smile. "You still got a little..." she trails off, pointing to her own mouth.

Dean sits up, sticking his tongue out again. "Where?" He asks, licking around his lips. Like a child. Or a dog? Dean has always stood on a sort of limbo between the two.

Mackenzie laughs. "Wait, I got it," she says, reaching over the counter — stomach on the oak surface, head and arms dangling off the other side — to reach for a napkin where we keep them under there.

Dean stays still as she folds it up to wipe the edge of his lip with a corner. When she crunches it up in a ball that she leaves on the counter, he smiles at her.

"Should I book a suite upstairs for you two?" Liam chimes in.

Mackenzie rolls her eyes. "Bite me, Astor."

***

I haven't finished the final few chapters yet, but they will definitely get done this week, so I think I'll start posting daily.

About this chapter... Surprised? :)

Where do you see Liam and Eli going from this? And what about the side characters — any side plots you're picking up on? What would you like to see from the characters you have met already?

As always, thank you so much for reading. Please leave a vote or a comment if you think it's worth it!