It's been nearly ten years since I last worked as a line cook during morning rush, but it only takes me about ten minutes to settle back into the rhythm of things.

The griddles are set up across five different stations: One for cakes, one for bacon, one for sausage, and two for hash browns. Even before the flood of orders comes in, I throw myself into the routine my mom taught me all those years ago.

Meats are on the griddle constantly, since they can be kept warm without too much trouble. Hash browns are put on one heaping spatula at a time, left until they get brown and crisp, and then pulled off so the excess oil can get absorbed into a paper towel. Cakes are made to order, though someone's making new batter at least once per hour; that way we can just ladle up a perfectly sized portion, wait until it starts to bubble in the center, and then flip it.

The frantic, constant rush is a nice change of pace at first. I've always got a task to work on. A pretty mindless task, too. So long as I keep my hands moving, time speeds right along with me and brings me over that first hurdle.

But a few hours of slapping down bacon and ladling out pancakes reminds me why I hired more cooks in the first place. Working the line is exhausting. There's a thin sheen of sweat on my brow, my right arm aches from the repetitive motions, my back hurts from having to babysit these griddles, and boy, have I gotten bitchy.

"You're saving all the bacon grease, yeah?"

Tony—the only other cook working today—is standing almost shoulder to shoulder with me in a kitchen that somehow feels a lot smaller despite having only half its normal staff.

"Almost a full can's worth this morning," he answers, flipping over a batch of hash browns.

It feels like there's usually more by now. I've stubbornly insisted on still cooking country-fried steak since it's a menu favorite, and the rendered fat from the bacon is the reason so many people love it. Usually I can dip into an endless supply of it, but today I'm having to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

…Which makes sense, I realize, because we're not cooking nearly as much food.

"Sorry," I switch sides, glancing at a ticket before I crack two eggs into a cast-iron skillet, "little out of it."

"Hard working the line, ain't it?" I can almost hear the smirk in his voice, and yeah, he's earned that.

"I'm definitely not sixteen anymore."

Tony—almost fifteen years older than me—just snorts at that. All right, I can admit I’ve gotten a little pampered by my role in this kitchen.

When I took over my mom's diner three years ago, I immediately hired extra cooks, extra servers, and a dedicated hostess. It increased overhead, and we were in the red for two of those years, but eventually things evened out. Now business is booming, and when a cold goes around my kitchen, I feel it in every part of the operation.

"Hey, how's that to-go order coming?" Dana asks, popping her head into the service window. "Mrs. Nelson's been waiting twenty minutes."

I scan the tickets, finding the one with "TO GO" written in big, bold letters. Two eggs, over-medium. Bacon. Home fries. Biscuit.

"Just cooking the eggs. Give me three minutes." I season the whites as they cook and move over to the fryers to check on the latest batch of home fries. Then it’s back to the stovetop to finish the eggs.

It's nonstop like this from the hours of 7:30 to 10:30. And while three hours doesn't sound like a long time, slaving over five griddles, an assortment of burners, four deep fat fryers, and a very hot double oven makes it feel like I've worked a full day's shift.

It's not like I take it easy when the other cooks are here. I'm working right alongside them, from open to close. But normally, I get to experiment. I take custom orders and I run a new special every day and I use any downtime to try out new recipes or tweak the ones that've been in our family for generations.

I'm a chef. Call it arrogance if you want, but I know where my talents lie; I know how I can be of the most use to Gracie's Place, and it's not through running a very limited menu when my kitchen is backed up twenty minutes at a time.

"Order up," I holler, sliding a takeout tray into the window.

The chaos doesn't stop until sometime around eleven. And it's not even the clock or my phone that tell me that—I haven't had time to look at either. It's the fact that people are starting to order off our lunch menu, and I know I'm going to have to wipe down all the griddles and transform the kitchen into a completely different operation.

Normally, it takes fifteen minutes, tops. Today, it seems like a much more daunting task, and the weight of it must show on my face, because Tony comes up beside me and pats me on the shoulder.

“You should take a break, old man. Stretch out that aching back, give the dogs a rest.”

I side-eye Tony, a smirk on my lips to match his. He’s been working here for seventeen years, so he’s old enough to remember when I hadn’t even hit my last growth spurt. Hell, he’s old enough to remember my mom before she got her full sleeve done on her left arm.

“You’re joking, but I feel like I just had eight hours with some kinky contortionist,” I mutter.

Tony lets out a loud laugh, pots and pans clattering as he loads them into the dishwasher so they’re ready to go before the lunch rush. Anywhere else, I’d probably get tossed out on my ass for making a joke like that. But I always read the room, and I know Tony’s mind is just as dirty as mine. Case in point…

“I dated a girl like that once. Tried to convince me getting a blowjob upside down was the best experience I’d ever have in my life.”

I run the faucet, lukewarm water spilling over my hands as I try to scrub off the morning grime. “Well? Don’t leave me hanging here.”

“Wouldn’t know. I passed out like ten minutes into it.”

An image pops into my head of Tony, naked as the day he was born, covered only in his thick carpet of body hair, trying to balance in some weird yoga pose while his brain and his dick fight for control of the blood flow. I wrinkle my nose.

“Yeah, you got that picture in your head now. Majestic, ain’t it?”

“I might just cry a little,” comes my retort as I dry my hands. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same.”

He sniggers, but the approaching footsteps of one of our servers keeps us both from taking it any further. It doesn’t matter that it’s Dana and I know she can be just as bad as Tony when she gets going. Nobody needs to walk in on that conversation, and I’m not in the business of making my employees feel uncomfortable.

“Your favorite customer’s here,” she says in a sing-song voice, leaning against the service window.

“This late?” I ask, finally glancing at the clock on the wall.

“Mhmm. Looks like he had a bit of a night.” Her lips pull into a wicked little grin. “I bet he could use a nice little ego stroke.”

Okay, Dana would’ve leapt on board with our earlier conversation. Still.

“Doubt there’s anything little about it,” I put in, unable to help myself.

She giggles, leaving a fresh order ticket on the counter before bustling off to refill the coffee at table seven.

“Go on,” Tony urges me, his bushy brows waggling. “I’ll cover for you.”

I swear, this place is enabler central. But I’m not sure I’d have nearly as much fun at work if it wasn’t.

“Be back in fifteen,” I tell him, excitement threading through me as I head out into the restaurant.

There’s a little bit of a lull now; the restaurant filled to maybe half its occupancy. Another hour and we’ll be packed again, but for now, I have the perfect opportunity to indulge in my favorite ritual. The guy I’m looking for is seated at his usual table—number eleven, smack dab in the middle of Dana’s section. It’s a small table, only meant for two people. There’s never a second with him.

I walk over, glad for the fact that he always sits with his back to the kitchen. It gives me a chance to drink in the sight of him without looking like a creeper.

My “favorite customer,” Reeve Barnett, is cut from solid granite. His big, broad frame fills out his chair and then some. A Kelly green uniform is pulled taut across his wide shoulders, gaining extra room as it tapers downward, following the sharp lines of his waist. His hair is a little too long at the nape, like he goes a month or two between trims, whereas I’m planted firmly in the barber’s chair at least every two weeks. His dark brown hair is thick enough that you could easily get your fingers in it and pull. Hard. And while I can only see part of it from here, I know he’s got the scruffy beard to match. Full and dark, not like the patchy mess of fuzz mine is whenever I try to actually grow it out.

“You’re late,” I say, sliding into the seat opposite his.

His dark eyes slowly comb over me, sending a rush of heat through my whole body. It’s like this every time, and has been almost since the day he first walked in here.

But Reeve is like a three-tiered cake in a display window. Covered in fondant and marzipan and modeling chocolate. Nice to look at, but then you get in there and the fondant’s formed into this hard crust, the chocolate’s way too rich, and the marzipan’s a hot mess. The cake underneath may be worth it, but you have to go through so many layers to get to something actually sweet that it’s just way more work than I want to put in for my dessert.

This is why I’m not a pastry chef, and why Reeve is strictly a look-don’t-touch kind of treat. Since he’s never made a move, I’m pretty sure I’m in the exact same category for him. So this is what we do. We look our fill, imagine what might be underneath all those layers. And then we go back to our lives, and—at least in my case—stick to sweets that are a little easier to handle.

But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about indulging. Just once. I’d come out of it with a toothache—and probably a whole body ache—but it’d be one hell of a way to go.