It was madness, absolute fucking madness, and she didn’t know what to do about it, other than strangle their new boss. Liam had screwed up just about everything he could, from ordering kegs, to getting maintenance in to fix various problems. He didn’t want to admit that he was in over his head, but he was. She’d told him days before about the walk-in freezer that needed to be fixed. Had he gotten it done? No, and freezer burn had set in on about five hundred dollars’ worth of tuna and the handle inside was jammed, it was a hazard. She finally pulled the plug on the whole thing, so people would stop putting things in there.

She’d taken it upon herself to go through the office and find the number for the emergency freezer truck they could park behind the bar. She’d tried to call the maintenance company herself, but they wouldn’t accept her requests without owner permission. Apparently, Mark had left that in place after he suspected his ex of running up bills by calling in unneeded service calls.

“Hey, Rox,” said Caleb. He carried a few trays of steamed buns, filled with roasted pork belly. “I wanted to know if you had a chance to take a look at those recipes I left with you.” Grabbing one of the trays from him, she helped him get them to his station.

“Shit, Caleb, I totally forgot.” His crestfallen expression broke her heart, she knew how hard it was to try to make a name for yourself in a kitchen. “I did look at them, but it was quick. Tell you what. Why don’t you make a couple of small plates when you have some down time and let me and a couple of the other people taste them. Then, I can let you know if we can give them a test run, maybe during happy hour or something.” She set the tray down on his station and Caleb practically jumped up and down with joy.

“Thanks so much, Chef! I won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure it will be delicious, Caleb. Don’t get ahead of yourself, okay? We still need to get through tonight. Make sure you keep up your great work through service tonight.”

“Yes, Chef!” He hurried to prep his station and get things ready for the evening rush. She tripped over a box they’d had to move to make a path to the freezer truck, cursed, and stormed upstairs to the office. Flinging the door open, it was empty—again. For someone who wanted to run this place, Liam sure spent a lot of time not taking care of shit that needed to be done!

After writing Liam the ninth note telling him they needed to get the freezer fixed, she’d finally made the call to the portable freezer truck. The thousands of dollars’ worth of food in there didn’t seem to rate high on his list, since it seemed their new fearless captain had money to burn. Storming back downstairs, Liam popped up from behind the bar, mixing drinks with Charlie, their seasoned bartender. He was much more interested in playing bartender than actual bar owner.

Rox was grouchy and she knew it. And sleeping in the office upstairs wasn’t helping things either. The cops had called her to let her know they still hadn’t found Jon. She was on edge about that, but there hadn’t been any more strange occurrences around the bar or, as far as she could tell, near her apartment although she hadn’t ventured inside. Her landlord let her know it would be a bit longer to get the door repaired. Landlords who accepted cash tenants weren’t exactly known for their speedy response to maintenance requests.

She’d had a few close calls with Liam almost finding her up there, but for the most part, she’d been able to crash in the office completely undetected. She was sure to clean up after herself every night, she didn’t think anyone had noticed that she was in the bar a lot more than usual. Hell, she practically lived there anyway. And it didn’t seem Liam spent much time up in the manager’s office doing any managing. She also moved her bike every night and afternoon to make sure people didn’t realize it was always there. That was the great thing about a motorcycle, it was small and could be tucked away.

Their evenings were getting more and more hectic as business was picking up. A few outlets had picked up on a tech titan taking over a new LA hotspot, which drew even more attention and patrons to the bar. It wasn’t a bad problem to have, but she was going to have to hire some more people or maybe they should pare down the menu, make it easier to get the food out there. The idea of cutting any one of her dishes was like asking her to choose a limb. She’d worked so hard on those, on impressing Mark and the customers. To think this was her first foray into real chef territory and not patty melt diner recreations. She dreaded trying to talk this through with Liam, since he hated her freaking food. Nothing like trying to bounce ideas off someone who thinks your stuff is abhorrent. Perhaps approaching him about new staff would be an easier way to go.

As much as she hated to admit it, the stomach flutters she got whenever Liam walked into the room were still there. She shook her head. Talk about barking up the wrong tree. Then again, she wasn’t known for having good instincts when it came to men. At least he was a good guy, incompetent, but a good guy. She pushed back into the kitchen and saw things were in full swing.

The team was a sweaty bundle of bodies moving efficiently, sometimes chaotically, and quickly through the kitchen. Everyone was getting so much better at getting their dishes out on time, waitresses were getting better at getting things to the customers. She was so used to doing everything on her own, sometimes she stood back and watched it all happen and couldn’t help but smile. She did this. And then the jitters were back. The drive to prove herself to Mark had been insurmountable. Everything had to be perfect. He took a huge chance on her, had given her this job when he didn’t have to, especially with her past, so she’d wanted to make sure he didn’t regret it.

That was part of the reason she still did so much herself, when delegating it would have been the much easier way to go. Back in the good old days, she would sleep in the booths to make sure she could get everything done. It was a rough road and Mark finally made her hire some other people when she started to fall asleep in the evenings—in front of the range—but managing a team still felt new and scary at times.

Wrapping up for the night, she went over what they would be serving the next day and let everyone know what station they would be at tomorrow and what they needed to get done. She never used to be this organized, but it felt good. And she needed to show them she had faith in them too.

“Caleb,” she called as he was walking out the back door after everyone else.

“Yes, Chef?”

“You don’t have to ‘Yes, Chef’ me, Caleb, especially when service is over.” He dropped his eyes and a blush started to creep into his cheeks. “I was serious about wanting to taste your recipes, all right? Sometime this week, come in a little early and prep them. Shoot me a text, so I can come in early too and we’ll see how it goes. Okay?”

He nodded his head eagerly, his floppy black hair shining as he nodded. He was a gangly kid—ha, kid—he was probably only a couple of years younger than she was, but she still felt years older.

“Great, thanks, Chef! I mean Rox,” he said, blushing again.

“Okay, get out of here, have a good night.” Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost 1 am. The comfy couch upstairs called to her. She gave the kitchen a once over and saw the boxes that kept getting in the way all night on the floor. The freezer would have to do for storage until they sorted this whole situation out. She pushed one of them toward the freezer with her foot and hefted the other up into her arms.

Slinging another box of non-perishables into the freezer, she propped open the door. She’d let everyone go home early, letting them know she’d take care of it. It gave her another excuse to stay late and sneak up to the office. Clanking from outside the freezer let her know that someone was in the kitchen. Sure everyone was gone, she put down the box in her arms and moved to the door.

Liam popped his head in.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, pushing the boxes on the shelves.

“Yes, it’s me. Everyone’s gone. I saw the light on in here and wanted to see what was going on.”

“I’m putting some non-perishables away in here since there’s some room.” She pushed another box onto the shelf and made sure they didn’t fall.

“Great, let me help.”

“No need, this is the last box,” she said, giving the boxes one more push.

“What about this one?” The sound of the box scraping on the ground froze Rox, and she whipped around.

“Don’t let the door close!” she shouted as he picked up the box that was propping open the door and took a step toward her. The door slammed behind him. No, this was not happening. This was not happening! What was wrong with him? She stared at him like an alien with three heads. Seriously?!

“There’s a knob to open it, right?” he said, still like a statue, holding the box in his arms.

“Dammit! No! I told you that we needed to get it fixed. I put the work order you needed to sign on your desk a week ago and left notes on the desk almost every day since. That’s why the box was there.”

Rox went over to the freezer door and pounded on it. Maybe someone had forgotten something and would be back in. Maybe…

“HELP! Is anyone still out there! HELP!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Liam dropped the box he held and walked around the freezer with his phone out, trying to get a cell signal. She shook her head, of all the people to be locked in here with—Liam. Part of her rejoiced while the other part of her seethed. She wasn’t sure which part would win out during this adventure.

“It doesn’t work in here. All the crap that runs through this thing stops your signal from getting out.”

“Oh,” he said, looking sheepish.

“Yeah, oh,” she said, through gritted teeth. Sighing and resting her head against the shelves. It was going to be a long while before she got some rest.

“So, what do we do now?” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“We wait. Thank God this thing isn’t working or we would be dead by morning. Maybe someone will come back for something and let us out, but if they don’t, we’re trapped here until someone shows up for prep.” The nice comfy couch upstairs, so close yet so far. She glanced around the freezer looking for something to make things more comfortable. It was going to be a long night. A long night, locked in this thing with Liam.

“At least we don’t have to wait too long. Someone’s always here at 7 am and it’s already 1 am.”

“Earth to Liam. That person who is here at 7 am is me. No one will be here until 10 am tomorrow to get ready for lunch.” She’d better get comfortable. Sleeping on the floor and then making it through lunch and dinner service tomorrow was going to kill her, but it wasn’t like she’d have anywhere to go, if she didn’t work both shifts. She certainly wasn’t going back to her apartment. Double shift on almost no sleep, excellent. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned up against the shelves. Some empty cardboard boxes peeked out from underneath. Better than nothing.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah, oh.” Just when Rox didn’t think things could get any worse, the lights inside the freezer flickered before going out.

“Just perfect.” She ground out. At least it would make getting some shut eye a little bit easier.

“At least we have each other,” he joked. She wanted to kick him in the balls, so hard right now. Using their phones for light worked for the first hour, but then they decided to conserve their batteries and shut them off. His attempts at small talk were met with one word answers from her. She was so tired and pissed off right now. At least it wasn’t cold, that would have been the icing on the already crappy day. In the dark, she could hear him moving around, restless on the other side of the freezer. She was laying down flat on the floor using the cardboard boxes as cushions.

“Why do you hate me, Rox?” His voice sounded so unsure, it snapped her back from her little doze.

She propped her head up on her elbow. Being trapped in a freezer with Liam was one way to get to the bottom of their current issues.

“I don’t hate you, Liam.” She sighed. She really, really wanted to hate him, but she didn’t. While he sucked at managing, everyone talked about how fun he was, how helpful he was and how happy they were the new boss hadn’t sucked. She wanted to join in on that, but their past held her back. But if everyone had so many good things to say about him being around every day, how bad could he really be?

“You could have fooled me. You sure act like it.”

“I don’t hate you,” she said, letting out a deep breath. She nibbled on her bottom lip. Now was as good a time as any to hash this out. “I dislike you because of the way you treat my food and since my food is probably the most important thing in my life, how you treat me.” She held her breath waiting for his response.

“What are you talking about? I don’t hate you or your food.”

“You hate my food, Liam,” she nearly shouted. It hurt because she felt so stupid for liking him even though he did. “How am I supposed to work as a chef in a kitchen you now co-own, when I know you hate the food I make?” she said, her voice rising with each word.

“I don’t hate your food. I don’t hate it at all.”

“You could have fooled me,” she said, incredulous, thinking back to all the little comments about anything she’d ever served him. Never to her face, but she’d always heard them or had other people in the kitchen report them back to her.

“I don’t hate it and that’s part of the problem.”

“I’ve heard you, Liam.” Just thinking about it made her want to punch him. “I’ve seen your face when you see the food I make, when you smell it. Not the face someone makes when they are enjoying something.”

He was quiet for a long time. Maybe this would finally shut him up and leave her to get some rest. She settled back down, closing her eyes and resting her head on her hands behind her head.

“The problem isn’t that I hate your food, Rox, it’s that I like it way too much.” Her eyes snapped open, and it took her a second to remember there were no lights. It was so dark she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face. She sat up.

“What are you talking about?” She scrunched her eyebrows. How could liking her food be a problem?

He didn’t respond. And the dark silence got a little awkward.

“What are you talking about, Liam?” she repeated, gently. He seemed a bit hesitant about sharing and she wanted to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

“I was a fat kid, okay,” he rushed out. “Growing up, it was rough, especially with Lucas as my twin, my much thinner twin. He could always eat whatever he wanted. Me, on the other hand, I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up with the short end of the stick on that one. I was a fat kid.”

“But why does that make you act the way you do around me and my food.” It didn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t he be all over her food then, or at least able to appreciate it?

“I’m not a fat kid now because I worked really hard at it. I started boxing in high school and working out, but I still have to be careful with my food. And your food is like my kryptonite. I learned this trick when I started to get serious about weight loss. In addition to cutting back on food, I would imagine that foods I really liked, foods I knew I couldn’t resist, were covered in disgusting stuff. I was trying to psych myself out to keep from going insane and, say, eating an entire tray of candied bacon. You have no idea how good it smelled. The salty sweetness filled the whole kitchen. You’re lucky I didn’t knock you over to get a piece. I had to get out of there fast before you were in danger when you got between me and that bacon.” She heard the smile in his voice and held back her own laugh.

“Are you serious?”

“Rox, you were about five seconds from being pushed out of the way and me diving into that tray of bacon.”

That melted her a little. She knew what it was like to not feel comfortable in her own skin and to worry about how other people saw you. To worry about what other people thought about you. He did like her food. Her heart soared. He didn’t hate it. He liked it—a lot. All the faces and comments were only because he couldn’t resist her food. Somehow this changed all her interactions with him. No longer were these laced with anger and hurt, but understanding and even little smiles.

“Yup, I imagine it’s covered in crap or puke or bugs, whatever it needs to be to keep me from going insane and devouring everything in sight. I’m sorry if I made you think I didn’t like what you made. The problem is I like it way too much.” Now the looks of disgust made sense.

“Wow,” she said, laying back down flat. “Okay, I guess that’s sort of a compliment. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t want you to know I was a fat kid. A fat kid who couldn’t control himself around your food without stupid mental tricks. I liked you way too much to embarrass myself like that.” Her heart thudded. He liked her. When he said he liked her, did he mean like a friend or like more than a friend?

“Liked? So, you don’t like me anymore?” She held her breath waiting for his response. She swore he could hear her heart pounding from the other side of the freezer.

“Rox.” He let out a deep breath. “Like. I still like you, Rox.” She froze then. She was in the middle of the thawed out walk-in freezer with a man she’d been able to resist for a long while because she thought he didn’t like her. And now he said he did. He did like her. All those daydreams she’d suppressed when it came to him came rushing back. His muscled arms and chest under a tight t-shirt, his light brown hair that her fingers itched to run through, his emerald green eyes that reminded her of green apple hard candy all filled her mind. No, she hadn’t been thinking about him at all. He’d barely registered on her radar. Yeah, right.

The bright light of his phone lit up the freezer and he crossed the space between then, sitting down next to her, resting his arms on his knees. That t-shirt should be illegal as it left nothing to the imagination. Down girl! She held her breath and folded her hands in her lap.

“I really am sorry, Rox. I didn’t mean for you to hear anything of the things I said or see the faces I made. It kind of became a kneejerk reaction whenever I was around your food. I knew it tasted amazing and I had to stop myself from going crazy.” He ran his hands across his thighs. His large muscular thighs. Rox shook her head. Was she seriously losing it? It was like a switch had been flicked when it came to Liam.

“Don’t worry about it, water under the bridge,” she said, glancing up at him, smiling.

“Great.” His face brightened and he smiled back. “Now that you know about my fat kid past, you’re going to have to guard that kitchen. All the smells from the kitchen come right into the office. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were drool stains all over Mark’s desk.” And that explained why he wasn’t up there much. She shook her head.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just putting a few things together.” Her breath caught as she glanced up at him. His eyes really were breathtaking. Deciding that she could go on holding a grudge or try to make the best of this, she made a choice.

“How have you been finding it? Running the bar?”

He let out a deep breath and stared at the walls of the freezer.

“It’s a lot different than I thought it would be.”

“How so?” She shifted her legs, crossing them and her knee touched his leg. A jolt shot through her and she peered over at Liam. He stared at her and a blush crept up her neck and she glanced away.

“I don’t know. I ran a bunch of teams at Doppel, helped build it from the ground up. For some reason, I thought I could jump in here and pick things up right where Mark left off. He’s entrusted me with this place and I’m screwing everything up.”

“You’re not screwing everything up,” she offered. He shot her a look. “What? I mean you’ve left the kitchen alone. For that, you get bonus points, especially now that I know you don’t hate my food.”

“I guess there’s that. At least I know when people are better off without me meddling.”

“The other stuff will come to you, if you pay attention and actually read and follow through with the notes that people leave you. Check your desk.” She gave him a gentle whack on the leg. He glanced over at her and her breath quickened. Now that her view of him wasn’t clouded by the hatred she thought he felt for her food, those earlier butterflies she got in her stomach when she was around him were returning. They spent the next couple of hours talking about ideas he had for The Bramble. Getting some more great music in was his top priority. Eric Newcastle playing their place a few times had put them on the radar of other musicians in the area and maybe that could turn into a thing. And with an LA and upcoming NYC location, it seemed the perfect spot to showcase upcoming talent.

“My ass has fallen asleep,” he said, shifting back and forth next to her.

“You can lie down here. There’s plenty of cardboard for both of us.” She scooted over and he unfolded himself and stretched out next to her. His arm brushed up against hers and goosebumps broke out all over her skin.

“Are you cold?” He slid his arm under her head, wrapped it around her shoulder, and pulled her closer. Rubbing her arms to try to warm her up, he was only making her flutters even worse. He stopped rubbing, but didn’t take his arm back so she rested her head on his arm. She breathed him in and despite working behind the bar all night, he still had a nice clean smell. Like a freshly opened bar of soap. She found herself sniffing his shirt before she could stop herself.

“Did you just sniff me?” he said, chuckling. She froze, scoffing.

“No, don’t be ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t.” Why had she done that? Did she really just smell him? And why did he have to smell so good?

“You were totally smelling me.” Even in the dark, she could hear the smile in his voice.

“I swear, I wasn’t.” She was lucky he couldn’t see her beet red face right now.

“Liar,” he accused before sitting up and tickling her. Rox laughed and squirmed as he attacked her stomach with his fingers of evil. Laughing so much she started crying, she wiggled trying to get away from him, but ultimately ended up under him.

“Admit it!”

“Okay, I admit it! I sniffed you!” She squealed, short of breath from all the laughing. “I sniffed you! I was just wondering how you could smell so nice and fresh after working all night.”

“Want to know my secret?” he said, bending closer to her. Her breath caught as he moved in closer to her, the warmth of his body on hers. It was pitch black, but she was very aware of where he was, especially because his hands were still resting on her waist.

“Sure,” she said. Her breath sounding way breathier than she meant it to.

“I had a spare shirt in my bag. Someone spilled a drink on me earlier and I didn’t want to come in here smelling like beer and vodka.”

“Why not?”

“Do you really not know, Rox?”

“Know what?” She gulped, feeling him move even closer now. The heat from his body enveloped her and his breath breezed across her face. He threaded his hands in her short hair and lifted it up.

“I’m crazy about you Rox. I had to come in here because it was driving me crazy. You’ve been driving me crazy.”