Page 5 of Cover Up

Then he noticed the arm—or the lack of one. And the missing leg.

“Deimos,” he blurted.

Just like with everyone, Felix never recognized Dei on sight but did remember the chef was hot. Like, absurdly so. Like Felix wanted to sell his soul for a taste of his full lips every time he saw him.

And then it hit him. Sofia was his sister?

“So, um. This is Sofia. She says she lives here,” Felix said, then glanced behind him to see Sofia a few feet away, spinning in circles.

“Woo! Woo! Oh, I’m gonna puke, fuuuuck,” she cried.

Felix dove for her and grabbed her arm, and she tumbled to his feet. He held her hand, but she refused to get back up, and he gave Dei a helpless look. “She came into the restaurant tonight, and she couldn’t remember her address, so I brought her to my place so I could try and figure out where she belongs. But now she’s insisting it’s here. Please tell me you know her.”

“I know her.” Dei held up a finger. “Gimme a sec. Don’t let her run,” he added. The door shut, and around thirty seconds later, it opened again and Dei limped out, his prosthetic leg now jutting out from the hem of his boxers.

It was only then Felix noticed how little he was wearing. A black tank top barely covered his thick chest, and his bicep was bulging as he reached down and yanked Sofia to her feet. He stared at her in the porch light, his face going stormier and stormier.

“He fuckin’ hit you again?”

Sofia shoved him off. “None of your business, dickhead.” She moved past him quicker than Felix thought she should be capable of moving, and then she was inside.

It felt like someone cut a string, and a line of tension drained from his spine. “Sorry.”

Dei blinked at him. “Sugar, what the hell are you sorry for?”

Felix felt his cheeks warm at the term of endearment, though he was pretty sure Dei called everyone that. “Bringing her home like this. There was…a slight incident in the restaurant parking lot with some guy.”

Dei slapped his hand over his face and dragged it down with a heavy groan. “Jesus. Jer’s gonna kill me. Or fire me.”

“I’m not sure he knows about it yet,” Felix said. “Well…he knows she was trying to steal a bottle of gin,” Felix admitted. “And he knows someone hit her. But he had me call a Lyft for her, and he was inside when it all went down.”

Dei closed his eyes and tipped his head up like he was praying. “Great.” Dei’s eyes opened. They looked like endless pools of black in the late-night haze. “Did she fuck up the car?”

Felix shook his head. “No. But, um, her boyfriend or whatever? He did. He punched the fuck out of it while I was bribing the driver to get us out of there.”

Dei muttered a long string of something that Felix was pretty sure wasn’t English, and then he offered Felix a tense smile. “Come on in, sugar. You look like you need a drink.”

Felix hesitated. “I can’t drink on my meds. So, thanks, but—”

“I got tea. Sweet, iced and hot,” Dei added like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

And frankly, Felix had wanted to have a one-on-one conversation with Dei since the day he set eyes on him, so it was one of the easiest yeses he’d ever given. Dei held the door for him, and as Felix breathed in his scent, he realized if he wasn’t careful, the man could be big, big trouble.

In all the best ways.

2

The inside of Dei’s house smelled nice. Weirdly nice. Like the sweet cinnamon of horchata, which Felix hadn’t come across since leaving the West Coast for the islands. It was also very sparsely furnished with a single couch by the window, a chair, and a wooden wall with a ton of oddly placed pegs and hooks all over it.

Felix couldn’t work out what the hell any of it was for, so he followed Dei past a narrow sliding door and into a very well-stocked kitchen. It looked like it had come straight out of a magazine with its marble counters and hanging pots and pans, and it was sparkling clean.

“You okay?”

Felix blinked, then realized his hands were shaking and his head was pounding. “I don’t actually know.”

“Existentially or physically?” Dei asked as he gestured toward a barstool.

Everything started to go a little foggy, but he was missing the familiar aura that generally came with a seizure, so he didn’t panic too much. He slid his ass onto the stool and put his face in his hands, his elbows pressing into the cool stone.

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