Taste of Iron

Thirty Three: Damn That Rat

Thirty Three: Damn That Rat

Atlas was having a terrible day.

Damian had called him in the middle of the night, which he didn't mind, but he had kept him up till 4 a.m. His brother also let it out that Trent apparently hadn't shown up at the house in a week, and that he thinks their mom seemed more tired than usual.

He ended up sleeping through his alarm and woke up to a rat in his apartment that he had to chase off. He forgot to re-stock his cereal and didn't have enough time to make himself a proper breakfast so he only grabbed a banana before leaving for work.

He missed his usual bus, was late, and right when he was turning the corner of the street to get to the restaurant... he stepped on dog poop.

On top of that, his conversation with Stefan kept replaying in his head.

Sleep deprived, hungry, and overall frustrated, the executive chef was in a bad mood. It was noticable, too, as he was more snippy than usual and everyone pretty much just did as was asked and tried to stay out of his way.

You never want to mess with an angry chef. Never.

Atlas wasn't proud of himself. After Stefan cornered him about Emil, the chef shut down. He should've pulled Emil away right that instant and spoken to him, but he simply couldn't. His mind was running in circles, and he chose flight instead of fight.

Emil tried to get him to open up, but Atlas kept deflecting his attempts. This was unlike him. He liked to tackle problems head on, so he wasn't sure why he reacted this way.

Maybe because when he finally let his guards down and allowed Emil inside his home and his heart... it seemed like what kept him on the fence about Emil came back to bite him in the ass.

On the other hand, Emil was beginning to panic. He didn't know what was wrong or why Atlas was avoiding him. He knew that it had something to do with Stefan, but the chef had pretty much ignored him the entire day. Emil was adamant on finding out, though. He gave Atlas his space, but now he was a man on a mission as he walked into the restaurant.

Denise glanced at Jimmy, who looked at Frank who in turn faced Emmett and Leo. All the employees had the same panicked expression as they shook their heads at Emil, trying to discretely tell him to back off for a bit.

But the crime boss was too focused on the man of his dreams, not noticing anybody else.

"¡Buenos días!" Emil spoke, joining Atlas. The chef, who was in the midst of chopping an onion, paused.

"There is nothing good about this morning," Atlas muttered, making the gangster frown.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Emil asked.

"Wrong..." Atlas gripped the knife tightly in his hands as he tilted his head to look at Emil. The brunette's eyes widened in surprise at how murderous the other man seemed. "You want to know if something is wrong?"

"Uh," Emil blinked. "Yes?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong," Atlas nodded, before whipping his head to face Frank. "Are you done with the sauce yet?"

"No..."

"No," Atlas repeated, then his landed on Denise. "All the tomatoes in today's produce are absolutely trash."

"Sorry," Denise replied. "I'll check then properly next time."

"You said that the last time too," Atlas said. "Double and triple check everything or I will have to assign someone else to this."