Can't Stand the Heat Read Free

thought after she slammed her car door shut with her hip and made a mad dash across the nearly empty parking lot. Rivulets of sweat streamed between her breasts and down her back in the scorching Virginia sun, causing her T-shirt to cling to her like a second skin, making her silently curse her car’s busted AC. Her curvy bottom shimmied as she ran in her khaki shorts.
    As sous chef of Le Bayou Bleu, Lauren tried to be one of the first to arrive at the kitchen for prep work for the lunch and dinner service, but she was running a little late today.
    â€œHey, Lauren!” Malik called out with a smile.
    The willowy line cook leaned against the soot-covered brick wall near the doorway. His white short-sleeved shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a white tank top and a pack of cigarettes tucked inside the waistband of his jeans. He tapped his lit cigarette, spilling ashes onto the concrete.
    â€œWhat’s up, beautiful? You just gettin’ in?” he asked.
    â€œDon’t remind me!” she shouted back with a laugh.
    â€œÂ¡Oye, mi amiga!” shouted Miguel, a plump fry chef who sat kitty-corner to Malik. He was hunched on a wooden crate with his squat legs spread wide. A cigarette hung limply from the side of his mouth.
    â€œHey, Miguel!” Lauren yelled back.
    She didn’t break stride as she spoke, making her way toward the heavy steel door leading to the restaurant’s kitchen. She tugged the door open and stepped inside, letting it slam shut behind her. She was instantly met with the sound of clashing steel, stacking glasses, the steady churn of mixers, oven doors opening and closing, and shouting voices. To her ears, it was more melodious than a Beethoven symphony.
    Lauren bypassed the kitchen and went straight to the women’s locker room. She usually shared it with the waitresses and the only other female chef at the restaurant, Paula Wakeman, who was a wizard when it came to pastries. But the room was vacant today. It was dimly lit and smelled of old grease and dirty socks.
    She opened her locker door and quickly retrieved a pair of jeans, her apron, and a petite-sized chef’s coat. She took off her strappy sandals and traded them for a pair of sports socks and scuffed tennis shoes from the bottom of her locker. She put on her jeans and pulled back her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, securing it with a scrunchie she had worn on her wrist. After tying a red bandanna on her head and buttoning her coat, she was ready to go. She climbed over the locker room’s wooden benches with apron in hand and headed to the door. As she neared the exit, she glanced at herself in the room’s only full-length mirror and paused, momentarily transfixed. She stared at her reflection.
    Seven months ago, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in her current ensemble. Instead, she would be wearing a tight-fitting, low-cut dress, towering high heels, and jewelry that cost more than what she could now afford with her current monthly paycheck. She wouldn’t be slaving away in the kitchen of Le Bayou Bleu either, but would be one of the restaurant patrons, dining at one of the best tables in the house on her rich boyfriend, James’s, tab.
    What a difference seven months can make, Lauren thought.
    Back then, she had been the happily “kept” woman she had always been taught to be—going to spas and shopping during the day, pleasing her man at night. That life seemed so long ago and so far away. She had been so scared back then, so worn down by James’s constant browbeating that it had taken her too long to realize that . . .
    Lauren shook her head, cutting off those dark thoughts.
    â€œYou can take your trip down memory lane another day,” she mumbled to her reflection. She hated to wallow in the past, in self-pity. It was time to move forward. “Time to get to work.”
    â€œMornin’, guys!” she said as she rushed into the kitchen seconds later, tying