Chapter Text
"And this is the private dining area, but we call it 'Le Vert' amongst colleagues." Scott Hunter said, smiling with a row of perfect white teeth and small fangs that probably indicated he was an alpha.
Shane walked into the space, surrounded by large windows dressed with heavy green curtains, most of them held together in pairs by a thick golden chain. It smelled the same way the entire restaurant smelled — a hint of eucalyptus mixed with something musky. Bitter orange, probably. The room was notably luxurious, in the way it was intended to feel, Shane thought. Three wooden mahogany tables stood in the middle of the room, clustered together, with a row of at least fifty chairs stacked in a corner. A small oval fireplace hung just above the herringbone floor, occupying the left corner.
"We usually host larger parties here, but it's also where we hold staff meetings and sometimes eat when the restaurant gets too busy." Scott continued, walking across the room, the heels of his glossy black dress shoes making a soft clacking sound against the floor. Shane looked up at the massive industrial pipes running the length of the ceiling.
"Those are for the noise," Scott said, pointing up at one of the metallic pipes above his head. "The entire restaurant is insulated that way. It's important to us that this place feels like the guests' living room — a space they don't want to leave, where they talk, drink, and are proud to entertain." He looked directly at Shane as he spoke. He wasn't much taller than him, but his chiseled jaw and broad shoulders certainly left an impression.
Shane had noticed, when he first walked toward the bar, that a lot of the staff here were very, very attractive. Even the chefs — who were usually plucked from the gutter — looked immaculate. Like they actually showered. That wasn't something most other restaurants could say.
"Let's head back to my office to discuss your contract," Scott said, clapping his hands together, the sound staying between the two of them. Shane nodded quickly, and Scott was already walking toward a black door Shane hadn't even noticed was there. There were so many doors in this building. He could wander for an hour and still not see everything.
They walked down a narrow hallway lined with light green tiles, the bitter orange fading behind them, replaced by the layered scents of staff moving about. The smell of figs was the most prominent — likely coming from his future manager, Scott Hunter.
Scott opened another black door into a small office with a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
Odd, Shane thought, his eyes catching the exposed electrical wiring.
"Take a seat, please," Scott said, pulling out a small wooden chair — the same kind Shane had seen moments ago in Le Vert, he thought, except this one had a large wine stain in the center of the cushion. "It doesn't stain, don't worry," Scott added, noticing where Shane's eyes had settled.
"Thank you," Shane replied, mumbling slightly as he sat down in the small, almost closet-like office.
"We would really like to hire you, Shane. Your résumé is very impressive." Scott said, his eyes moving over the printed sheet in his hand, occasionally glancing up to ask about wine experience, management history, and other standard questions.
The man across from him took a slow breath. "You are not obligated to disclose anything about your secondary gender, but I do need to go over a few precautions we take here at L'oiseau Loup." Shane held his breath, bracing for whatever policy was coming. "We strongly encourage scent patches during shifts — not only for the comfort of your colleagues and guests, but for yourself as well. As you know, things can get stressful in this environment, and we don't want anyone's scent affecting the people around them."
Shane exhaled. That sounded reasonable. He nodded slowly, making sure to put his small smile back on, hoping to come across a little warmer than he probably was by nature.
"That's fine with me," Shane replied.
Moments later, Shane signed the thick stack of papers in front of him while Scott watched the movement of his hand with a wide, toothy smile.
**************************
Shane arrived twenty minutes early to his first shift at L'oiseau Loup. The email he'd received a few days after his interview had asked him to come fifteen minutes early, but Shane hadn't wanted to risk getting caught in traffic. He came by car — his old, beaten-up Jeep, reliable through whatever weather Montreal decided to throw at him. The thick scent patches clung to his slightly damp skin, nerves getting the better of him already. They were itchy, but Shane hoped that would subside as the shift progressed.
He pulled out his phone to reread the email he had already read five times that day.
...go to the bar and ask for Hayden. He will show you around and introduce you to the team...
Shane's eyes lingered on the name and he quietly practiced the syllables in his mouth. Hey-dun. What if it wasn't pronounced that way — what if it was Nordic and he'd embarrass himself the moment he opened his mouth? He took a slow breath. This was fine. He was going to be fine. Nobody was going to laugh at him. He needed to get his emotions under control. He wasn't all that familiar with scent patches, and the last thing he wanted was his anxiety seeping through them.
He walked toward the bar, where a shorter woman with dark curly hair and brown eyes was organizing something on the shelf. Before he could open his mouth, she turned around — which startled him. Had he been that loud?
"I'm looking for — Hayden?" he said to the woman across the bar, hesitantly.
"You're Shane?" she asked, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. She didn't appear to have fangs, or at least none he could make out.
"Yes, it's my first day," Shane replied, still standing a beat too far from the bar, acutely aware of the distance between himself and the wooden counter.
"I'm Svetlana, but you can call me Sveta. Nice to meet you," she said, extending her hand. Shane crossed toward her so quickly he nearly tripped over his own feet.
He shook her hand, which was notably warm — a stark contrast against his own cold, calloused ones.
"I'll call Hayden for you. Would you like something to drink in the meantime?" she asked.
"Some water, please," he replied. The signature eucalyptus filled his nose, paired this time with something different — softer, almost like saffron.
She looked at him for a brief moment before nodding, then reached for a beautiful glass with a textured bottom, almost like a whiskey glass.
A man with blondish hair approached the bar with so much confidence that Shane couldn't help but assume it was Hayden. He wore a white blouse and dress shoes paired with deep navy cotton trousers, his hair pushed messily to one side — held in place by what was probably a generous amount of wax, judging by the texture.
"Shane, right?" Hayden asked, extending his hand. He carried no particular scent Shane could identify, though that might have been because they weren't close enough yet, and the earthy eucalyptus was still dominating most of the space around them.
"Yes, nice to meet you," Shane replied, shaking his hand firmly the way his father had taught him.
"I'm Hayden, shift leader for today," Hayden said, releasing his hand. "Let's go — there's a lot to show you."
They walked through the restaurant, which had six assigned sections, apparently. Hayden talked about the history of the building — not actually that old, as it turned out, having undergone a very costly renovation just a year before L'oiseau Loup opened its doors. Shane was introduced to at least fifteen people, not one name sticking, though he told himself he'd try to piece them together when he got home.
"You've already met Sveta — she's our head bartender, very lovely, and she also handles after-hours drinks, so I'd be extra nice to her," Hayden said with a wink, nudging Shane with his elbow. Shane caught the faintest whiff of basil as he did.
He nodded as they continued walking.
Shane had always been sensitive to scents — more than most — and had a habit of holding his breath when someone passed too closely. He would have to get used to that here, the proximity of colleagues, and simply trust that everyone was wearing their patches.
It was practically mandatory, so he couldn't imagine they wouldn't. But then again, maybe alphas weren't monitored as carefully. Maybe Scott had only brought up the patches because he could tell Shane was an omega. Shane pushed the thought away. He chose to believe it wasn't true.
"Now on to the most important part, as they like to call it themselves — the back of house," Hayden said, as they rounded a corner of exposed brick and stepped back into the heart of the restaurant. The kitchen was massive and partially open at the front, giving guests a narrow glimpse inside as they walked past.
About seven people were working in the large kitchen, two of them chopping vegetables at the back. One man had gathered the other five and appeared to be mid-briefing when one of them caught sight of Shane and Hayden and lost focus entirely. The man leading the group noticed — back still turned to the door — and snapped his fingers at the distracted chef.
"Are you sleeping?" he said, his accent thick and Slavic.
"No, chef," the younger chef mumbled, dropping his gaze to his shoes.
"Do you need to go home to sleep?" The man had curly blondish hair and broad, heavy shoulders. An apron was tied at his waist, and the sleeves of his black blouse were rolled up to his elbows, revealing thick forearms and large hands.
"No, chef," the younger chef replied, more firmly this time, looking back up.
"So let's go! Get to work, for fuck's sake." The head chef sighed, turned sharply on his heel — and froze the moment his eyes landed on Shane.
"Who's this?" he said, his gaze moving slowly down Shane's frame. The bluntness of it made Shane slightly uncomfortable.
"Shane Hollander, chef," Hayden said, with a trace of amusement. "Our new front-of-house assistant manager."
"So you'll make sure I'm not scheduled on Sundays?" the chef asked, a small smirk pulling at his mouth.
"I'll try," Shane replied, smiling back sheepishly.
"This is our executive chef, Rozanov," Hayden offered.
"Nice to meet you, chef," Shane said — and then it hit him. The same bitter orange he had noticed at his interview a week ago. Stronger now than the basil, saffron, or fig he'd encountered since arriving. It was sharp at the edges; if he were standing any closer to the source, he'd probably be able to place it more precisely. It was clearly coming from somewhere in the kitchen, though Shane wasn't certain it was Rozanov.
"You can call me Ilya," the chef replied, the wolfish smirk fixed on his perfectly bowed lips. "If you make sure I don't work Sundays," he added, the tease light in his voice.
"I'll try," Shane repeated. The smirk stretched into a grin as Ilya crossed his arms. The kitchen floor was slightly elevated, which meant he was looking down at both of them from a slight advantage.
"What are we eating today, chef?" Hayden asked, in that same dry tone. They were clearly very comfortable with each other.
"Marleau's cooking, so probably something terrible," Ilya replied, his nose flaring slightly.
"Shut the fuck up, Roz," a voice called from across the kitchen, and a tall, dark-haired man began making his way toward them.
"Cliff Marleau," he said, extending his hand to Shane. Shane took it, though Marleau's grip was considerably stronger than his own.
"Chef Marleau is our sous-chef," Hayden supplied.
"Nice to meet you," Shane said, offering a small smile up at the tall man.
"You're the new front-of-house assistant manager?" Marleau asked. Shane nodded. "So you can make sure I don't work Sundays?"
Shane glanced over at Ilya, who had already snapped his head toward Marleau. "No, you can't. I asked Shane first."
"Let's head down to the wine cellar, Shane," Hayden said, already moving toward the back.
Shane lingered a moment, watching Ilya and Marleau bicker over who had the stronger claim to a Sunday off.
The wine cellar was cold against the thin white shirt he was wearing. It was a small space underneath the restaurant, filled to the brim with bottles tucked into thick wooden racks, labels marking their country of origin spread across each section.
Hayden slipped his phone back into his pocket. "He'll be here in a second — he's really nice."
"Okay," Shane replied softly, as Hayden launched into the wine menu and then some story about a guest who had wasted a thousand-dollar bottle of champagne on mimosas. The usual eucalyptus scent wasn't present down here — why would it be. It was probably piped through an expensive diffuser system upstairs, not something they'd bother with in staff areas.
The door opened with a creak and a slightly shorter man stepped in, cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and a visible shadow of stubble along his jaw.
"I'm Jean-Jacques, but please call me JJ. Nice to meet you," the sommelier said, his accent deeply Québécois.
Shane hadn't expected such a young sommelier. In his experience they tended to be older, pompous, and quick to bristle at any mispronunciation.
"Shane, nice to meet you," he replied, shaking his hand.
"We are all very glad you're here, Shane. I have been begging our lord and master to stop doing the rosters himself," JJ said, his hands moving expressively with every word, eyebrows doing most of the punctuation.
Shane smiled at that. It was nice to feel actually needed somewhere. Or at least appreciated.
JJ gave off almost no scent, which was unusual — even betas carried something. Either he had the best scent blockers on the market, or Shane simply couldn't place it from this distance. That was probably just it.
After nearly forty-five minutes of JJ holding court on South African wines and their pairings, Hayden had started yawning and dragged Shane back upstairs as the night shift slowly began filtering in.
"I wouldn't use that lift, by the way," Hayden said as they passed a small elevator serving the two upper floors. "People have gotten stuck in it for hours."
Shane grimaced at the thought. Hours, trapped in a box with a colleague — more than enough time for someone to figure out his secondary gender. Not that anyone had commented on it so far. Most of the staff seemed relaxed about that sort of thing, far more focused on the guests than on each other's biology.
"Let's go join the family meal," Hayden said, turning down the narrow hallway behind the restaurant that branched off toward either the kitchen or the guest area.
Several pans were spread out along the pass — noodles in one, satay sauce in another, pickled vegetables in a few more. Hayden handed Shane a plate and began piling on a generous amount of satay. Shane wasn't particularly passionate about staff meal food, but it was free, and he wasn't in any position to be particular. He'd finished college with almost nothing to his name and hadn't fully shaken that frugality yet.
The job paid well, though. Incredibly well for what had started as a side income.
He carried his plate into Le Vert and sat down beside a younger boy and a girl with reddish hair, Hayden already across the room giving the kitchen staff a hard time. The bitter orange scent drifted around him again.
The girl extended her hand immediately. "Rose, nice to meet you."
"Shane, likewise," he said, shaking it gently and smiling.
"This is your first day, right?" she asked, spearing a small pickled cucumber with her fork.
"Yes — it's been really nice so far," he replied, watching her wrestle with a second one. Her eyes were an uncommonly vivid blue, round and bright, striking against her red hair. She was already in her work blouse but her hair was still loose around her shoulders.
"Luca," said the guy on his other side, hand already extended.
"Shane," he replied, shaking it.
The conversation around their end of the table quieted naturally after Luca and Rose had asked about his previous jobs and experience, everyone settling into the food in front of them. Shane let his gaze drift down the table, the bitter orange still sitting at the back of his nose. His eyes moved to the cluster of kitchen staff at the far end, following the motion of the group until they landed on Ilya Rozanov.
He had heard the name before. His last workplace had tried to poach Ilya from the Michelin-starred kitchen he'd been running — a chef out of Moscow, apparently skilled enough that the whole of North America had been competing for him. After that many offers, each one bigger than the last, a person could be forgiven for being a little arrogant about it. Ilya was eating slowly, unhurried, half-listening to whatever was being said around him.
Then his eyes lifted from his spoon and landed directly on Shane.
They both stilled for a second before Shane pulled his gaze sharply back to his own plate, the bitter orange suddenly becoming a bit sharper. It would be strange, staring at a chef he'd only met an hour ago. Ilya would think he was odd.
The weird new assistant manager.
Rumors would travel fast in a place like this — everyone clearly knew each other well. Shane didn't look up from his plate again after that.
**************************
"Oh god, I'm glad that's over," Hayden said, dropping onto the bench in the small dressing room. Lockers lined the walls, shoes scattered across the floor. It smelled like a boys' locker room — which it was — but the potency was something else entirely. The women's locker room was next door, which was probably considerably cleaner given that it didn't absorb ten chefs' worth of sweat on a daily basis. Hayden and Shane had their backs to each other, changing out of their damp work clothes.
"Well — did you like it?" Hayden continued, turning to face Shane, shirt still off, a few scent patches visible on his skin.
"It was nice. I have a lot to learn, but it was nice," Shane replied, hoping that was sufficient. His feet were on the verge of cramping. He desperately wanted a shower, or failing that, just sleep. The thought of lying down had never been so appealing.
"So you'll come up for a drink?" Hayden asked, a small smile on his face as he began peeling away the scent patches. "I hate these fucking things," he muttered. With them gone, the basil came through stronger — deeper than before, and layered with something Shane hadn't caught earlier. Raspberries. Unexpected, given that he was fairly certain Hayden was a beta. Dual scents weren't common in betas — usually one, occasionally a second during heightened states. Shane didn't particularly feel like parsing the nuances of Hayden's scent profile after eight hours of near-constant movement across the restaurant floor.
The door swung open. A broad, muscled torso filled the frame, dress pants still on, a dark chef's blouse being pulled over the head and off. Shane looked away immediately, not wanting to make a new colleague uncomfortable.
"Blyad, finally," Ilya Rozanov said, and tossed his black blouse into the communal laundry basket in the corner.
Shane was now entirely certain. The bitter orange belonged to the absurdly talented, half-naked chef currently standing across the room.
Who was now peeling off his scent patches.
"Rozanov, you know I hate when you do that in here," Hayden said, raising his forearm to his nose, expression creasing. "Not everyone wants to be subjected to that."
"You love it, Pike," Ilya said, grinning — a full, wolfish smile, two very pronounced fangs catching the light. He crossed the room and pulled Hayden into a hug, ignoring every protest along the way. The proximity brought his scent into sharper focus: the bitter orange now undercut with something faintly peppery, the two notes combining in a way that shouldn't have worked as well as it did. Like reading a dish on a menu and doubting the combination entirely, then tasting it and understanding immediately.
They mixed well. Really well.
And Shane was fairly certain Ilya already knew that.
The two of them tussled while Shane finished getting ready, very much looking forward to his bed.
"Shane! Wait," Hayden called, extracting himself from Ilya's grip. "Please — come have a drink with us."
Us.
Him and Ilya?
Shane glanced between the two of them, carefully keeping his eyes above Ilya's considerably chiseled torso.
"One drink," he said finally, and smiled.
They headed up to the bar together, Ilya muttering something about needing to finish up first.
**************************
Ilya watched the door swing shut behind them, leaving him alone in the locker room. He lowered himself onto the small bench — the one he'd lobbied the company for months to install — his knees nearly giving out as he did. He let himself fall back against the cold tile wall, legs spread limply in front of him, head tilted up at the ceiling.
He exhaled slowly.
He sat there longer than he should have. And then something caught at the back of his nose.
Something sweet.
Something that hadn't been there before.
Something fresh — like a peach. Yes. That was it exactly. A peach. The scent had been trailing him all day, surfacing at odd moments, pulling his attention when he could least afford to lose it. He'd been on his feet since morning, tasting, adjusting, correcting — his entire profession was built around smelling things precisely, distinguishing between what was right and what was almost right. He held his team to an exacting standard. If he didn't, no one would.
And still, through all of it, the peachy scent had found him.
Could it be the new manager? The quiet one. He had seemed like a painfully straightforward beta — Ilya had been almost certain of it.
Almost.
His gaze drifted to the neatly folded server uniform left on the bench beside him. He reached over to toss it into the laundry bin.
His nostrils flared.
Peach. Jasmine. Something warm underneath, vanilla-adjacent — almost like maple.
God, it was perfect.
It carried the complexity of an omega's scent, though it could still be a very layered beta. The boring manager was a beta. A hundred percent. Absolutely no doubt about it.
The scent was faint where it clung to the fabric. He wanted more. He needed more clarity, that was all — just to place it properly, identify it, file it away.
He slowly raised the shirt toward his nose.
This was stupid. Anyone could walk in. Anyone could tell immediately that the scent wasn't his.
Smell it. Smell it. Smell it.
His hindbrain had stopped consulting him.
Smell it.
He felt a low rumble move through his chest, his alpha crowding out whatever rational, professional thoughts had been there a moment ago.
Smell it.
He brought the blouse up with enough speed that the fabric nearly caught his nose. He pressed it hard against his face and inhaled — mouth open, pulling in as much of the scent as he could. The small locker room began filling with his own pheromones, releasing in waves he wasn't making any effort to suppress.
He should stop.
He pressed the shirt deeper into his face.
The peach was soft and devastatingly sweet. He needed more of it. Just a little more.
This felt so incredibly wrong.
His pulse quickened and he felt his entire body heating up. His jaw was clenched so hard it almost hurt. Every muscle in his body tightened, working overtime, it hurt, after 12 hours of standing on his feet.
He hurled the shirt at the wall with enough force to surprise himself. It missed the laundry bin entirely, landing somewhere on the floor. He felt a brief, distant flicker of guilt for whoever would be cleaning up after him — but if he touched that blouse one more time he was genuinely concerned he might go straight upstairs, find the new manager, and put his mouth on his scent gland.
He had told Hayden he'd come for drinks.
He was not doing that.
He needed to go home. Shower. Shower again. And hopefully scrub the memory of that scent out of his skull before he had to walk back into this building tomorrow and smell it all over again, every single day, indefinitely.
He left the locker room at a pace that was almost running, the room now thoroughly saturated with his scent — fuck — and didn't slow down until he hit the cold air outside. He crossed the car park, got in, and pulled the door shut behind him so hard the whole car shuddered on its frame.
He sat in the car with his hands on the wheel and didn't move.
The heat hadn't kicked in yet and his bare arms prickled against the cold. He should have grabbed his jacket. He wasn't going back in for it.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and immediately regretted it.
The scent was still there. Faint — just a ghost of it — clinging to his skin from where he'd pressed the shirt against his face like an absolute idiot.
Peach. Jasmine. That soft, warm finish underneath.
He started the engine.
Sorry Hayden. Another time. Many other times, hopefully, until this became normal and unremarkable and he could stand in the same room as the new manager without his hindbrain staging a full revolt.
He pulled out onto the street and turned the radio up loud enough to stop thinking.