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"Some," he told me. "They call my best friend Sugar."
Oh, a third party.
That was safer territory, wasn't it?
"How'd he get that name?"
"You should ask him yourself. He likes telling it." My head jerked up, finding him watch me as I added too much sugar to my own coffee since I was distracted by trying to resist the urge to just tell him to take me, end the dry spell like he promised back at the bar. "Come to the clubhouse tomorrow night. Celebrate your newfound employment with some booze and interesting conversation. Don't," he cut me off when he knew I was about to object, "say anything now. Think on it. Decide later. Tomorrow night. After eight. Thanks for the coffee," he told me, taking a giant swig of mine that was now loaded down with so much cream it was barely warm anymore. "Go wash out those cuts," he added, making it to the door in about two strides, and letting himself out into the hall.FOURFreddieRoot vegetable au gratin.
The perfect minestrone soup.
And baked macaroni and cheese with that crispy top layer and melt-in-your-mouth gooeyness hidden within.
That was what it took.
To go from a complete wreck to having to stifle a chuckle as Abby leaned back in her chair making vaguely pornographic noises as she ate.
"I forgot how good food tastes when you don't have to make it yourself."
By the time I had shown up at her door, Abby's apron already looked like it had gone to war. As did the kitchen area where she had six separate to-go orders in the works all by herself, making me wonder why she hadn't reached out for help instead of waiting for it to show up at her door.
By the looks of things, she might have simply not had the time.
Her only employees were two delivery people - one a single dad who worked the shift while his daughter was at school, an efficient, but unfriendly man who barely spared me a glance, and a part-time college student with striking good looks and an outgoing, friendly personality, all white teeth and shining green eyes, singing some song I had never heard as he collected the bags for delivery.
"So, what is your schedule like?"
Aside from the light stalking I did when Thad wasn't around to see it... "Open."
"I generally like working the night shift. It probably would creep anyone else out anyway - being here all alone. But it's the busiest time of day. I thrive on the chaos. But my shrink says I need to thrive a little less on the chaos. Meaning giving up eighteen-hour days and learning to delegate and trust people and yada fucking yada. So here I am. Offering you day shift. After a training period, of course. You can't jump into this without learning the curve. Um. I will look into benefits for you, but that might take a bit. And... what the hell else are bosses supposed to ask here?"
"References?" I suggested.
"I don't need anyone else telling me you can cook. I have taste buds."
Even if she doesn't ask, you gotta tell her, boo. Thad's words came back to me, making my palms wet, having to wipe them on a rag before starting to move my dishes to the sink.
"There is one thing I should probably tell you," I started hesitantly, back to her, hoping that would help me get the balls to say it.
"Should is a bullshit word. Should is what this guy told me about taking a chance on his pierced dick, saying it would rock my world when, in actuality, it, in fact, felt like my pussy turned into a tackle box. But go ahead."
"I just got out of prison." There. It was out. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by Andre the Giant, but it was out.
"Did you kill someone? With a cleaver? Melt them in a vat of acid? Oh, no, maybe shot the prick who was beating on you and threw him into a river with cement shoes? Maybe..." I turned as she spoke, lips curving up as her excitement - and the ludicrousness of her imaginary crimes - grew. "Sorry," she said, waving her fork toward the flatscreen hanging down from the wall. "I am a sucker for Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, pretty much all the files. And A Killer in My Family, A Killer Next Door... well... all the killers too."
"Maybe that is why you find it creepy in here at night," I suggested, wiping a few splatters of cheese off the counter.
"Maybe. But anyway... statistically speaking, there are enough laws on the books in this country now that the average citizen commits three felonies a day without realizing it. And you could get locked up on bullshit charges for inhumanely long stretches for any one of those when you catch a judge on a day when he has heartburn and his wife refused to fuck him for the tenth year in a row, and then get sent away because the prison-industrial complex makes bank off of the heads in the beds and because society is brainwashed into thinking prisons work when all the data collected since the eighties proves exactly the opposite... and, yeah, this is my way of saying fuck the system. You're still hired. But don't steal from me because I will meat cleaver the shit out of you and melt you in a vat of acid."
