by Teagan Kade
Gordy’s house is an old Craftsman made of mixed stone with a wide porch I spent way too much time dreaming on when I was younger. He’s the one who owned the soup kitchen, who took me in and finally provided that father figure I’d never had.
He pulls the door wide with his signature smile. “Heather! What a nice surprise? Come on through.”
Something smells amazing, but that’s Gordy for you. He’s always been an incredible cook—also the reason he’s pushing three-hundred pounds these days. Six-foot-six to match, he’s always been quite the imposing figure, but now he’s nothing short of a giant.
He directs me to a chair at the kitchen table, darting over to the stove. “Let me just get these eggs off the heat. You’re staying for breakfast, right?”
“Well—” I start to protest, but I see him serving me up a plate regardless.
“You know what the secret to a good Hollandaise sauce is?”
I do. He taught me. “Handheld immersion blender,” I reply. “It provides enough heat to temper the egg yolks and voila, keeping in mind to add the butter slowly.”
He turns around still beaming that smile that seems to draw everyone to him. That’s what I’ve always loved about Gordy. You can’t help but be swept up by his soft, gentle nature, his endless positivity. “That’s my girl.”
Technically, we’re not related, but I do consider him my surrogate father of sorts. When I showed up to the soup kitchen he ran, he never pressed me or thrust a bible in my hand, never had any other agenda than making sure I was fed and looked after. Soon I was the one doing the serving… then the cooking… then staying in the granny flat down the back of his place, completely free of charge. I owe him more than he can ever imagine and yet he asks for nothing. That’s the kind of man Gordy Yates is. I don’t know where I’d be if he hadn’t taken me under his wing.
He sets a plate before me loaded with enough Eggs Benedict for a small family, but I won’t waste a morsel. I know better than that. “Bon appétit,” he says. “You got a shift at the Academy today?”
I nod dig in, trying my best to talk through mouthfuls. “Any word on the soup kitchen?”
A month ago the state funding for Gordy’s soup kitchen was stripped away, and so was the lease on the building. The whole reason I’m working at Crestfall is to save enough money with some of the others from the kitchen to buy a food truck or space so we can get back to helping people.
Gordy doesn’t turn around, looking out the kitchen window. “As far as the Powers That Be are concerned, no, we won’t be seeing any funding, but the upside is we don’t need a building, a brick and mortar place to help those in need.”
As positive as Gordy is, it can be hard to help him see the obvious sometimes. “We don’t?”
Now he turns, seating himself at the table opposite me and the poor Windsor chair he’s sitting on openly groaning in discontent. He taps his chest. “The soup kitchen is an idea, an ideal, and it lives in here, in all of us.”
I try to tread carefully, stabbing at an egg. “True, but doesn’t it help to have a physical location where people can come to?”
He smacks his hand on the table. “We could set it up right here in the house, do it old school.”
I doubt the Powers That Be would be open to such a compromise, but I don’t vocalize my thoughts.
He reaches over and places his hand on mine. “Look, Heather, I know why you’re working at the sports academy. I know you and the other guys are trying to put together money for a truck, and I appreciate it, I really do, but that money should go to you. You should keep it, enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”
Enjoy myself—there’s a foreign concept.
Bet Phoenix King could help with that, my head interjects. I ignore it.
“You helped me get my GED,” I tell him, “get financing for culinary school. I think it’s time I gave back to you.”
He pulls back shaking his head. “You’re too kind for this world, Heather. I hope you realize that.”
I keep eating. “As you yourself like to tell me, kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.”
“Amen.”
He picks up his fork and knife and digs in himself. For such a large man, he stills eats like an old nanna, bite by bite, chewing thoroughly. There’s a properness about him that belies his giant stature.
“Say you were to get this truck happening,” he starts. “How would it work?”
Now we’re talking. I act casual. “We’re still several thousand short of being able to buy the equipment we’d need, so I’d say it’s a tentative project at the moment, but we’re determined to see it through.”
“And how’s life, generally? I haven’t seen you for what, a week, and here you come in looking like you’ve been five rounds with Ronda Rousey.”
I’d totally forgotten about the black eyes, but like I said, Gordy’s never been one to push. “I was mugged, actually.”
He drops his fork, immediate concern flooding into his face. “You were what? Did you call the police? Did they find him? How bad are you hurt?”
I lift up my knife hand, holding a couple of fingers out. “I’m fine, Gordy, honestly, and yes, I put in a report with campus security. They’re looking into it.”
“But—”
“I’m fine,” I reiterate. “It’s not like there was much in my bag worth a damn—five dollars at most, a packet of gum. Besides, someone was there to help me, wanted to go running after the mugger, in fact.”
“Oh?”
I chew over how much to tell Gordy, but we’ve always had an honest and open relationship. That’s another one of his sayings: Honest hearts produce honest actions. “You might know him—Phoenix King. He’s like a big basketball player on campus.”
Gordy places down his utensils. “Did you say ‘King’?”
“Yeah. Is something wrong?”
Gordy places his hands together, but I don’t think we’re about to pray given the increasing concern I’m seeing. “You know, I went to Crestfall in my heyday.”
I’ve heard this story many times. “You were the best linebacker they’d ever seen, before you blew your knee.”
“That’s right.” He looks down at himself. “I wasn’t always like this. Some have even said I was quite the looker in those glory days.”
“So I hear.”
He waves his hand. “Anyhow, Stone King was the team’s quarterback.”
“Phoenix’s father? You were in school with him?”
“I was and I know a lot about the sports legacy that’s attached to that name. You know it’s unlike me to speak ill of anyone, but it was well known what the King name meant back then, and I don’t imagine much has changed now. You’ve probably heard the rumors, but I saw it with my own eyes.”
This is unlike Gordy. “What are you trying to tell me?”
He exhales. “Boys like that, Heather, they have a reputation. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I never even said I liked him.”
All Gordy has to do is raise an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. “Fine, I’ll be careful. Yes, I know he’s a player, a bad boy, but nothing’s going to happen. Trust me.”
He leans forward and places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. It’s like someone’s dumped a load of bricks there. “I do, always. You know that.”
I nod and we go back to eating, but I can’t seem to shut off my brain. I should heed Gordy’s advice. It has never once put me wrong. I should cancel my forthcoming date with Phoenix, but the more I try to will myself to do it, the harder it seems to become.
*
I’m still thinking on Gordy’s words when I arrive for my shift. He’s the best reader of people I know. I can only imagine what Stone King got up to back in the day. I don’t imagine he spent his free time hanging around the library with his face buried in a book.
Maybe buried in something else, my head offers, but I tamp it down. The last thing I need right now is that kind of gutter thinking.
It is surpr
ising then I spend most of the morning constantly checking the doors, waiting for Phoenix to arrive.
You’re obsessed, I tell myself. He’s only going to use you.
But the Phoenix I met wasn’t the overt player I expected. Sure, there were glimpses of it, but I saw something deeper there too, something I’d like to explore other than that delicious body of his.
By lunch I’m checking the clock so much I miss a poor girl’s plate entirely, feeding the floor with pepperoni pizza instead.
By 1 PM I’m a bundle of nerves, unable to stand still and wondering what kind of weird time machine has suddenly made me fifteen and hormonally unstable again.
I actually breathe a sigh of relief when I see him walking in, smiling away like he owns the world, stopping to talk to everyone, it seems. He’s popular. There’s no doubting that.
Calm your farm, Heather, I remind myself as he joins the line, replacing my look of expectancy with one of apathetic cool.
He sees right past that, of course, standing in front of me smirking. “You’re pleased to see me, admit it.”
I try to suppress the smile. “I will admit to nothing.”
“And yet your body’s giving everything away.”
“You want the pepperoni or the Hawaiian?”
He licks his lips, watching me. “I want it all.”
Oh, God. I’m losing it. I slide him a slice of both, adding another for good measure. “Since you’re a growing boy and all.”
“I thought extra servings were against policy.”
“Do I look like I follow the rules?”
“Hmm,” he moans, looking almost amused before moving along down the line.
I take a breath when he’s gone, my entire body suddenly a maelstrom of excitement and nerves and just downright horny as hell. He barely said a word to me and already I’m dreaming up the many ways he could please me.
I watch as he takes a seat at a table close to the serving line, eating but eyeballing me the whole time. I’ve never seen anyone eat pepperoni pizza and make it look so damn sexual. I try to ignore him, I really do, but my eyes keep ping-ponging between him and the next student in line.
He takes forever to finish, finally going to stand… only to reach into his bag and pull out his laptop and a textbook, studying right there, watching me over the top of it. He’s waiting on me, I realize.
When the lunch rush is finished, I take the opportunity to stroll over and seat myself before him. “So, what are you doing? There are about ten thousand far more quieter places to study around campus, you know.”
He closes his laptop, leaning back with his hands behind his head. “And yet I can only seem to find you here.”
“I’ve got to work.”
“And I will be here when you finish, make sure you’re safe when you leave.”
“You’re being serious?”
“Deadly,” he replies, rocking forward, “plus I want to make sure you’re not going to cancel our date. Don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking forward to it all day. I don’t do well with disappointment.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. I take the cue to lean back myself, assuming the role of the inquisitor. “We should talk about that. It might explain a few things.”
“On our date, we can talk about whatever you want, but it is happening.”
“So you’re just going to sit there?” I check the clock on the far wall. “You do realize I’ve got to clean up, probably be here for another three hours at least. That’s a long time to wait.”
“Ah, but the best things in life are worth waiting for.”
“Fighting for,” I add.
“Believing in,” he continues.
“And just damn well never letting go of,” I finish, surprised he knows the quote, another one of Gordy’s many go-tos.
I have to press my tongue into the side of my cheek to stop myself smiling, standing and unsure what to do with my hands. I kind of place them together in front of me. “Better get comfortable then.”
Phoenix lifts his laptop lid back open and places his fingers on the keyboard, pretending to check something in the textbook to his right. “Oh, I am comfortable—perfectly comfortable.”
I don’t know what else to say, so I leave him to it while I busy myself cleaning up with the others, but the whole time all I’m thinking about is him—painful, persistent, glorious Phoenix King.
CHAPTER FIVE
PHOENIX
I may have my laptop and textbooks out, but I’ve barely paid them attention, splitting it instead between Heather and the clock on the wall.
The sun’s setting outside, the dining hall empty, and the last of the staff passing me by with a quizzical expression on their faces. If my calculations are correct, and they often are, Heather’s the only staff member left.
Get back to work, I tell myself. Time will go faster.
But five minutes later I’m back to clock-checking my ass off. I close my laptop and pack everything away, leaving my bag under the table while I stand and make my way to the kitchen area.
It’s strange being on the other side of the counter, probably raises a bunch of health and safety issues, but I have to see Heather. I’m too restless to sit over there on my hands playing the waiting game. I’ve got to move, be proactive. It’s always been that way, part of what makes me such a great baller.
There’s a certain sterile charm to the commercial kitchen beyond, faint smell of ammonia and cleaning chemicals. I navigate my way past the equipment, past a pot that looks like it could hold a human being.
“I might just have to put you in it.”
Heather’s standing in front of me with a dishtowel over her shoulder, an apron on that’s far too tight—not that I’m complaining.
I approach her slowly, running a finger along the counter and holding it in front of my face. “Spotless.”
“The cleaners clean the kitchen, dumbass.”
I shift my eyes to the dishtowel. “And I suppose that’s just for looks?”
She pulls it off her shoulder, twists it up, and flicks it at me. The tail of it cracks an inch away from my groin.
I jump back. “Whoa, watch the boys.”
“What?” she laughs, whipping at me again but catching the side of a counter, the metallic ring signaling she could more than hold her own in locker room combat.
She pulls up, tossing the dishtowel back over her shoulder and leaning her hip against a counter. “Students are not allowed to be back here, you know.”
I look around. “And yet here I am.”
“Wow, you guys really do think you own the place.”
I shrug. “What can I say? Being a King has its perks.”
She thumbs behind herself to the wet area. “You know how to wash dishes, big boy?”
I stand up a little straighter at that. “Mmm, pet names already, and what am I to call you?”
She smiles. “How about boss lady?”
I’ve never been the submissive before, but I suppose it could prove interesting… as long as she doesn’t take that dishtowel to my ass. I have a mental flash of it connecting with the back of my ball-sack and I damn well want to scream the pain’s so vivid.
I look past her to a pile of plates, pots, and pans, none of them clean. “You’ve got to get through all that, yourself?”
She turns and slow walks in the direction of the wet area. “The sooner I finish, the sooner you get me all to yourself.”
“Well then.”
I follow behind, standing next to her at a sink so big it could double as a jacuzzi.
“You do know how to wash a dish, don’t you?”
I laugh it off. “Please.” But truthfully, the last and only time I had to wash a dish was camping, and all that meant was dipping it into a river.
She senses my hesitation, always keenly aware of what I’m thinking. I have to watch that.
She reaches over me and takes hold of what looks like one of those handheld shower nozzles. As she stretches h
er shirt pulls tight against the underside of her breasts, the shallow curve of shadow there enough to get my dick jumping in my pants.
“Here.”
I take the nozzle and test the trigger, watching water shooting out hard, and hot. “Magic,” I tell her.
She gives a stunted laugh. “You take a dish, spray it down here, in the sink, and then put it here, into the rack,” placing her hand on each station. “It’s really quite simple.”
I look to the pile. “Animals, all of them.”
She ignores that, moving further away from me to where a box kind of contraption with a large handle is—kind of a giant sandwich press. “Once you’ve rinsed and racked everything up, I’ll load the dishwasher.”
I select the least disgusting plate, firing away at it with the nozzle and watching, with some pleasure, as the grime is stripped away.
I fumble a bit at first getting used to the process. After all, this is my first time in a commercial kitchen. It’s not long, however, before I’ve picked it up, smashing through the pile and racking the dishes faster than Heather can load them. That’s another King trait: we learn hella fast. You take a process and you break it down looking for areas to improve and optimize. I use it in basketball all the time—good old economy of motion. It’s no different here. Dare I say Heather is even impressed as I move onto the larger containers and pans.
I rack the last of them and clean off my hands, standing back and clapping them together. “And that’s the buzzer, ladies and gentlemen.”
With a huff Heather pulls the dishwasher door down, setting it to run, steam billowing from the sides. “Not so fast, mister.” I look around but can’t see any more dishes. “That’s it, right, boss lady?”
She jerks her head towards a station in the corner. “I’ve still got to chop and prep for tomorrow. You ready to bail yet?”
I don’t give up. I’m going to prove that to her. She can have me making Baked Alaska next. I do not care. I’ll do whatever it takes to get to this date and win her over.
I cross the kitchen with her to the prep station. She reaches under the counter and hands me a pair of silicone gloves.
“Bit early in this relationship for that, isn’t it?”
