by Freya Barker
Gunnar purposely marches us through the alley to the back door, instead of going in the front. Once inside, he leaves me in charge of the kids and heads into the pub. Dino spots us in the doorway and leaves his stove to come give me a hug.
“Hey girl. How are you holding up?” If his words weren’t already a clear indication, the empathetic look on his face confirms it. Viv told him. I bristle at the invasion of my privacy, but Dino catches my stiffening.
“Don’t you dare get mad. She’s looking out for you. Like it or not, you are part of our fucked up family, and when that prick Winslow came in here and started spouting off some nonsense about death following you around, she jumped right down his throat. Fierce, that one is. I just happened to be within hearing distance.”
Instantly embarrassed that I’d jumped to conclusions, I blush and give him an apologetic smile. “You’re right. Thank you.”
Turning his attention to the kids who’ve seated themselves at the table, Dex distracted with his electronic game, but Emmy closely observing us, he walks over and leans on the table between them. “It just so happens I made old-fashioned Mac and Cheese tonight. You hungry?”
“With ham?” Dex wants to know, a big smile on his face.
“Is there any other way?” Dino answers, earning a ‘Yay,’ from Dexter and a smile from Emmy.
In no time at all, the kids are eagerly digging into their bowls of food. Leaving the mouth-watering smells of home-cooked foods behind and knowing the kids are good with Dino, I slip out of the kitchen and into the hallway where the sound of raised voices coming from Gunnar’s office gets louder and louder. It doesn’t take any effort to pick up on the owners of the voices, or the subject matter, which is me.
What the fuck?
Not sure how I became the subject of conversation under the circumstance, but determined to put a halt to it, I barge inside without knocking. I zoom in on Winslow who is sitting behind Gunnar’s desk. Ignoring the man standing behind him, the inspector I presume, and even Gunnar who is leaning over the desk, looking ready to pounce, I don’t hesitate tearing into him.
“What is your problem with us, Sergeant Winslow? I’d love to know how you explain barging in here on a Saturday night when the restaurant is packed with a health inspector, whom I think would likely rather be at home with his family?” A quick glance at the inspector’s face, a burly man in his fifties, tells me he is very uncomfortable and not happy about being in the middle of this. Too bad.
“Bird...” Gunnar tries to get my attention, but I’m not done yet.
I focus back on Winslow. “How is it I hear you bring up my name as some kind of justification for your presence here?”
With a nasty smirk on his face, Winslow shoves a piece of paper at me. “That’s easy, Ms. Donner. You’re here, just like you have been every time we’ve had trouble on the wharf. The notice you’re holding is a copy of a complaint from a patron who claims the food consumed here made her violently ill. A second such complaint just came in earlier today and leaves us no choice but to close down immediately until Mr. Walker here has had a chance to inspect the premises.”
I want to scratch the smug look from his face with my nails. “It’s bullshit and you know it. I’d like to know who launched these complaints.” I wave the paper in his face, but he seems unfazed.
“Can’t do that, Ms. Donner. That information is confidential and the complaints are anonymous, although the first one mentions you by name.”
That gets my attention. “Me? What about me?”
“Apparently you were responsible for the Thursday Special? Jambalaya, I believe it was?”
I now turn my confused look at Gunnar, whose expression I can’t decipher. “Yes, I was, but all the ingredients were fresh that morning. I don’t get it. We had no complaints.” I respond defensively.
“Actually, that’s the interesting part. The complainant indicates having reason to believe she was targeted by you specifically, Ms. Donner, which is the reason I am here. Having a certain ... familiarity with some other cases where your name has come up, alongside this establishment, was sufficient reason for me to suggest looking into it.”
To say I’m dumbfounded is an understatement. The anger that spurned me to burst in here is seeping out of me, replaced by a sickening sense of doom. I’m cursed. Just when I think I finally may have a foothold to a better future. My life is fucking unfair.
“Winslow. You and I both know that the complaint against Syd is bullshit. Have you even looked at the claimant?” Gunnar jumps in, stepping up beside me and sliding his arm around my waist. Leaning in close, he whispers in my ear, “Should’ve made you stay at home.”
So that turned around on me. Ready to throw myself down for Gunnar for a change, here I am, being held up by him instead ... again. I slump against him dejectedly, wondering who the hell would be responsible.
“Well, isn’t it interesting you’d bring that up, Mr. Lucas. I spoke to her today in fact. You’d be interested to know it was actually a former employee of yours. She had some concerns around the fact that Ms. Donner is preparing food without a Food Protection Manager license. Something that should concern you, Mr. Lucas.”
“I have a license, our chef has a license, and my manager has a license. We don’t all need one, and if you did your homework, Winslow, you’d find that in the small print of the Main Food Code. Only if we are unable to demonstrate appropriate knowledge of the food code would we be in violation.” Gunnar fires back.
“Actually,” Mr. Walker finally makes himself heard, “I—“
He doesn’t get very far, with Winslow cutting him off mid-sentence. “No one asked you,” he bites off in Walker’s direction. Turning back to Gunnar, his face is almost gleeful.
“Then it wouldn’t be so hard to tell me which one of you was with Ms. Donner Thursday, when she was preparing the special?”
In the momentary silence that follows, Winslow gets his answer. We don’t even have to say anything because I’m sure the looks Gunnar and I throw each other are testimony enough. Fuck. Last thing I want is to bring more trouble on the pub and Gunnar’s shoulders.
“Actually,” The health inspector tries once again with a sharp look in Winslow’s direction, “as long as one of the licensees has appropriately and adequately instructed and educated Ms. Donner, it would be entirely within the Maine Food Code and perfectly acceptable from the perspective of the Health Inspection Program.”
The anger radiating off Sergeant Winslow is palpable, and with a purely hateful glance at poor Mr. Walker, he forcefully shoves the desk chair back as he gets up and walks to the door. With a glance over his shoulder, he takes in Gunnar and I.
“Regardless, I’m shutting you down, Mr. Lucas. Right this minute. That piece of paper you’re holding gives me every right.” With that, he disappears through the door, Gunnar following behind.
I’m left with the health inspector who looks at me apologetically and I feel sorry that he’s been dragged into this. “I’m really sorry you were dragged into this, Mr. Walker.”
“Please,” he says, his hand raised. “I feel bad for you. I’ve never heard a bad word about The Skipper, and it’s never had any issues on previous inspections, so when the Sergeant called and said it was imperative to the health and safety of the pubic to shut this place down, based on some additional information he had received today, I had no choice. I promise to be quick and fair when I do my inspection.”
With those words, he too leaves the office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Syd
Much later, with all the patrons hustled out of the restaurant with refunds and credit vouchers in hand, and the kids already sleeping in the bedroom upstairs, Winslow and the health inspector leave. In one last aggressive move on his part, he refuses to accept Mr. Walker’s verbal report and forces closure to run the remainder of the weekend, until he has a written report on his desk on Monday.
Reality is, this will likely hurt the business. The rule t
hat ‘where there is smoke, there is fire’ upholds, where people will be thinking there was good reason for Health Inspection to close us down for two days. But I’m already thinking about ways to minimize the damage. I might just be able to get some help from Mr. Walker and in the meantime, I want to take care of these dejected faces around the kitchen table. Gunnar hadn’t been able to send a single person of his staff home. Even Leanne, who’d just started, showed her solidarity by staying.
Slipping out of the kitchen to the bar, I grab a stack of shot glasses and the bottle in the shape of a sunflower of good tequila under the bar. When I walk back into the kitchen with my hands full, I see almost every eye cautiously on me. A sudden fit of the giggles bursts out when I realize everyone, but possibly Leanne, thinks I’ve gone off the deep end until I produce a bottle of expensive Perrier from my pants pocket and set it on the table next to the glasses. “That green bottle is for me guys,” I chuckle, cracking the seal on the pretty bottle and fill the shot glasses to the brim for everyone else before picking up my green bottle of Perrier and holding it up.
The tension slips from Gunnar’s face as a smile settles in. With flourish, he reaches over and grabs a glass, holding it up as well. Everyone else follows suit.
“To a fucked up day and an amazing group of people,” Gunnar salutes, tossing the shot back before slamming the glass on the table. Everyone else does the same, except for Matt, who sits and regards the glass in his hand.
“Always wanted to know what a two hundred and fifty dollar bottle would taste like,” he says before he too tosses the drink back, leaving me with my mouth wide open.
“Say what? Two hundred and fifty?” My hand slaps over my mouth. I turn to Gunnar who seems to take it all in stride. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea!” I squeal, but Gunnar simply grabs me by the waist and pulls me down on his lap while the rest of them laugh out loud. “It was the perfect choice, babe. We deserved it.”
Gunnar
“Finally got yours,” Dino says as he gets ready to leave and stands beside me in the back entrance.
With the sound of only the wind, water and the echo of Dino’s words in my ear, my mind floats to the seriously fucked up day behind me, looking for the heavy feelings that I’d expect to find, but there’s nothing. Oh, there’s anger and frustration there, but the weight it carries pales in comparison to the lightness the woman who is upstairs, tending to my children, brings.
“Would seem so.”
I can still hear him chuckle as he makes his way down the alley to the parking lot, him being the last one to leave. I turn back inside and climb the stairs to fetch my family and take them home.
“Gunnar... please...” Syd begs as I tease her clit with my tongue.
It took me all of five minutes to convince Syd to come home with me. Took another five to get the kids back in bed once we got here. Since then, I’ve spent twenty minutes with her slick body in the shower, but my patience is gone. I need to feel her. I need to end this day, buried so deep inside her there won’t be room for anything but her in my heart and my mind.
Finally getting her out of the shower and into bed, I got to work. I lift my head from between her legs, where I’ve been teasing her and watch her hooded eyes spring open as I slide two fingers firmly inside her pussy. Bending back down, I put my mouth over her clit and suck hard while my fingers curve up inside her, detonating her orgasm. The walls of her pussy squeeze my fingers and her release coats my hand and my chin as she buries her moans in the pillow she’s clasping over her face.
“No hiding,” I say, climbing up her body and pulling the pillow away. “I need to see you.”
“The kids—“
“They’re fast asleep. Not even a bomb going off would wake them after the day we’ve had.”
With one hand in the mattress beside her, the other strokes her body from hipbone to shoulder. She’s filled out even more since she started working at The Skipper and I take my time looking at how her body has filled out. Everything is the perfect size, and I test every curve and valley of her skin. Her breasts, now a generous handful and so soft, I can’t resist leaning down and sucking a hard nipple into my mouth, causing her to hiss out her breath.
“Fill me...” she manages to say, and looking in her eyes, I see her need reflected there.
“Do you trust me behind you?” Looking at me with those big eyes, she simply nods her head. Sliding an arm under her, I pull her further up the bed and help her turn over. “Put your hands here.” I help her get on her knees, her hands grabbing onto the top of the headboard. She’s beautiful. Her copper colored hair is rippling down her back and over her shoulders and her full, round ass is sticking up in the air. After rummaging through my nightstand drawer for a condom, I make sure not to take any chances this time. I let my hand slide down the curve of her spine and squeeze the soft flesh of her cheeks before inserting one knee between hers. Spreading her legs wide, I slip behind her, my cock lined up with her entrance. Holding onto her hips, I surge inside her on a groan.
“Jesus, little bird—there’s nothing better.”
Feels so fucking good just to be inside her wet heat, pulsing around my cock. I watch our connection as I ease out of her, before pushing back home. With each stroke, it’s more and more difficult not to pound out my need inside her.
“Harder...” Her voice is soft, but firm. “I need to feel you.”
I raise my eyes to look at her and see her head turned to the side, her eyes focused away. Following her gaze, I see our reflection in the full-length mirror against the closet. Holy fuck.
“Like to watch, huh?” I growl behind her and our eyes find each other in the mirror. “Fuck, baby, me too. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Leaning forward, I curve my arm around her, spreading my hand on her lower belly to tilt her ass up a little more. With the new angle, I can hit her sweet spot every time I pump into her. Seeing her eyes glaze over in the mirror and feeling the pulsing of her heat around me tells me she’s close. So fucking responsive.
I let go of my control, thrusting my hips to hit her sweet spot every time, her soft moans spurning me on. Sliding my other hand from her hip and up between her breasts, I pull her up, pressing her back against my chest. Her head falls back to rest on my shoulder as my hand curves around her neck, feeling the fluttering of her pulse beneath my fingers. Close. So fucking close.
My other hand slips between her legs, finding her clit and pinching it between my fingers. My balls pull up in preparation and as she clenches around me in orgasm, my name on her lips, I furiously pump my release into her—eyes still fused on our reflection in the mirror.
I ease her down to the mattress, and quickly discard the condom before slipping in bed and curving myself around her from behind. In seconds I hear her breathing deepen and I just manage to whisper, “Love you, Bird” in her hair before I drift off.
I wake up with sunshine drifting in the room through the blinds. I’m in bed alone and lay still for a moment to listen for sounds coming from the bathroom, but hear nothing. A tingle of worry has me up and out of bed in a flash. Did she take off? I grab my sweats and pull them on before making my way downstairs. Hearing the voices of the kids and Syd in the kitchen has me leaning against the bannister in relief. Thank God.
Realizing I could’ve prevented a lot of the shit that went down the last few days, had I been more proactive, is sobering. I push off the wall, knowing I don’t want to leave anything else to fate.
When I walk into the kitchen, Syd’s in one of my shirts, hanging down on her like a dress, barefoot and flipping pancakes on the stove. The kids are on stools at the counter, eyeing every move she makes. I ruffle the kids’ hair in passing and step up behind her, slipping my hands on her stomach.
“Hey Dad. Syd’s making pancakes,” Dex points out unnecessarily, making me chuckle as I lean my chin on her shoulder.
“I can tell, kiddo. Looks good.” I lower my voice and whisper so that only Syd can hear, “You loo
k good. In my shirt, in my kitchen, cooking for my family. I like you here a fuck of a lot, Bird.”
Putting down the spatula, she turns in my arms and snakes her arms around my neck, leaning back to look me in the eyes. The emotion I catch in hers gives me a jolt, but the words she utters steal the breath from my lungs.
“Feels like home. This, them...you. It’s almost too much,” she whispers back. “A few months ago this would’ve been a dream I’d hurry to squash before I could catch up to the impossibility of it, and now? Now suddenly it’s become my reality and I’m afraid to believe it.”
I gasp in a breath with the release of tightness in my chest and slam my mouth on hers, drinking in all that she’s come to mean to me. “Eeewww!” Dex blurts out, causing Emmy to giggle beside him. Syd’s mouth forms a smile under mine as I pull back.
She turns back to the stove and with a small squeeze to her hip, I turn around and cross my arms on my chest as I look at the faces of my children. To my surprise, it’s Emmy who carries the wide smile, but Dex’s face is clouded with concern.
“Talk to me, kiddo. Something’s bugging you, I can tell.”
He flicks his eyes down to the counter after throwing a surreptitious glance at Syd’s back. Picking up on the hint of tension creeping into the room, Syd turns around and takes in Dex’s lowered head.
“First load of pancakes, coming up,” she says as she turns back to the stove to pull the pan off the fire and grab the plate already stacked high, sliding it on the counter. “By the time you guys are done with these, I’ll be back. Just going upstairs to clean up.”
With a smile and the tiniest of nods in my direction, she walks out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
The message is clear; she’s giving Dex space to talk, and I love her more for it.
“Dex?” I prompt him the moment Syd leaves the kitchen. His eyes slide up to mine with a world of heartbreak showing in them, making me realize I didn’t have the first clue what lived inside my son’s mind.
