Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he saluted.

  Two fifty pound bags of rice went into his cart, and one underneath Gable’s.

  “Has she had any fish?”

  “No. We’re not really big on fish,” Gable told her.

  “Ooh, oil’s on sale,” she said, grabbing four of the gallon jugs, two to a cart.

  “What will we have tonight?” Jerome asked, leaning over the child seat.

  “Pasta,” she replied, scanning shelves.

  Twenty pound bag of pastry flour. Another of white enriched. Ten pound bag of sugar. Two boxes of sugar cubes. Boxes of corn starch, bags of powdered sugar and brown sugar. A sifter from the overhead pegs. She’d bet a thousand dollars they didn’t even have one at the warehouse. She would simply buy everything she knew she would need.

  “Anyone clip the coupons out of the Sunday paper?”

  “No.”

  “You sell them in the video store, right? Bring me all the coupons each Sunday. I’ll do it.”

  “Gonna turn all Dottie Domestic on me?” Jerome teased.

  She ignored him. Three of the largest jars of peanut butter into Gable’s cart and one into Jerome’s. Two each of the largest jars of grape and strawberry jellies. And a small blackberry jam into the child seat of Gable’s cart.

  Biggest cans of tomato puree, sauce, paste, and diced. Gable’s cart was full so he went to get two more. She grabbed the jam out first to put into the new cart with other things that would be for herself. Jerome’s was getting full as she added cans of tomato products while Gable was gone. Plus the biggest cans of vegetables.

  To the meats and Jerome halted her. “You feeling better?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine now. I didn’t mean to lay all that on you like that but you deserved to know.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I want us to be upfront and honest, babe. And I can be very patient.”

  He kissed her cheek quickly, before Gable returned.

  “How full is the freezer?” she asked.

  “Not very,” Gable replied.

  She scrutinized prices, buying several big whole chickens, the largest pack of bone-in and skinless breasts.

  “Don’t you be doin’ that,” she suddenly said as a guy stacked steaks on his arm.

  “Doin’ what? I ain’t doin’ shit.”

  She faced him head on. “You’re gonna go down aisle three an’ stuff all that down your pants. My groceries cost enough as it is. Get a fuckin’ job, ya parasite. Get outta my store and don’t come back.”

  He dropped the steaks in the case and left. Muttering, she picked up those same packages and put them in the cart she was using for meat. A whole ham selected, she went to the door of the meat cutting room and asked them to slice it up in half inch increments for her.

  “Didn’t you used to be a thief?” Jerome teased her.

  “Used to. Not now. An’ he ain’t gotta. It’s construction season and he could get a job easy. He just too fuckin’ lazy.”

  Following the perimeter of the store, they ended up in the dairy section. Three pound boxes of American cheese slices. Biggest bricks of cheddar. Biggest tubs of margarine. Several boxes of salted and unsalted butter. Biggest containers of sour cream.

  “Why not just get shredded?” Jerome asked when she came back with a two pound block of mozzarella.

  She pointed to the price per pound on the brick in her hand. “Three dollars.” Then the price per pound for a single bag of shredded. “Five dollars a pound. I just saved you four bucks with this one brick. Times fifty two weeks is over two hundred bucks a year on this one product. We’ll take two minutes to shred the fucking cheese when we need it.”

  “Well, okay then.”

  Three of the dozen and a half packs of eggs went in next.

  Jerome stood with the four carts in the front of the store while she and Gable went back for other stuff from the middle aisles.

  “Don’t get in line yet,” she said to him. Then to Gable. “What you got for spices?”

  “Garlic powder and parsley.”

  She loaded up in the spice area, picking the biggest containers of things she knew she’d use the most, and sea salt. And nonstick spray. And…to the tools. She picked out new of everything, including a teapot.

  “Ooh, coffee grinder!”

  “We don’t have beans,” Gable said.

  “Yeah? Wanna go to Los Angeles with me and buy directly from a big roaster? Or to Kona, Hawaii and buy directly from a grower who will roast it for us while we wait?”

  “Okay, I’ma like you a lot.”

  Fifth cart full, they got in line. She had them put onto the conveyor while she bagged and kept a thought on the prices.

  “Nope, that one is on sale,” she said when the cashier scanned the oil and it came up full price.

  The manager came over to override and Tyler asked if her friend could start taking out the first cart. The manager looked to Jerome.

  “She’s spending all my money here.”

  The manager smiled. “Yeah, go ahead. I know you’re good for it.”

  “Put all of this directly behind the seats,” she said to Gable.

  By the time he came back, the second cart was ready and she was working on the third.

  “Same place.”

  The third went out and she had Jerome loading his carts onto the conveyor. Last item scanned, total button hit, he stared at the number and shook his head. He wrote a check, which the manager had to come back to approve because it was so large.

  “End of the van,” she said, looking over the five foot long receipt as they neared the vehicle. “We’ll go to the wholesale place tomorrow.”

  “Are you actually intending to spend all my money?” he had to ask.

  “Nope, but I’ll give you a gray hair or two, old man.”

  He gave her a smart spank that made her laugh.

  “Oh, that is not good,” Gable commented.

  “What?” Jerome asked.

  “You give her one that hard an’ she laughs at you? You two are gonna break furniture by the time she gives it up.”

  “You an’ Star break furniture now. You ain’t been past second base,” Jerome taunted.

  “Prolonged foreplay, bro. I been lettin’ her win to get her hotter. She’s about ready to burst, man.”

  Jerome laughed and closed the doors. The back full of bags, Gable took the passenger seat with Tyler sitting between his legs for the short ride.

  “Everything at the end goes into the side store room,” she pointed. “Put the bags of rice as is into the bin and seal it.”

  “Call Tony down to help with the rest,” Jerome said to Gable.

  “Why?” Tyler countered, and teleported with all the bags and jugs.

  “Wow. That is such a turn on,” Gable stared at the empty space, a bag of rice in a bin between his hands.

  “Yeah, and she’s mine, so keep yer paws off,” Jerome said, already on his second trip.

  “I would never dare touch her. I might, however, think about her now and then when I jack off,” Gable said as he followed.

  “That’s gross, man. I don’t wanna hear that shit.”

  “What? You mean you don’t?”

  “None of your business,” Jerome said.

  Big cans into like groups on shelves at the door end.

  “We’ll hit the army surplus store an’ get some cots and blankets this weekend.”

  “We plannin’ on havin’ company?” Gable asked.

  Jerome quietly told him about the possibility of refugees and the plan for Safe Haven.

  “Well, if we need more room, we can move all that stuff down to the basement. Then we got room for a good forty cots in neat rows rather than stuck between heavy machines. Be safer for kids.”

  “Good idea. I got a meeting with Warren. Will you help Ty?”

  “Planned on it,” Gable said, locking the room.

  A jog up the stairs while Jerome went through to his office, and Gable found the pantry doo
r open with Roc and Star already putting canned goods onto the shelves. Tyler was going through the fridge.

  “How old is this?” she asked, holding out a gunky jar of jelly.

  “Umm…”

  “That old?” She dropped it into the trash can beside her. “How old is this? Never mind. It’s a science project.”

  Bowl dumped and teleported to the sink. Most bottles and jars went into the trash as she checked dates.

  “What you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Put each fish filet into a small zipper bag for me. Lemme know when you’re done,” she replied, moving things to the door of the fridge.

  “What now?” Roc came out to ask, happy that something big was happening in the kitchen.

  “Sit and write down all the foods you do and don’t like,” Tyler told her, putting a pen and small notebook she produced from thin air onto the table.

  “Oh. But I haven’t tried much,” Roc said, eyes wide and earnest for wanting to do this.

  “You’ll come with me to the store and we’ll sample our way through the produce section,” Tyler said. “Start with what you know. Make a like column and a dislike.”

  “Done,” Gable said.

  She took the baggies to the sink. “Put four skinless breasts into each baggy, two bone-in breasts together. It’ll be easier to pull out exactly how many we want and they’ll thaw faster in smaller packs in water.”

  She filled the fish baggies halfway with water and put them into a gallon size bag with FISH marked on it. Steaks were next. Three skirt steaks into a bag with garlic from the jar and just barely covered with oil. Second bag, same thing but with dehydrated onion. Set aside while she did the same with London broil steaks, two to a package.

  “Do you have clothespins?” she asked.

  “Ummm…”

  “That means no,” she decided, and conjured up a package.

  She showed him how to carefully remove the air from the big bags, seal them and fold over the tops and hold it with clothespins. Everything portioned out and in the freezer, cutting boards and knives into the dish washer, and hands washed fresh, she took a breath to change gears for production rather than prep.

  “Okay, biggest pot of water on the stove to boil and I’ll start the pasta,” she said, and went to get cans from the pantry.

  “We don’t have a pasta machine,” he said.

  “Don’t need one,” she replied, getting vegetables out of the fridge.

  She started opening cans. In went garlic, oregano and basil, then a can of tomato paste and five cans of water. Then more garlic and basil.

  Flour measured onto the counter, she got cold water out. Gable watched her mix and knead, add a little more flour.

  “How’s the water?” she asked.

  “Slow goin’,” he replied, looking into the pot to see barely any movement.

  “Next time don’t put the salt in until the water is almost boiling. Salt makes it take longer to boil. Put a lid on. Keeps the steam inside instead of putting all the humidity into the air on a hot day. When it finally boils, turn it to low. It’ll take less time to bring back up.”

  Pasta sitting to rest, she went to the pantry to organize some more and make a mental list of other things to get.

  “Where’d you learn to cook?” Gable asked when she came out forty five minutes later.

  “Twenty different planets,” she said, cutting the dough in half.

  She rolled one into a snake two feet long. Holding both ends, she stretched and twisted, fold, stretch and twist, about ten times, adding flour as she went. Then she pulled out wide.

  “Two.”

  Fold, ends into one hand, straight fingers into the loop, pull.

  “Four. Get me the kitchen scissors and a big bowl.”

  Repeated pull.

  “Eight. Sixteen. Thirty two. Sixty four. One twenty eight. Two fifty six. Five twelve. One thousand twenty four.”

  End into the bowl, she cut it off with the scissors and taken out, she cut in seven inch increments up to the top.

  “Too cool!” Gable exclaimed at the mass of noodles in the bowl.

  “One more batch to go.”

  “Can you teach me?” he beamed, excited to learn.

  “Sure. Roll it out into a snake.”

  She turned the water back on to bring back to a boil, and talked him through the procedure while she checked on the bubbling sauce.

  “Pull farther,” she said when he was hesitant. “Don’t be afraid of it. It’s just pasta.”

  He did, and twisted and pulled and succeeded through the second big pull before losing control. “Oh shit!”

  “Just put the end on the counter,” she said calmly, stirring and dipping a small spoon into the sauce to taste. “It can only go one way, so pick up the end, straighten it and keep going.”

  He did and got to 1024 strands. Bottom cut off like she did, cut into increments, one big ass bowl of spaghetti. Then they made ricotta cheese ravioli with the scraps. That done, he diced up two green peppers and a huge onion. Large fry pan out with oil to heat, she tasted the base sauce and tossed in three sugar cubes and another sprinkle of dried basil. Onion and peppers in to sauté with Gable tending them, she mixed garlic from the jar and parsley into a cup of margarine. Smashed together with a fork to mix well and she put her hand into a fold-top sandwich back and spread it onto the big loaf of Italian bread she’d split into top and bottom.

  Taking a breath, she opened a bottle of wine and poured out for all four of them. Glass in hand, she sat to look at Roc’s list.

  “What about peaches?” she asked.

  “Which are those?”

  “Fuzzy ones.”

  “Not tried,” Roc said.

  “Pears?”

  “Which are those?”

  Tyler levelled her gaze on Roc. “Have you been anywhere outside this building? I mean other than Giuseppe’s?”

  “I go for a walk in the neighborhood almost every day.”

  “You’re going to start going places with me,” Tyler informed her. “We are going to start going to the mall and shopping. You’re going to live a little if it kills me.”

  “I have no money,” Roc said.

  “I do.”

  She went back to dump two cans of diced tomatoes into Gable’s pan and brought a spoon full of sauce back for Roc to taste.

  “That’s good!” she exclaimed, with her energy about lighting up the entire room.

  Tyler smiled and took the bowl of noodles to the water now boiling again.

  “Put all that into the sauce,” she told Gable as she added pasta to the water in fistfuls. “Do you have a lettuce spinner?”

  “No.”

  “Shit. Okay, we’ll do fruit instead.”

  Pasta in the water, she got out the papaya and mango and started peeling.

  “Taste the pasta,” she said after four minutes.

  He fished out a piece to taste. “Done.”

  “Okay, switch. You finish the fruit.”

  With the large wire scoop, she moved piles of steaming, dripping spaghetti from the water into the pot of sauce. Half in, she poured the rest of the spaghetti into a colander in the sink and rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking. Bread into the oven. Sauce pot stirred up again, the drained pasta went into a plastic bag and then into the fridge.

  “Something smells good,” Jerome said as he came in.

  “Tyler’s doing the cooking from now on,” Roc told him.

  “So I see. Need any help?”

  “Yeah, open more wine and tell Tony dinner’s ready,” Gable said, taking the mango/papaya bowl outside.

  Coming back in, Tyler pointed to the heavy spaghetti pot and stuck the handles of two spaghetti scoops into his back pocket. She turned the cutting board over and took out the bread to slice and pile onto a plate in top/bottom pairs.

  “What? No meat?” Jerome asked, half teasing when everyone was at the table.

  “We are having a mostly vegetarian meal,” s
he said. “Not gonna kill you to have noodles without chunks of cooked cow for once in your life.”

  “Noodles she pulled by hand, I might add,” Gable said, scooping onto a plate.

  “So did you,” she returned.

  Around the circle it went, plates handed to him, scooped onto and handed back. Tony came up and took the last seat, almost opposite Tyler. Jerome was next to her in the shade, smiling a soft “Hello” to her, and Tony’s eyes made disapproving note. Jerome filled the group in on the likelihood of refugees and that they’d be housed in the basement if they came here. Safe Haven would also be turned into a refugee center if needed.

  “What’s this?” Roc asked, holding up a bright orange cube.

  “Papaya,” Tyler told her.

  “I like it.”

  “Good. A new food for your list. The other is mango.”

  The guys quickly went back for a second serving, and then a third.

  “This is good, Star,” Tony said.

  “Uh…actually, Tyler cooked,” she replied. “And Gable.”

  He looked across the table at Tyler, at Jerome. He said nothing audibly. Tyler heard every foul word, however. Third bottle of wine empty, Star and Roc began to clear the table. Fruit and bread were gone. Leftover pasta went into a bowl and Tony went to his room to sulk.

  “That was terrific, babe,” Jerome said, holding Tyler’s hand.

  “Thanks. I try.”

  “What’s for dessert?” he grinned.

  Gable vacated the table. “Ah, jeez.”

  “Where’s the nearest DQ?” she asked Jerome.

  “That what you want?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “No.”

  “No? You just said—“

  “I want us all to go…or no one goes.”

  A slow grin crept across his face. “When you decide to join the team, you go whole hog.”

  Her bashful smile was adorable, and he lifted her chin to look deep into her eyes.

  “You’re not the only one who can’t say no.” A gentle kiss. “Lemme know when they’re done. I’ll be in my room,” he said, leaving the table.

  He left her sitting alone in thought as the table cleared around her. Then Julian was on the deck. She was on her feet hugging him hard.

  “I’m glad to see you too,” he chuckled, and froze as Jerome, Gable and Landra Ahr all came out with guns ready. Tony was three seconds behind.