Iron Born (Iron Palace Book 1)

by Lisa Ferrari

  “You’re not a shitty friend.”

  “Yes I am. I was totally flirting with Kellan the other night. I totally tried to get into his pants. I’m such a bitch. There is a special place in hell for women like me.”

  “Don’t say that. You just let your hormones get away from you a little. Kellan has that effect on people.”

  “People?”

  “He told me all about the number of times gay guys tried to pick him up. Happens a lot.”

  “That’s understandable. If I were a gay man, I’d try to turn him.”

  “You’re a straight woman and you tried to seduce him.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?”

  Denise stares at me fixedly. This is truly bothering her.

  As it should. What she did was…low.

  But she did put Stacy in her place on my behalf while everyone else was laughing at me.

  And if I’m honest, Denise is pretty much my only friend. I’m friendly with the people at work; I’ve known them for several years and we all go out sometimes. And now I’m friends with Kellan. But that’s not quite the same. Denise and I have been friends for almost a decade. I don’t want to throw that away over a guy. Even if the guy is Kellan, a man whose babies I want to have. Besides, Denise has admitted what she did and said she was sorry and she’s concocted this elaborate girl’s night as a means of atonement.

  “Yes…I forgive you, Deni.” I fix her with a pointed look of my own. “But you absolutely positively, without a doubt must must must swear on your ovaries and on the lives of your unborn children that you will never, ever, EVER do anything like that to me ever again. EVER. Because if you do, that’ll be it for us being friends.” And as I say it, I know that I mean it. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “You swear?”

  “I swear.”

  “Pinky swear?”

  “Pinky swear. Whatever that means.”

  “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Okay.”

  Denise smiles and gives me a big hug. “I love you, Claire bear. My little Clarice.”

  This is weird, but I say it back. “I love you, too.”

  “So, what did we decide about all this junk food?”

  “Let’s eat it. All of it.”

  “Really?” She’s genuinely surprised.

  “Yeah. Screw it. It can be my boost meal. Besides, my ass and legs are killing me from last night. I squatted 225, by the way.”

  “Seriously? I can barely do 135.”

  This may be the first time I’m better at something than Denise is.

  I take a moment to savor the emotion.

  And then I look at the pizza and brownies.

  I make a pact with myself to work out extra hard tomorrow. An extra hour of cardio. I’ll get up and go for a run tomorrow morning before breakfast. Kellan can’t be too pissed about the pizza and margaritas and brownies as long as I’m sticking to my workout split.

  I grab a glass and fill it to the rim with strawberry margarita. “Cheers.”

  Denise toasts. “To Claire bear. May she and Kellan have a long and happy life together and may she get her vajayjay drilled so hard every night that she can hardly see straight.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  And we do.

  AN HOUR LATER, the pizza is nearly gone. The margaritas are nearly gone. And the brownies are completely gone.

  As is Denise.

  As am I.

  Holy moly what was I thinking? I’m a total lightweight. Despite my size, I get drunk just looking at alcohol.

  Denise and I are sprawled out on opposite ends of her sectional. Her sectional isn’t as big or as plush as Kellan’s but it’s very nice. Both pizza boxes are on the coffee table, along with the empty glass pitchers and the empty brownie dish. I’m eating a big log of raw cookie dough with a fork. Everyone always freaks out when you eat raw cookie dough. I’ve been doing it since I was little. Beth and I used to do it every time my mom baked cookies. We’ve never had a problem.

  Denise took her jeans off some time ago and is spread-eagled on the sectional wearing only her black panties and tank. If the pizza delivery guy could see her now.

  Me, I’m wearing sweats and my Iron Born tee shirt. I figured I might be spending the night at Deni’s so I brought a change of clothes. I feel a bit conflicted wearing this tee shirt, which reminds me of Kellan and of health and fitness and supreme, godlike sexiness, all of which are in violent opposition to gorging myself on all this food.

  Too late now.

  And it was all soo good.

  The cookie dough is divine. Denise and I spent about two seconds considering whether or not to bake it into actual cookies, but that would’ve been far too much effort.

  We are thus ensconced on the sofa.

  “So, what’s the deal with you and Kellan, anyway?” Denise asks.

  “What’s the deal with me and Kellan? Kellan and me. That is the question. ‘To be, or not to be? That is the question: Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, something something something. Hamlet? Or MacBeth? No, Hamlet.”

  Focus, Claire.

  “What is the deal with me and Kellan?”

  “Is it serious?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “If you’re not sure, then it’s not.”

  “Wait!” I hate the way she jumps to conclusions. I want to tell her that it is, that it is serious; VERY serious. “How do you know if it’s serious?”

  “You just know. You know how you feel, and if you see yourself with this person long-term. Do you see yourself being with Kellan long-term?”

  “Definitely.”

  Oh wow. I said it. I said it before I had time to think, to stop myself.

  Denise smiles. “Really. Well there you go. And he feels the same way?”

  That I can’t be as sure of. But I want to hope so. “I hope so.”

  “Have you had sex?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Have you said I love you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Have you spent the night at his house?”

  “Yes! That we have done.”

  “And you slept together in his bed?”

  “Oh yes. It was probably the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. Except I was pretty horny. And he was too. So we were a little restless. But it was still great. I love being at his place. I love being with him. I love working out with him. I love talking to him. I love just listening to him talk. I love being naked with him.” My heart rate quickens and I feel myself lubricating at the very thought of it.

  “Does he really have a big dick?” Denise asks. Before I can voice my outrage, she rushes on. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to give me details. I just need to know if he’s hung like a Budweiser Clydesdale in a Superbowl commercial or if he’s all shriveled and gross from the steroids.”

  “Okay, A, he doesn’t do steroids and he never has. And B,…” I choose my words carefully, knowing Kellan doesn’t like this kind of thing. But I’m unable to stop myself. “Yes, he has a huge dick. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t say that and please don’t tell him I told you and I’m not saying anything else, I swear. Except that yes, he has a huge penis and it’s big and it’s thick and it’s beautiful and I adore it, okay? I love stroking it, I love having it in my mouth and I desperately want it inside me. And as far as I’m concerned, Kellan can put it wherever he wants. In my mouth. In my vagina. Up my ass. I don’t care. I love it. I don’t care what my mom thinks about me having premarital sex and I don’t care that I’ve only known Kellan two weeks and I don’t care if he dumps me a month from now, okay? Because I love him and I love his big beautiful penis and I love his perfect body and I love his house and I love his ridiculous cars and I love his swimming pool and his hot tub and I love his bed that’s like sleeping on clouds and I love flyin
g First Class with him and I love the way he holds my hand and the way he always introduces me and the way he always feeds me. He believes in me. No one else does. I don’t even believe in myself most of the time. But Kellan believes in me. That I know. I have no idea why he came over and started talking to me that night at the gym and I have no idea why he’s with me when he could be with a girl like Stacy or a girl like you, but he seems interested in me. He’s made two passing remarks about getting married and he mentioned having kids and he mentioned buying a bigger house because there’s no room in his garage for the new Aventador. And call me crazy but when he said it I swear he was implying that we would buy a house together, like, we would go house shopping together and we would pick it out together and we would live in it. Together.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked.”

  Denise sips her margarita, silent.

  Finally, she says, “You love him?”

  I sigh. I’m so sick of asking myself that. “I don’t know. I–”

  “You just said you do.”

  “I did?”

  “Totally.”

  “What did I say?”

  “I asked about his dick and the steroids and you said his penis is big and thick and beautiful and you love it and you want it up your ass and you don’t care what your mom thinks and that it’s only been two weeks and you don’t care if he dumps you a month from now because you love him. And his big beautiful penis and his body and his cars and his house and his pool and all that other stuff about sleeping on clouds and him holding your hand and feeding you and believing in you.”

  I really said all that. Wow.

  “That’s good,” says Denise. She’s smiling. “Now you know how you feel. But is it good that you guys are going so fast? I’m not trying to start shit, okay? I’m not. But as your friend, it’s my duty to look out for you. I don’t want to see you get hurt. And you guys have been spending a lot of time together. How many times have you been to his house?”

  “Almost every day.”

  “Is that a good idea? I know we can’t help who we fall in love with. Lord knows I’m aware of that. But you guys have been spending a lot of time together. You’ve hardly been at your apartment at all. You haven’t been over here to spend time with me even once until now. The other night doesn’t really count. You used to come over two or three nights a week and we’d hang out and watch TV and have girls’ night. You’re changing everything about your life for him. You’re changing the way you eat, the way you exercise, spending time with your friends, how you live your life. All you ever talk about is your muscles and how sore you are and your training split and fasted cardio and your body-fat percentage and Kellan says this and Kellan says that. Next thing you know, you’ll be quitting your job and going to work as a personal trainer in some gym somewhere, training middle-aged fat women and forty-something guys with male-patterned baldness trying to get in shape for their midlife crisis so they don’t look quite as ridiculous driving around in their brand new Corvette with some blond gold-digging bimbo in the passenger seat offering to suck them off in exchange for breast implants and tuition for massage therapy school.”

  I’m dumb-struck.

  I am angered by every word coming out of Denise’s mouth. Yet I know there is truth to what she says.

  “Look, Claire bear, I don’t want to mess with your head and undermine your guys’s relationship. Okay? That’s not what I’m saying. If you’re happy, then fuck me and what I think and fuck everyone else, too. To hell with all of us. You need to listen to your heart. But if it were me, and trust me on this because I’ve had my heart broken once before, if it were me, I’d slow down. Don’t lose sight of who you are because you’re so excited about being with him.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I eat my cookie dough.

  THE NEXT DAY at work, I am not happy.

  I didn’t get to have phone sex with Kellan. I only received a handful of text messages from him saying that he’s swamped and that he barely had time to eat and that he’s living on protein bars and he hopes he isn’t constipated.

  I didn’t get up in the morning and go for a run for my fasted cardio.

  I didn’t wash my clothes in Denise’s machine the way I’d planned and now my stupid tuxedo shirt has ring around the collar and smells like onions, and my stupid men’s work pants have a white stain on the thigh that Monica Lewinsky would be proud of.

  I feel like crap. I feel bloated and fat and disgusting.

  Most of all, I’m angry with myself for eating ALL THAT FOOD. And for drinking an entire pitcher of margaritas.

  How I didn’t spend the night vomiting is a mystery.

  Oddly, I’m not really even that hungover. I have a very mild headache and I’m thirsty. Other than that, I feel okay.

  Oh, except for feeling bloated and fat and disgusting. I swear my stupid shirt and pants feel tighter than they did yesterday before I ate all that crap. I know sodium can cause water retention but good Lord. What a difference 24 hours can make.

  Even my mom and sister notice. I stop by my parents’ house on my way to work to say hello and visit for a bit.

  I ring the bell and stand on the front porch, waiting, like a stranger, because my parents asked for my house key back the day I moved out.

  My mom opens the front door. She has a silver triangular pie scooper thing in her hand and is wearing her Jesus Loves My Cookies apron. She looks me up and down, and says, “You’ve put on a few.”

  “No hug? No kiss? No ‘Hi, sweetie, what a nice surprise!’? And you wonder why I’m a moose.”

  “Oh, Claire. So dramatic.”

  She turns and heads for the kitchen, leaving me to close the door.

  I follow my mother to the kitchen table where she and Beth are enjoying coffee and warm cherry pie. My dear, hyperobservant, but perfectly tactless and equally clueless mother cuts a huge wedge of cherry pie, puts it into a bowl, a big bowl, microwaves it until it is hot and steaming, and then scoops two GIANT balls of Haagen-Dasz Vanilla Bean ice cream on top and plunks it down on the table in front of me. Along with a spoon. And a pat on the shoulder.

  I eat the whole thing.

  And the worst part is that I relish every…single…bite.

  It’s the happiest I’ve been since Kellan left.

  For some reason, this strikes me as odd.

  Finding pleasure in food is one thing, but the pie and ice cream have me feeling almost carnal. The hot pie melts the ice cream. The crust is light and flaky and absorbs the sweet vanilla cream. The cherries are plump and hot inside. The treat is warm and cold at the same time. It’s sweet and velvety on my tongue as I swallow.

  I’m so happy.

  Until the lecture begins.

  Good ol’ mom and Beth.

  You can always count on them to give you their opinion no matter how badly you don’t want to hear it. Too bad my dad’s not here; he could look down his nose at me while he scours the whole of cyberspace for another golf app for his cheap Chinese tablet that takes seven minutes to boot.

  I sit quietly, orally copulating with my dessert while my mother and Beth each state, at length, and then reiterate, numerous times, how foolish it is for me to continue seeing ‘that bodybuilder’. Especially with a nickname like Killer.

  And the worst part is that, when I’m getting back into my filthy car to drive to work, thoroughly sick on cherry pie a la mode, I almost agree with them.

  Thirty minutes later, I’m at work, in the kitchen, putting water in half the 72 pitchers of ice to be placed on the 18 tables while the tea brews for the other half. Chris deposits a dirty pan on the dishwasher station. He sees me and I see him. Nowhere to run.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.

  “How’s Kellan?”

  “Fine, I guess. He’s out of town so we haven’t really talked.”

  Chris comes over to me and leans against the coffee maker. I still need to make coff
ee. And get the coffee pots off the shelf. And tray the salads. And make lemonade. I hate making lemonade. I don’t know why; I just do.

  “Did you hear they’re thinking of making me Head Chef?” Chris asks.

  Wow. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, Hoyt got a job in San Francisco at that garlic restaurant so he’s leaving. They’re interviewing a few outside people but Nancy said they may hire from within. I hope I get it.”

  “Yeah, me too. That’s awesome. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Chris is all smiles. As he should be. “You, um, want to come over tonight?”

  Crap; not this again. I should tell him that I’m not interested in dating him, that I simply don’t see him that way.

  Be honest.

  Upfront.

  Let him have his dignity.

  It does take courage, after all, to continue asking me to do stuff socially in a do-you-want-to-date-and-hopefully-get-naked kind of way.

  But I chicken out. I quickly fabricate a complete falsehood.

  “Oh, I can’t. I already have plans. You know my friend Denise, right?” Chris nods; he’s met her at the Turtle four or five times. “I’m going to her place after work. Pizza, margaritas, brownies. Girl time.”

  “That’s cool.”

  Chef Hoyt pokes his head through the line at us. He’s tall and blond and is always talking about windsurfing out at the lake and about how much Folsom Lake sucks for windsurfing and how the Bay is so much better.

  “If you two are done making babies, Chris, the rib eye isn’t going to get drunk all by itself.” Hoyt disappears into the walk-in.

  Chris leans closer to me and looks around to make sure we’re alone. “Just between you and me, even if they don’t give me the job, I’m glad Hoyt’s leaving.”

  I am too, but I keep my mouth shut. I loathe, with a capital L, workplace politics. We’re all here to make money, so everyone should just be cool and work, not make remarks like the one Hoyt just made. I could probably go see Janice in Human Resources and complain, but that wouldn’t make my life any easier.

  I just want to get out of here so I can go train and then go eat something that is not pizza and brownies.

  I CLOCK OUT at the end of the shift and head to my car.