~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~
Jewls
I hesitated at that. God he had taken my breath away, sucked it all clean out of my lungs.
“I’ve…been burned.” I managed to say.
He considered that and nodded. “Someone hurt you?”
“You could say that…” I muttered.
Again, a nod. “As I thought. You had your confidence knocked.” He thought for a minute and sucked his bottom lip into his mouth between his teeth. God that was sexy as sin. “Okay…so that’s fixable. Just…spend some time with me. And I will show you how a real man treats a lady. We’ll do this the old fashioned way.” He grinned. “Let’s start…what do they call it? Courting.”
I giggled at that, couldn’t help it. “Courting? What, are you gonna woo me with your gentlemanly charms and old school manners.”
He nodded, still smiling but clearly serious as well. “Jewls, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
And I realised then that he already had me. I just wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~
Micah
I worked my shift at the restaurant with my usual professionalism and skill, and how I managed it I do not know. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jewls. About the idea that someone had hurt her, and hurt her badly and it was because of that dickhead – whoever he was – that she was completely unable to let me in, to trust me. I couldn’t really blame her, I mean my behaviour had been less than perfect thanks to Alex, but it bothered me.
I wondered if it had something to do with her moving here, I wondered if she had run from something. God I so badly wanted to make it right, I wanted to…I don’t know, heal her. Make her truly happy because I could tell she wasn’t. I thought about that empty fridge and it made me feel sad and somehow inadequate. How could I care about her and not want to do something about that?
By midnight there was just one table left in the restaurant, and wouldn’t you know it, it was mine. Business types, discussing the pros and cons of moving their head office to Dubai, oblivious to my standing a respectable distance from them, staring into space waiting to be summonsed like some sort of house slave to bring more wine, or such like.
I found myself wishing it were a café, then we could at least have tidied up the rest of the place ready for shutting. That wasn’t possible in Carousel. When you’re paying what people paid to eat in Carousel, the staff putting chairs up on tables and folding up the table linen while the clients were still there was very bad etiquette. It all had to be done when the last paying customers had left.
So I just stood there, in the way that Nic had religiously taught us to stand – presentation was everything to him – my right arm across my stomach, the other behind my back, standing up straight and tall, legs together, no slouching or shuffling about and I waited. It suddenly dawned on me that this was why we were called waiters.
My mind started to wander to Jewls again, this time to nicer things. To her smile, to her laugh…the dimples in her cheeks and the freckles across the bridge of her nose. And then my mind wandered further still…and I pictured her in her onesie, hair all messed up from sleep.
And then I made what could easily have turned out to be the biggest faux pas of my professional career, if you can call waiter service a profession.
God help me, I got hard.
Jesus, what the hell could I do? Desperately I tried to think of the least sexy things my mind could conjure up
Theresa May…Boris Johnson in a mankini…Theresa May, kissing Boris Johnson in a mankini…
I swear, I could practically feel the beads of sweat on my forehead multiplying…my heart rate increasing and decreasing as I willed the blood flow away from my damned disobedient cock back to the rest of my body. I squeezed my eyes tight shut, and thank fuck felt my erection fading. Good God, what had happened to me?
I opened my eyes again and let out a sigh of relief that I had gotten away with it. Until, that is, I saw the woman at my table – the only woman with three men – looking my way with a knowing smirk.
Shit.
She raised a hand in the air, never taking her eyes off mine and clicked her fingers. “Waiter?”
I managed somehow to get my feet to move and walked over to them, feeling a serious case of the blue balls coming on.
“Yes, ma’am?” I heard myself say.
“Could we have the bill, please?” she said, with a salacious grin.
I nodded respectfully. “Of course.”
After they had paid, I stood by the register waiting for them to leave so I could kick off my shoes and get myself a large whiskey from the bar. They hovered in the doorway for a moment, and then the men left. The woman stopped and turned on her heels, heading straight for me.
I placed her age at around forty-five, but then I might have been being kind there. She was immaculate in her appearance, pretty but not stunning. She had an air of desperation about her that was a complete turn off, although in her defence since I had met Jewls I couldn’t seem to find any other woman appealing, sexually or otherwise.
She smiled as she reached me and I smiled back politely. “Was everything to your satisfaction?” I asked and she scoffed just a little.
“I’ll say. I was recommended this restaurant by my sister. She said the food was outstanding and the service delicious.” She put a hand to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oops…did I get that the wrong way around?” she looked me up and down like a fat kid looks at chocolate ice cream and licked her lips dramatically. “No…no, I don’t think I did. So…are you finished for the night now?”
Crap. “Um…soon. Have some tidying up to do first.”
“I’m staying in a hotel just down the road. Wondered if you might fancy maybe…joining me?”
“Ah…tempting as that is, ma’am…I have a girlfriend waiting for me.”
Okay, that was technically a lie, but not really…in my head and my heart I already saw Jewls as my girlfriend, even if she had yet to see me as her boyfriend.
The woman frowned. “Oh…that is a terrible shame uh…uh…what was your name again?”
“Micah…” I said, wishing she would just bugger off.
“Mmm…Mmmmicahhh….” She purred, stretching my name out in a way I think was meant to sound sexy. If it had been Jewls saying it like that, it probably would have been.
And there went my cock, trying to stir again.
She grinned again and leaned in close. I felt her hand actually brush my cock, and exhaled a little at the contact – I was already in love with Jewls, but I’m still just a man – and I felt her slip something in my pocket.
“That’s for you, Micah. A tip for your service…and the uh…the show. Urgh…and you smell so good…”
She gave me an exaggerated wink and a sigh of regret and walked off, leaving me speechless. After she had left, the door swinging shut, I looked in my pocket and pulled out a roll of notes. A quick count and I realised she had given me five hundred pound.
Not bad for one night’s tips.
I stood there, staring at the wad of notes in my hand and laughed to myself. The door to the kitchen swung open and shut, and my sister Mari came out, drying her hands on a tea towel.
“Thank God for that, Micah. Ooh, where’d you get that?”
“The woman off my last table there gave it me as a tip.”
She raised her eyebrows. “How much?”
“Five hundred.”
“Wow!” she frowned suspiciously. “What did you do for that? Or…what are you gonna do for that?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not a gigolo Mari.”
She smirked. “There’s something sexual involved. So…you gonna tell me, or not? The truth?”
I groaned. Damn her. My inability to lie was legendary in our family. Nic said it was like I was permanently hooked up to a lie detector test and I would be zapped if I wasn’t a thousand percent honest all the time.
“Okay…look…between you and me, here�
��s what happened. I was just waiting for them to finish and my mind started to…wander. I got thinking about Jewls.”
She nodded. “Nic told me you had your eye on some new girl.”
“It’s more than that.” I said quickly. “She’s more than some new girl…”
Mari smiled. “Awe….is my bro in love?”
“Yes.” I said, without hesitation, surprising even myself and instantly sorry for saying that.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed happily. “Awe, my favourite brother is in love! Wait – what’s that got to do with you getting an epic tip?”
I rolled my eyes. “As I said…my mind started to wander. I got to thinking about Jewls. My thoughts got…personal, and I had…uh…a reaction.”
She thought about that, and then I saw the realisation sweep over her face and she burst out laughing. “Oh my God…did she see?”
I felt the blush spread across my cheeks as I nodded. “I reckon so. She invited me back to her hotel. I told her I had a girlfriend and politely declined.”
“So Jewls is your girlfriend?”
“I’m working on it. But I certainly don’t want some quickie in a hotel room with some middle aged business woman. I don’t want anything with anyone else.”
“Awe…you really are smitten. So this woman, she out and out told you she saw it?”
“No! But she said the tip was for the service and…and…” I cringed, “and for the show.”
At that, she burst out laughing again. Nic chose that precise moment to come in and looked at us both. “What’s so funny?”
Luca and Kris were behind him, two of my other brothers.
“Micah was waiting for his table to finish, he was thinking about Jewls and he got a stiffy! And the woman saw it and thanked him for the service and the show! Tipped him five hundred quid!” she practically squealed.
I turned to her incredulously. “Fuck you, missus!”
Nic clipped the back of my head, hard. “Don’t swear at your sister, Micah!”
Luca and Kris were giggling in the corner and I flipped them both the finger. They both burst out laughing. Nic noticed and smirked.
“Well, Micah…you know what we do with tips. In the pot.”
I nodded. That was the deal, no matter what the amount, it went in the pot and was shared equally between us. Only this time, I hesitated. It had occurred to me, that maybe I could do something about Jewls. It would be a risk, but then the phone had been a risk but it had paid off. It all just depended on how proud she was. I decided it was worth the risk.
“Actually…I wonder if I could keep this?”
Nic looked up at me, surprised. “What?”
I held my hands up in defence at the four pairs of eyes staring at me. “Not for me. I took Jewls for breakfast this morning, and while I was waiting for her to get ready, I had a little look around. She’s moved up here from…somewhere, lived here a month and she’s still waiting for her first wage packet. She had…a drop of milk and an egg in her fridge. She has nothing to her name. She hasn’t asked me for a thing, and never would but…I want to give her this money.”
Mari put a hand to her heart and sighed. “Oh you’re so smitten.”
I rolled my eyes at her, smiling until I saw Nic’s frown. “I’ll put it in the pot if you want.” I said and he shook his head.
“It’s not that. Are you sure it’s a good idea, giving her money? She might take it the wrong way, be offended.”
“Yeah, Nic might be on to something there…” Mari said.
I nodded. “I know…I get it, but she can refuse it if she wants, I can’t force her to take it. I just want to try.”
Nic shrugged. “Well, it’s up to you. You uh…earned it.” A ghost of a smirk spread across Nic’s face and it gave them all permission to burst out laughing again.
~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~
Jewls
I tried to tell myself it was perfectly normal to decide, on the spur of the moment, that I fancied a walk – at half eleven on a Sunday night. I tried to tell myself that is was purely a coincidence that my random, impromptu walk had me going past Carousel – four times, back and forth. I tried to tell myself that I only sat on the bench across the road to rest my weary legs, tired after the twenty minutes I had been idly strolling past the place where Micah just happened to be working that night. I tried to tell myself that I only had the hood up on my jacket to shield myself from the cold – on a warm May evening – and not because I was hiding.
But the truth was, I just wanted to see him. I remembered his words that morning, when he had said I probably missed him seconds after he’d let me go the night before. He had, of course, been spot on. I always felt kind of empty when I wasn’t near him these days. When he wasn’t close by it was like a great void appeared in my life.
Carousel really was a beautiful place. Not somewhere the likes of me could ever eat without sticking out like a sore thumb, but beautiful nonetheless.
The whole front was glass, floor to ceiling windows, slightly tinted but giving a perfect view of the restaurant inside. The name Carousel shone above the windows in silver lights, all fancy writing. Inside, the tables were all glass, with dark wood chairs, each table with a clear vase and single red rose in its centre.
I guessed the night was drawing to a close. From what I could see from my secret vantage point in the shadows, there was only one table of diners left, three men and a woman clearly discussing business and taking their sweet time about it.
That was when I saw Micah, and right on cue my heart rate increased considerably. Okay, so I knew it was a high end kind of place, I knew it was very formal, I knew that. But I was still not prepared, not at all, for seeing Micah dressed as he was. In smart black trousers and a white shirt he looked positively edible.
He was standing so perfectly still he looked like a statue, his posture perfect, his eyes fixed on something on the wall I couldn’t see. One arm was spread across that magnificent toned stomach of his, the other held behind his back and I realised he was just waiting for that one table to bugger off before he could go do anything else. Were they completely oblivious to him stood there looking so tired? Could they not see they were the last ones? Some people could be so ignorant!
Oh but wow, he looked so damn gorgeous. I was literally swooning, and probably drooling too.
Eventually they left, but then the woman turned and walked back to him. I watched their exchange carefully. The woman had her back to me, but even so I could tell she was flirting with him. He was smiling at her, nodding along to whatever she was saying. And then she leaned in close to him and right before my eyes rubbed his crotch before slipping her hand into his trouser pocket, patting him on the bum and sauntering off. As she came outside I had to resist the urge to run across the road, rugby tackle her to the ground and slap her silly. I had felt a huge wave of jealously, and worse, inadequacy watching their exchange. I glanced back at him, to deflect my attention away from the middle aged tart clip clopping down the road in her cheap stilettos to find Micah was now standing talking to a young girl. Christ, he was always literally surrounded by women, wherever he went and whatever he did. It occurred to me that even if by some miracle that went against the laws of nature he did become my boyfriend, there would be no way in hell I would ever be able to hang on to him for long.
He was laughing about something with the girl who had come out from the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
Now there were five of them – Micah, three other men and the girl and they were all chatting away, obviously very comfortable with each other.
It occurred to me then that if the last of the customers was now gone it was just a matter of time before the place shut and Micah would be heading out to go home. The absolute last thing I needed was to be sprung here spying on him.
With that thought in mind I reluctantly stood and headed for the flat.
Chapter Seven
~~~~~~~~~~***~~~~~~~~~~
Je
wls
When I woke the following morning I was surprised to find it was gone nine. Thank goodness it was my day off. I checked my phone to discover a text from Micah, sent at 6.45am. God, he can’t have gotten any sleep at all.
Morning beautiful. Wishing you a lovely day off. Have a duvet day, you’ve earned it! I’m in today, eight until four. Come by at twelve if you fancy it, have some lunch with me, yeah? Lots of love, M xxxx p.s. look on your doormat and please don’t get mad. Seriously. I’m just trying to help. Xxxxx
I frowned and it took all of five seconds to bolt out and downstairs to check what he was talking about.
I took the non-descript brown envelope and ran back upstairs with it, flopping on the sofa and tearing it open. What I found inside took my breath away.
In the space of ten seconds, my emotions shifted from confusion, to excitement, to shame and then settled on anger.
How dare he? What made him think I needed this? And then I remembered him in the flat, catching him rummaging through my cupboards.
Oh. My. God. He thought I was some sort of desperate pauper who couldn’t afford to feed myself.
Oh, this was just too much, with the phone as well just…too much. The flat might not have been much, and I might not have much in it, but it was mine. I had found it, I had provided a roof over my own head and I was paying for it. And I was going to go shopping in my own time.
I certainly did not need someone I had only just met really; someone I had started to believe might respect me after all, posting wads of cash through my door to supposedly help me out. Couple that with giving me a phone and telling me – telling me – I wasn’t going to pay him back for it, cause he could afford it, like it was nothing at all, and it smacked of controlling behaviour. Money might mean nothing to the likes of him, when he had enough to place stupid hurtful bets, buy expensive phones and stuff an envelope of cash through the letterbox of a girl he had just met but it meant something to me, and more importantly it meant something that I was going out and making my own money, supporting myself.
Gypsy Kiss: Book 1: Micah (The Gypsy Kiss Series) Page 9
