by Alexa Land
“You already helped by running to the market for me, and Elijah is going to be here soon to take care of the things you mentioned.” Elijah was a sweet kid who worked at the ranch, and we’d gotten to be friends over the last few months.
Gianni chewed his lower lip for a moment before asking, “Are you sure? It goes against my better judgement to leave you alone when your back is out.”
“I’ll be fine! Go see your family.”
“Well…alright.” He bent to kiss me, and then he said, “I’m going to check in a lot though, and if you need anything, you have to promise to tell me. I’m only a few minutes away, and it’s no problem to come back here and give you a hand.”
I reached up and ran my fingertips over his cheek. “I promise to tell you if I need something.”
“Okay. I guess I’m going then.” He kissed me again, then straightened up and gestured at the sea of grocery bags on the counter. “The guy at the gourmet market told me he had to make some minor substitutions with your order, but he said he included everything on your list. I’m curious why you wanted me to go to that shop, instead of the regular grocery store.”
“I figured it’d be extremely crowded the day before Christmas, so I wanted to be able to call in an order that could just be picked up. The regular market doesn’t offer that service. Also, some of my recipes are on the fancy side, so I had to go with someplace posh for the specialty items I needed.”
Gianni looked concerned. “I hope you’re not putting too much pressure on yourself with a complicated menu.”
“It’ll be fine. Like I said, I’ve got it all planned out. I love you, Gianni. Have fun with your family.”
“I love you too. Good luck!”
Once he was gone, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled a scrunchie from the pocket of my faded jeans, and gathered my hair into a messy bun. It was time to get to work.
But when I started unpacking the groceries onto the counter, I quickly realized I was in way over my head. I didn’t even recognize the first few objects I removed from the bags. One looked like a ball of fungus you’d pluck off a tree in the forest. Another was a citrus fruit of unknown origin. The truly horrifying item was a two-foot-long branch, totally covered in little green balls. I murmured, “Bloody hell,” as I held the thing up and examined it from all angles.
By the time Elijah arrived maybe twenty minutes later, all the bags were unpacked, and I was sitting there with a dazed expression. He was a petite little thing with blond hair and a thin frame, and even though he was twenty-one, he looked considerably younger. I always felt fatherly toward the kid, although just like with my son, Elijah had it together far more than I did and really didn’t need me to look after him.
He seemed concerned as he asked me, with his subtle southern accent, “Are you alright, Zan?”
“To be honest, Eli, I’m in way over my head. I spent weeks planning this menu, and I thought I was organized. I had detailed shopping lists, and I’d worked out a schedule with all the steps of the dishes I wanted to prepare. I’m not much of a cook, but I thought, how hard could it be? It’s just a matter of following instructions: chop this, sauté that. But Christ almighty, look at this stuff! I don’t even recognize some of it. What the hell is this?”
My arms had been hanging limply at my sides, and I raised one to show him the thing I was clutching. I’d gone back to the big branch with green knobs and tried to make sense of it before finally giving up and waiting for help to arrive.
Elijah looked startled, and he muttered, “Good lord, I’ve never seen anything like that.” He approached the object cautiously and took it from me, and then he turned it over in his hands. After a moment, a look of understanding appeared on his face, and he said, “I didn’t realize this is how they grow.”
“How what grow, mutant alien pods?”
“Close.” He grinned a little, then broke off one of the green spheres and placed it in my hand.
Now that it was off the stem, it instantly became recognizable. We both said it at the same time: “Brussels sprouts.”
“I’ve never been a fan,” he admitted. “I’ve also never seen them on the stalk. I get why it threw you for a loop.”
I slumped in my office chair and blurted, “For fuck’s sake! Here I thought it was some exotic specimen, and it’s just a damn sprout! This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the meal, I tell you what.”
Elijah placed the stalk on the counter and asked, “How can I help, Zan?”
“You’re an angel for coming over here, kiddo. With my back out, there are a few things I just can’t manage, like decorating the tree. You probably saw it on the way past the living room. I think it’s done falling over, and there are several boxes of ornaments beside it. I’d started out with white and clear ones, and after a lot of them broke, I bought all-red ornaments to try to jazz things up a little. If you could hang them on the tree, that’d be fantastic.”
“Sure. It’s too bad Cassidy isn’t here to help, he’d enjoy that.”
“Did you say your boyfriend’s doing a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping?”
My young friend nodded. “He’s putting a lot of pressure on himself. I think that’s because it’s our first Christmas together, and he wants everything to be perfect.”
“I can understand that.”
“The tree won’t take long, so I’ll go get that done. Then I’ll come right back to give you a hand with all this prep work.”
“Thanks, Elijah.” I gave him a heads-up about the tippy nature of the tree, as well as the imminent arrival of the furniture, and then I said, “Nothing like bringing it right down to the wire, ay? Just about everything ended up delayed, but I shouldn’t complain. At least the living room is getting put together today, just in time for our guests, and the dining room furniture arrived last week. Which reminds me, would you and your boyfriend like to join us for dinner?”
“Thanks for the offer, but my family is on the way to Catalina, and we made plans to spend Christmas Eve with Beck and the guys at the ranch.”
“That should be fun.” I held up the ball of forest fungus and said, “One last question: what do you suppose this is?”
“Wow, that’s a weird one. I’m going with some type of exotic mushroom.”
“Ah, I was right! It is fungus.” Elijah grinned at me before heading to the living room.
A look at the tablet told me what I already knew: step one was to prep all the produce. I frowned a little as I attempted to scroll through my notes. I would have vastly preferred to use cookbooks and a nice, simple pad of paper for my recipes and meal planning. But since Gianni had given me the tablet, I was trying to show him I was hip and modern and could use technology. Yeah, right. At the very least, it would have been nice to print up the instructions, but I couldn’t get the thing to communicate with my new printer, no matter how hard I tried.
I was dicing mushrooms and mushroom-like objects sometime later when the intercom sounded. Elijah yelled, “I’ll get it!” It sounded like he was about a mile away.
Two minutes later, he appeared in the kitchen and said, “Your new furniture is here. The men said set up is included, so do you want to tell them how to arrange everything?”
I considered that as I pushed a wayward strand of hair off my face with the back of my hand. Then I said, “Gianni’s the one with a grand vision for the living room, not me. I assume he’ll arrange it how he wants it when he gets home, so for now, they can just set it up how they see fit. Were they able to bring it all from the mainland in one trip?” Buying most anything while living on an island had proven to be a bit of a bother, since it all had to be shipped over on the one barge that serviced Catalina’s residents and businesses.
“They said it’s all here, nine pieces total. I just finished with the tree, by the way.”
“That’s fantastic. What do you think of the new ornaments?”
“They’re cute,” he said.
“Glad to hear it. Have you seen the furniture
yet, and if so how does it look?”
“All I’ve seen is the sofa, and it’s nice. Everything arrived in crates or wrapped in a lot of padding, and that’s all they’ve unpacked so far.”
“I barely remember what Gianni picked out, to be honest. He has great taste though, so I’m sure it’ll be sensational.”
Elijah’s phone beeped, and he seemed surprised when he read the screen. “My family just arrived at the ranch,” he told me. “I didn’t expect them for two or three more hours.”
He seemed conflicted, so I let him off the hook by saying, “Perfect timing. The tree’s done and the deliverymen have been let in, so go have fun.”
“But I’ve barely done anything to help you.”
“You did exactly what I needed. No way could I have gotten the tree decorated on my own. As for the cooking, dinner’s not for another seven hours, so I’ve got plenty of time to pull it together.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Say hello to your family for me, and happy Christmas, Eli. There’s a card for you over there on the counter, and your present’s inside it.” When in doubt, my go-to gift was cash. One size fits all.
“Merry Christmas to you, too. Cassidy and I are planning to drop by on Christmas Day with a gift for you and Gianni, if that’s alright.”
“I look forward to it.”
After he stuck the envelope in his pocket and took off, I decided to get a pot of water going on the stovetop. I knew I should check on the deliverymen, but it would take a while to reach a boil, so I wanted to do that first. I consulted the tablet while the huge stock pot filled. It was taking longer than anticipated to prep the vegetables, but I wasn’t too far behind yet.
When the stock pot started to overflow, I put the tablet on my lap and shut off the faucet, then dumped out a bit of the water before trying to lift it. It weighed a ton, and since I was low to the ground in the office chair, heaving it up and out of the sink was more than a little awkward.
I accidentally tilted the pot by banging it on the edge of the sink, and at least two gallons of water sloshed out of it and doused my clothes. I cursed vividly and returned the pot to the sink. Then I stood up, all hunched over, to dump the puddle off my lap. When I did that, the tablet clattered to the floor.
I muttered, “Don’t you fucking be dead, you overpriced scratch pad,” as I snatched the tablet from the floor and turned it over. Of course the screen was dark, either from the fall or the water that was dripping out of it. I jabbed at the start button while cursing vividly. I was completely bent over as I did this, and my messy bun listed forward onto my forehead.
All my menus, lists, and recipes were gone. Weeks of work, countless hours of planning. Damn it! This was why I hated technology. I tossed the tablet onto the counter and was just about to bash it to bits with a rolling pin when an unfamiliar voice said, “Um, Mr. Dombruso?”
I froze with the rolling pin in mid-air and tilted my head to look at the young, muscular guy standing in the doorway with a clipboard. Since I was bent in half, sopping wet, and about to bludgeon a thousand-dollar gadget to death, it was no wonder that the guy looked worried.
He approached cautiously and said, “My crew and I, uh, we got all the furniture set up in your rec room. The little blond guy said to just put it wherever, because you’d rearrange it later. It’s all pretty heavy though, so we tried to place it where we thought you might want it.”
I muttered, “Thanks, mate,” and sat back down in the chair with a grimace as my back spasmed in protest.
“Do you want to come and take a look at it before you sign for the delivery?”
“Did you break anything or forget any of the furniture?”
“No sir.”
“Then I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Oh…alright. Well, then I just need you to sign this.” I took the clipboard when he held it out to me and forged Gianni’s signature, since his name was at the top of the delivery form. The guy tilted his head and looked at me closely, and then he asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like that singer? What’s his name?”
“Yeah, people tell me I look like ‘what’s his name’ all the time. Bit of an insult, if you ask me. I hear that guy’s a real wanker.” I started to hand the clipboard back to him, but then I muttered, “Oh, hang on,” and pulled some bills from my pocket. They were soggy, just like my jeans. I plopped the wad of cash on top of the clipboard and told him, “Sorry that it’s wet. I had an accident.”
His eyes went wide, and as he took the clipboard from me he said, “Um…thanks. We’ll let ourselves out.”
I noticed him sniff the money cautiously as he left the kitchen, and I muttered under my breath, “Not that kind of accident, for fuck’s sake. I’m not quite old enough to start randomly pissing myself, but give it time.”
After sighing dramatically, I rotated around in my chair and looked at the disaster on my kitchen counters. Why had I thought I could handle this? I couldn’t handle anything. All my life, everything had been done for me, first by my mum, and then by a long string of nannies when the money started rolling in. Later there were housekeepers, personal assistants, agents, managers, cooks, personal shoppers, stylists, personal trainers, accountants, lawyers—it went on and on, a whole battalion of people who were paid to handle everything for me. Was it any wonder that I didn’t have the first clue how to do anything on my own?
I’d even let my son take care of me, because he was far more capable than I’d ever be. God, was that unfair to him.
And when Christian couldn’t do it anymore, Gianni took over.
How on earth had he ever fallen in love with me?
I really tried not to be a burden to my boyfriend. I’d learned some basic life skills and pretended I knew more than I did when it came to things like cooking, or running a household, or even just working the fucking app that controlled the lights and locks and heat and really far too much stuff.
As I shivered a little, I muttered, “Fucking snap out of it, Alexzander. This is no time for a pity party.”
My clothes were soaked, but I just couldn’t make myself hobble all the way upstairs for a dry outfit. Not right then, anyway. So instead, I stripped off everything I was wearing and dried off as much as I could with a clean dish towel. Then I found a green apron in one of the drawers, which would have to do for now.
I dropped the strap at the top over my head, then leaned forward with a painful grunt as I wrapped the strings around me. After I tied a bow at my waist, I looked down at the apron and frowned. It said ‘say hello to my little friend’, above a cartoon of a smiling red chili pepper with google eyes. Where the hell had we even gotten this thing?
Actually, I could guess. When we’d first bought the house, Gianni’s Nana had sent us box after box of housewares. The apron had probably been part of that haul.
I sighed and poured myself some chardonnay from the open bottle I’d intended to cook with, because why not? All my plans had gone to hell anyway. I shut off the stove and finished the first glass, feeling totally defeated. Then I poured myself a second one and decided to take a look at my new living room furniture. I scooted out of the kitchen, then pushed off with both feet and launched myself backwards down the long hallway, being careful not to spill my wine.
It was a pretty good way to get around, actually. In less than a minute, I’d reached the large, open entryway to the living room. I spun myself around, and then my mouth fell open and I muttered, “Blimey.”
The room contained furniture alright, but not the type I’d been expecting. Instead, it had been transformed into a totally tricked out, high-end, chrome and black leather playroom—the adult kind. I wheeled myself into the room and tried to take it all in, from the various padded benches and contraptions to the huge, metal framework that held a sex sling. It had obviously been delivered by mistake, but we were definitely keeping this stuff.
There were a few fairly standard pieces of furniture as well, including a long, black leat
her sofa, which coordinated with the rest of the things in the room, and a pair of sleek, black lacquer cabinets. I was disappointed to find they were empty.
Then I noticed the Christmas tree, which was all aglow beside the fireplace. Elijah had done a nice job decorating it. The red ornaments were spaced evenly, and I was glad to see the lights were working. I rolled a little closer to the tree and suddenly realized something about the ornaments.
They were all crabs. Every last one of them.
There were big ones and little ones, ranging from cartoonish to realistic-looking. Some were blown glass. Others were wood, or plastic, or metal. But they had one thing in common: they were all red.
After a beat, I started to chuckle. It’d been confusing at first, but when I thought about it, I realized the Christmas shop in town must be beach-themed, since it primarily catered to tourists who loved that kind of thing. And what was both red and beachy? Crabs.
I took a long drink from my wine glass, and then I decided to try that sling on for size, mostly because it seemed like it would be comfortable on my back. After I heaved myself out of the chair, I shuffled over to the contraption and awkwardly loaded my bare arse into it. It was good, but it got even better when I stuck my feet into the stirrups attached to the chains that kept the sling aloft.
Obviously, the fact that our living room had been turned into a sex palace was problematic on many levels, especially since we were expecting company. My son and his husband and friends would probably find it hilarious, so no worries there. But I didn’t want Gianni to be embarrassed in front of his family, so I decided the best course of action was to give up on my idea of hosting the Dombruso clan for dinner and to just meet them at the ranch instead.
That took a lot of pressure off, and I started to relax for the first time that day. I leaned back and shut my eyes, and I hummed to myself as I began to rock back and forth. But then a sound caught my attention.
