Chapter 6
six
SULLY
I watched a movie with Ren yesterday where a girl was kidnapped by a man in a ski mask, and she later fell in love with him.
I thought it was a little improbable, but when I fell asleep in my dream, I was the girl.
My kidnapper wasn’t wearing a ski mask, but a shiny white mask.
He proceeded to tie me to the bed and show me what being fucked meant.
First with his hands and mouth, then with his bare dick.
Whispering the filthiest things into my ears.
He turned me toward him at some point, and there was no mask anymore.
I could see his beautiful face, crystal clear.
It was…Ezra. I woke up so turned on I had to jerk off under the sheets…
It’s the first time I had a dirty dream about him. Am I the worst?
I get the last order of the day and turn to Jess to see if she heard it—she’s already filling the mug with coffee. Good. My feet hurt a little, and my thumb stings, the skin looking red from pouring hot water on it—hence me being restricted to the cash register for the rest of my shift.
Ollie and Rague opened this library café—Tomorrow’s Brew—to help young people from the wrong side of the tracks in need of a job and a place to stay. The rooms on the upper floors are available for a very low rent. It’s their way of giving back after having built a good life for themselves.
I try to come here once a month and offer a hand. That same hand makes a few, several mistakes, but everybody knows about me, and they are all nice—probably because I’m the owner’s brother. But I also think that broken souls recognize one another and try to be kind and understanding.
My shift ends, and I walk to the locker room to change.
Randy, one of the waiters, walks in. As he puts his uniform on, he starts talking to me about an action movie he’d like to go see.
I nod along. He’s very friendly every time I see him.
Smiling and chatting away. We don’t have much in common, but having casual conversations is what people my age do.
“So, would you like to go to the movies? With me, together.” Randy suddenly asks.
It takes me a moment to register his words.
My glasses get stuck in my shirt’s collar, and it takes a few seconds to untangle them.
Is he asking me on a date? I straighten my glasses.
His face is red, and his eyes keep flickering over my bare legs.
I quickly take my pants from the bench and put them on.
Before I can give him an answer, Lori’s head pops inside the room.
“Hello, boys! Oh, nobody is naked. Damn it!” The rest of his body makes its way inside.
He sashays his round hips all the way to me like he owns the place—I always envied his confidence.
Those second-skin jeans and the red high-neck lightweight puffer show every curve of his yoga-tight body.
He hooks his arm around my bicep and smiles too sweetly at Randy.
“Rusty…” Lori starts talking.
“Randy,” I correct him.
He ignores me. “How’s…waitressing going?”
“Good?” Randy doesn’t seem sure.
“Fascinating! I dropped something back there.” Lori points behind the lockers near the door, bending and pushing his ass out a little too much. “Can you be a gem and get it for me?”
Gods, he couldn’t be more obvious.
“Sure,” Randy replies with the enthusiasm of a puppy. “But what is it that you dro—?”
Lori interrupts him, giving him the most flirtatious of looks. “Please? I’ll be eternally grateful.” How does he act like a flirty coquette without bursting out laughing?
“On it!” I’ve never seen someone move faster than Randy.
“I still got it!” Lori mutters before yanking my face down to whisper into my ear. “Are you just blinking a lot, or is it Morse code for rescue me?”
I blink some more.
“Got it,” he winks at me.
I sigh with exasperation.
Randy comes back holding a…button in his hand. “Is this what you were looking for?”
Lori’s eyebrows lift in surprise for a moment. He quickly regains his fake persona though, giving the poor guy an overdramatic response. “Rupert. My hero.” He takes the button from his hand…and throws it behind his back, on the floor again.
“Randy,” he tries to remind Lori of his name, but my friend will never remember.
“Sorry, I need to steal this tasty morsel now.” Lori sends him a flying kiss. I just have time to grab my bag from the bench before Lori drags me toward the door and out of the locker room.
“He was cute, Sully-doo. A little too flaky, but eager to please. And nice ass.” Lori gives me two thumbs up.
Randy is cute, but he doesn’t make my heart race and my palms sweat at the sight of him—like someone else.
Lori takes me to the café again and sits at one of the white tables. I flop down on the chair too heavily and almost tip it over. The high-pitched screeching of the chair’s feet on the floor is deafening.
The little conversations around us start bubbling again after a moment of silence filled with scrutinizing eyes aimed at me.
The place is almost full. It’s because of the relaxed vibes—all the furniture came from local thrift stores and markets, great coffee and food, the ingredients are bought from a couple of organic shops in the area, and reasonable prices.
My brother did an amazing job. He really turned his life around.
I want to do the same. I want him to be proud of me just as I am of him.
“Barista, please, the usual.” Lori’s drink order takes me back to the present.
“Coming up, Lori.”
I want to talk to him about my odd belief that someone is watching me. But I need to find the right place to do that, certainly not here in my brother’s café.
“So, are you going out with him?” Lori asks.
“Who?” I lost the plot for a moment.
He purses his lips. “Ro-bert? Roger! No? The cute waiter.”
I shake my head at him. “I’m not sure he asked me out.” He was drooling all over Lori a moment later.
“He certainly did. Aww, Papa Lori is so proud. My Sully-doo has dudes and dudettes hitting on him.”
“Lori, stop calling yourself Papa.” The daddy vibe is not for me.
“It’s gross.” My brother agrees with me, appearing near our table. “Are you done for today?” He looks at me.
“Yes.”
“Lori will give you a ride back. I have to wait for the plumber to come fix the faucet in one of the apartments. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. And I can take the bus.” As I always say after I finish my shift here. The bus stop is only a block from here.
“Come off it! I have so many things to tell you,” Lori lets me know.
“I wouldn’t want to be you,” Oliver jokes, giving me a pitying look.
“Just go wait for Mario and Luigi and leave us alone, bozo.”
Ollie flips him off and puts a bag filled with containers of food from Rague on my lap. Then he lowers his forehead to mine until they touch and stays for a couple of seconds. “Be safe. Call me.”
“I will.”
He nods and walks away.
“Okay, I think you should go out with the cute waiter,” Lori goes back to the previous conversation.
“I’m not sure I’m into him, or him into me.”
“Who cares? It’s just a fuck.”
“Look, Lor, I am not like you, I’m not so…”
I’m looking for the right word when he says, “Slutty?”
“Well…” Loose and easy was what I was going for.
“I look at slutty in the rearview mirror, mate. Fun days…but gone. Now I have my boys satisfying me thoroughly.”
He thinks he’s bragging, but I don’t want to hear about his complicated sex life with a guy with multiple personalities.
“I don’t know how to process that.” And don’t really want to.
“Listen well,” he commands, clapping his hands like a master to his servant. “I’m going to impart some of my priceless wisdom on you in the art of finding a good lay.”
Oh, boy. “Please, don’t.” I move my hand over my face, knowing too well he won’t spare me. I love Lori, but his persistence in helping me get laid is exhausting.
“Look there.” He shifts his chair next to mine and slaps my forearm when I ignore him. “Remove that hand from your face, muppet.”
I do it with a loud sigh.
“That bloke over there,” he whispers, staring at the one sitting a couple of tables away from us. “He’s a foot tapper. See? Never trust a man who taps his foot when you talk to him.”
Okay, that’s not bad advice. I nod at him.
“That one?” He tilts his head at the tall one with curly hair who passed our table a few seconds before. “He has a cloud of cologne around him, to cover his stench like they did in the eighteen hundreds.”
“Some say that’s the reason why perfume was created,” I tell him.
“Disgusting, lazy arses!” He gags. “And that bloke who keeps wiggling on the chair. Fart carrier or itchy STD carrier? Both bad reasons. Stay. Away.”
“You are ridiculous!” I snort.
“Your Lori special!” Jess places the to-go cup on the table in front of him and leaves.
“Since when do you have a special?”
“Since I come here every other day for a free cup of hot cocoa with a cinnamon stick, some orange peel, a spoon of honey, and a pinch of nutmeg. Want a sip?”
“No, thanks, Grandma,” I tease him.
“Your loss, piss stain.” He gestures for me to get going. “I left Wednesday in the car,” he lets me know. “I’m afraid for the driver.”
“Why didn’t you put her in her baby carrier?” He usually takes her around wherever he goes.
“Your jerk of a brother vetoed it. Something about food hygiene and health department rules. Talking about my Wednesday like she was a disease-carrying chicken!” He mutters with a hint of retaliation in his voice.
Lori is the king of petty revenge. What is he going to plan for my brother?
I understand, though. I love Lori’s hen, even though she has a very strong personality—bordering on aggressive—but if there’s a health inspection and my brother doesn’t follow the rules, the café can be forced to close down.