Chapter 15 – Kira
KIRA
T hings about my new life that rock:
-Beer
-Blue jeans
-Eating
- Hockey night at the bar
- A dangerously gorgeous mechanic that pops up and makes me feel like an irresistible woman.
Things that suck about it:
-Getting up at four in the morning …?
That is for the birds.
But alas, I need funds, and so here I am at Maggie’s at the ungodly hour, trying not to fall asleep standing up as she shows me the ropes.
But making dough isn’t so bad. In fact, once I got the hang of it, it’s been kind of therapeutic.
The nearby trashcan is groaning with the several wads of discarded dough it took for me to catch on, but no matter.
Maggie has a good selection of music blasting through the kitchen and good coffee brewing so there’s that.
Outside the picture window that gives a view of the street outside, I see the town start to wake up.
After daybreak I see the very occasional person wander by, followed by more and more.
Maggie turns the sign around at six, and customers trickle in for warm rolls or donuts - one of which I may’ve already stuffed in my face with Maggie’s permission. Like I said: eating is awesome.
By now, I’ve perked up and feel a sense of satisfaction at having three of the four ovens warming up biscuits I’ve made.
For some reason Maggie didn’t turn that one on when she opened up this morning.
Things have gotten busy up front, and Maggie and her cashier have been managing coffee and pastry orders for the morning rush.
I’m on such a roll making biscuits that when I’ve got a whole other tray cut out, I have nowhere to put it.
Thinking Maggie would be impressed with my taking initiative, I walk over to the fourth oven and turn the knob, and the light comes on, indicating that it works.
I go up front to see if there’s anything I can do to help out there.
West
I stayed up all fucking night, that fated Rolls Royce my only company as I sat next to it with the computer cart; tinkering and researching.
Finally, I have an itemized list of materials, costs, time frame, you name it.
Numbers crunched and a plan in place, I feel ready to share this news with Kira.
I can’t wait to see the look on her pretty face when I tell her this particular weight is off her shoulders.
Pulling the tarp over the hood, I’m thinking of nothing but taking a break for some coffee and maybe grabbing a quick nap upstairs after so I can go back to running this place.
Beforehand, however, I decide to set up my work station for my first appointment of the day.
Rusty will be bringing in his Harley to have the carburetor inspected, and I pull up what I’ll need on the computer, before heading over to one of my tool chests and opening a drawer for the right tool.
I hear a loud pop, followed by a flash of pink.
Thanks to the reflexes that come with racing cars, I turn away just in time to miss any kind of impact, but only a blind man would miss the shiny specks of pink glitter shimmering down all around me.
“What the fuck?!” I yell to no one when Hunt strolls in, coffee in one hand, a Maggie’s box in the other, and a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Fuck, I missed it!” He ducks his head with a pained grimace before snapping back to a cocky smile.
“You…” I growl, turning towards him like a shifting werewolf. “You did this, you piece of monkey shit eating mother fucker?!” I pinch the material of my t-shirt and snap it loose, making a puff of pink glitter go shimmering to my formerly manly spackled concrete floor.
“That,” he says as I duck the frosting. “Was for the motherfucking squirrel in my truck!”
“For the last time, I did not put a squirrel in your truck!”
“I had to put on a hazmat suit to remove the turds all over my seats!”
“Those were raisinettes.” I take great joy in how his eyes bug out under his brows before I remember he just made my auto shop look like a strip joint. “And this goes so far beyond reciprocal retaliation!”
“Aww, but you look so pretty,” he coos at me. “Can I start calling you Diamond Dazzles?”
“Not if you like your scrotum where it is.” I lean over and shake what I can of the glitter out of my hair. “Ryan, get a fucking broom!”
My dipshit friend gets out the last of his chuckles, moving to set the bakery box on a now bedazzled tool chest.
“Not my fault you wanted to play that game with the cards where you share your dark secrets and shit.” That’s how I gained valuable intel like how he’s afraid of snakes.
Dangling a rubber snake from his showerhead started a prank war.
Unfortunately that game night, he was also able to find out how much I fear clowns.
I suppose I should be thankful that it wasn’t a jack-in-the-box he hid in my tool cart.
“I brought you some makeup donuts and some coffee,” he explains. “Just to get it out of the way.”
“Aww…thanks honey.” I mock him, walking over and lifting the lid and helping myself to one that’s smothered in vanilla frosting
“I saw your girl while I was picking these bad boys up.” He nods casually down at the donut box and talks around the bite in his mouth.
“What girl would that be?” I ask around a mouthful of pastry and frosting, trying to feign innocence.
“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s insulting,” he mutters, taking a drink of his coffee and after swallowing gets a satisfied glow of a smile. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. I just wanted to let you know I sunk my teeth into her biscuits less than twenty minutes ago.”
I feel a small ball of irritation ignite inside me and bristle up my spine as I snap to attention, turning to him.
“If you want to keep working with your hands you’ll keep your teeth out of her biscuit.
” I get even more annoyed when he does little to stifle a laugh.
“What the fuck are you talking about, anyway?”
“She’s working down at Maggie’s,” he reveals with a sigh, like he’s sorry he has to close out this particular joke and stuffs his free hand in his pocket.
“Maggie’s got her doing biscuits for her first day, and they didn’t turn out half bad.
I couldn’t resist the urge to come give you shit about that one. ”
“And to witness the detonation of your glitter prank.” I point at him. “I owe you for this, by the way,” as he scoops up a donut out of the box.
“Oh don’t get your rhinestone g-string twisted,” he waves me off with his pastry before shoving a bite in his mouth .
“That’s rich coming from a guy eating a donut with sprinkles,” I point out, and then suddenly, all the glitter and sprinkles in this room are making a lightbulb flicker to life - the seed of an idea I tuck away for later.
Ryan strolls in with a push broom and stops in his tracks looking down at the sparkly crime scene. His eyes shift from the luminescent spillage on the floor up to me. “Who the fuck slaughtered a fairy in here?”
I tip my head in Hunt’s direction. “This sick bitch, right after he plowed her.”
Hunt just smiles around another bite of donut, like a douche.
“Fuck this shit,” Ryan lets the broom drop and skulks out of the room.
“You’re doing a real bang-up job with that one.” Hunt gestures with his last segment of donut.
“It hasn’t been very long,” I point out, blowing a rogue piece of disco dust off my lip. “Give me to the end of summer and he’ll be facing forward.”
“Face forward my ass,” he scoffs. “Care to put a wager on that?”
The idea seed that implanted in my head moments ago is already starting to sprout.
“You’re fucking right I do,” I nod at him with a grin.
After making some real coffee -aka, black death- I hurry up to my apartment and take a shower so that I don’t stink like yesterday's axle grease or look like a second-grade art project when I see Kira. I ask Jackson to open the place up when he arrives, and he’s all too happy when he sees the abandoned box of donuts.
I order Ryan—for the second time—to clean up the smeared sparkle fairy crime scene.
My wrath towards Hunt fires up all over again when a stream of glitter swirls my drain.
Throwing a ballcap over my wet hair, I dart out of the office and step out onto the street in time for a fire truck to blast past me.
There are no sirens, but the lights are revolving and the truck does honk at a few pedestrians to get out of the way before it takes a sharp right, the direction I’m heading.
When I make it to Maggie’s, sure enough, that’s where the fire crew - likely lead by Jace - have parked.
Breaking off into a run, I lengthen my strides, trying to get there as quick as I can, hoping Kira’s alright.
I duck and dodge my way through a few other pedestrians to get to the cluster of people gathered around on the sidewalk in front of the bakery door.
I gently shove and excuse myself into the crowd and find Kira at the center, arms wrapped around herself and Maggie at her side, a motherly arm around her.
She speaks calmly in Kira’s ear while soothingly rubbing her arm but I can’t help but interfere.
I step right into her, placing a hand on her hip.
“Hey are you alright?” I ask, looking down at her, checking for damage. Other than smudges of flour on her face, she seems unmarked.
“I fucked up.” She looks a little shaken up.
Maggie takes that moment to release her, and I take that opportunity to wind my arm further around her waist and tuck her into my side.
“Honey, it’s okay,” Maggies says firmly, although her eyes are staring off into the distance with God knows what going on behind them.
“What happened?”
Maggie steps in before Kira can speak. “One of my ovens is old and not working right for some time now,” she explains. “Kira didn’t know not to use it. It’s not her fault.”