Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Avery
From no friends to three friends. She was completely unsurprised Domi, Rae, and Iris were hitting it off.
Iris was far more outgoing than Avery and fit smoothly into their little group as if she’d always been there.
She had all sorts of fun stories to tell, thanks to her brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law.
At Iris’ suggestion, they’d decided to meet up for Saturday brunch at Founding Farmers since evenings weren’t so easy for Avery.
Avery was enjoying the food, especially the red velvet pancakes that were the size of her head.
Iris had ordered those for the table to share, insisting that they shouldn’t miss out.
They had ended up sharing most of the dishes since Iris was the only one who had been there before, and they all wanted to taste everything.
“Did you know Mitch was hired to be a stripper for a bachelorette party?” Iris’ dark eyes sparkled with glee as their mouths dropped open in shock.
“What?! No.” Avery glanced at Domi, who thankfully appeared to be fascinated rather than upset.
Her makeup and clothes were toned down from her usual ‘look’ for brunch, though she and Iris looked as if they were cut from the same cloth.
Both Latina, both wearing all black, both wearing more makeup than Avery or Rae.
In contrast, Rae was wearing a pink-and-orange flowered long-sleeved dress that matched the pink braids she had woven throughout her hair, and Avery was in a nice blue shirt and jeans.
Domi and Iris looked ready to kick ass and take names, whereas Rae and Avery were more along the lines of ‘ladies who brunch.’
“Yup. Kate told me. For Jessica, the one who has two husbands, Chris and Justin. They’re both friends with Andrew. Her best friend knew none of the Doms would want a regular stripper there, so she asked Mitch to help them out.”
“Oh my God…” Domi cracked up. “I am so making him show me his stripper moves.”
“He’ll enjoy that.” Rae shook her head, but her eyes were dancing with glee as she nudged Domi with her elbow. “Think you can arrange a private showing for us.”
“Absolutely not. He’s all mine now.” Domi stuck her tongue out at Rae. “Find your own stripper Dom.”
“I can’t imagine most of the other Doms doing that, even for a friend.” Avery laughed. “Especially not for a friend.” Mitch, she could absolutely see. He was a goofball of the highest order, despite being a sadist, and thrived as the center of attention. Plus, she would bet he was a good dancer.
Was Nick a good dancer? She wondered if she’d ever find out.
Running a restaurant wasn’t conducive to going out to dance clubs.
Most places were still going by the time they left work, but usually, she was way too tired to enjoy it, and the idea of going straight from work rather than being able to go home, take a shower, and collapse, didn’t appeal.
Ugh. She was getting old.
Stronghold had a dance floor. Maybe she could convince Nick to go with her sometime on a Thursday.
It would be good for him to be in the club when other people were playing.
She wasn’t sure he’d watched a scene in person outside of what they were doing in class.
Going to a show at Marquis might be good as well.
He would probably feel more comfortable in a booth than where people could watch him.
A hand waved in front of her face. Avery blinked, and Domi’s tanned palm came into focus.
“Earth to Avery, Earth to Avery, come in Avery.” Domi grinned, taking her hand back when she saw she had Avery’s attention. “How’s it going with you and Nick? We need an update!”
She couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face.
Nick was becoming a regular spanko. He’d even agreed to try out the flogger on her last night, despite the fact he hadn’t practiced on her in class and wouldn’t do so until Monday.
Avery thought adding spanking to their private activities had given him confidence, and the particular flogger she had was very light.
“Good, it’s going really well.”
“Oooh, look at that smile,” Iris teased.
“I guess that means you two have been practicing at home?” She looked at Domi and Rae.
“You wouldn’t believe how hesitant the Doms were to spank us.
Tiny slap, then ‘oh, I’m sorry, was that too much?
’ Um… no, I would have made a noise if I’d felt it at all.
” She rolled her eyes as Domi and Rae cracked up.
Even Avery couldn’t stop herself from laughing. It might be disrespectful, but so true.
“Yes, we’ve been practicing at home, and Nick is much more comfortable without an audience.
” Avery shook her head. “He’s such a perfectionist. I don’t think he likes anyone to see him do anything other than his best. Add that to the worry he was actually going to hurt me… the class wasn’t his best effort.”
Iris snorted. “Yeah, they all thought they were going to hurt us. Talk about overestimating themselves.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “Connor might have reason to worry. Hopefully, I’ll get paired with him next time. I bet he spanks a lot harder than Q just because of physics.”
“Or Samantha… she was doing a pretty decent job with Freddy.”
“Yeah, but I think Olivia is trying to matchmake there.” They sat straight in surprise, focusing on Iris, who snickered. “That’s what Andrew said, though I’m not sure how well it will work since Sam is a switch and not a Domme.”
“He’s bi, right? Maybe they’ll end up in a throuple. Or they could be a couple, and Sam could find a Dom to platonically top her. Sorta like what Kincaid and Zach have going on.”
“Kink is so weird sometimes,” Rae said, propping her elbows on the table so she could rest her chin on her hands. There was no judgment in her voice, more like she was adding commentary. “No one talks about vanilla relationships like this.”
“We have different needs than the vanillas.” Avery sighed ruefully. “I figured that out when my body lit up like a Christmas tree getting back into the kink stuff. I’ve gone without it for so long, I thought maybe I didn’t need it, but I do.” She sighed again.
“Is that a bad thing?” Domi asked, tilting her head at Avery.
“Not in and of itself,” Avery replied after a moment.
A small pit opened in the bottom of her stomach, and she recognized the fear but knew it wasn’t necessary here.
None of the women at this table were going to judge her.
“I told one of my friends back home about me and kink, and she didn’t take it very well.
I didn’t bother telling the rest of them. They’re all very like-minded.”
“Didn’t take it very well?” Rae scowled. “Like it had anything to do with her.”
“Forget her,” Iris said, slinging an arm around Avery’s shoulders on their side of the booth. “You’re with us now. We’re way better.”
“Cheers to that.” Domi lifted her glass, and everyone followed suit. At that moment, Avery knew she’d been right to leave home, no matter how much it bugged her parents. She was so happy she’d found these women. She couldn’t ask for better friends.
Nick
The lunch rush was over, thankfully. Nick glanced at the clock on the wall.
Only another couple hours before Avery arrived for the dinner shift.
Working with his girlfriend was even better than he’d thought it would be.
Sure, they stayed professional while they were in the restaurant, but he still got to see her a hell of a lot more than he would if they weren’t working together.
She made every shift they shared even better.
“Chef Nick! Your brother is at the bar and wants to know if you have a minute,” Alanna informed him as she hurried past, flashing him a quick smile.
From what Nick knew, she and Jonathan had a date tonight, both of them free for a Saturday night for once, and were rushing to get out of the restaurant. He didn’t blame them.
It amused him how everyone knew everything that was going on with their relationship, but only the managers had figured out him and Avery.
Maybe he should thank them. Everyone was so caught up in the George, Alanna, Jonathan love triangle, they didn’t notice their executive chef was romantically involved with one of their sous chefs.
“Thanks, Alanna,” he called after her, picking up the towel resting on the metal counter in front of him and wiping off his hands. She threw a thumbs up at him over her shoulder before disappearing out the door into the dining room.
Nick looked back over his shoulder at the cooks on the other side of the line. “I’ll be back. Anyone need anything before I go?”
“No, Chef.” It was like his own personal Greek chorus the way they all responded together. Nick waved his hand and followed Alanna’s path out the door, twisting slightly to avoid George, who was on his way into the kitchen with a thundercloud expression.
Well, he was going to be fun to work with tonight.
Hopefully, George would eventually get used to it.
In the meantime, there wasn’t much Nick could do except to be considerate of why he was such a grump lately.
It couldn’t be easy watching Alanna and Jonathan as a couple, especially since George had decided to maintain his friendship with them both.
Dismissing the server drama from his mind, Nick headed to Marquis’ bar, where his big brother was waiting.
As always, Luke was dressed in jeans and his construction company’s t-shirt, looking casual yet easily fitting in at Marquis.
Maybe it was the windswept dark hair the two of them shared or the aura of confidence.
Now that Nick knew what his brother went through with Olivia on a regular basis, he was even more astounded by how supremely confident Luke was at all times.
Standing on the other side of the bar from Luke was Shane, one of the bartenders, chatting with him.
Shane was older with a shiny bald head, a nicely trimmed dark goatee shot through with silver, and a smile that only quit when he needed to ream someone out.
It didn’t happen often because he was a quieter kind of guy, but Nick had seen it once when one of their male servers harassed one of their nonbinary servers.
Shane had followed Jeff into the kitchen and quietly and lethally verbally ripped Jeff a new asshole. Jeff had gone white as a ghost and immediately quit. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
No one had risked getting on Shane’s bad side since. He was quiet and friendly, but if Nick ever needed to bury a body, he knew who his first call would be.
“Hey, Nick. The usual?” Shane smiled at him in greeting, already moving to grab a beer glass.
“Yes, thank you.” Nick slid onto the barstool next to Luke. “What’s up?”
“Wanted to check in. It’s been a while since we’ve hung out and talked.
” Luke reached out to give Nick a half hug.
Nick leaned in, his mind running over Luke’s words.
Hmmm, it had been a while. Normally, they tried to get together at least once every couple of weeks, but they hadn’t done that since before the Dom class started.
He’d been too busy with class, work, and Avery.
Damn.
Shane slid the glass of cold beer, fresh from the tap in front of Nick, then walked away. There weren’t any other customers at the bar since it was the middle of the afternoon, but he must have decided Luke and Nick needed the space to talk.
“Sorry, I hadn’t realized it had been so long.”
“No worries.” Luke pulled away, settling back in place with his half-finished beer.
“I know you’ve been busy, and I’m happy for you.
New relationship and all that.” He grinned, lifting his glass to his lips for a sip while Nick did the same.
“I remember the beginning of my and Olivia’s relationship. ”
Wow. Luke was comparing Nick and Avery to him and Olivia…
that was… fast? Was it, though? Nick already knew he was falling in love with Avery, even though he hadn’t told her yet.
Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised his big brother already realized things were serious between them. Luke tended to be on top of things.
“I do, too. I remember having to take your dog for a lot of walks,” Nick joked. Luke had called on him more than once to take care of Molly while he and Olivia first got together.
“If you ever get a dog, I’ll be happy to return the favor.”
Nick shook his head. His schedule was not conducive to a pet, especially not a dog. Maybe a cat, but even then... He couldn’t keep an herb garden alive, so he wouldn’t try with a living, breathing animal. Borrowing Molly was about at his level.
“How are things going with you and Olivia? Gotta tell you, the class is making me wonder how you do it.”
“It’s easy when you like it.” Luke chuckled. “Well, easier. I had to let go of some ideas about what I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to act, but once I did, I was a lot happier.”
“I get that. Sometimes, I get a surge of guilt with Avery, even though she says she likes it.” Nick shook his head and took a large swallow of beer. Talking about his feelings was not his forte. “I still feel guilty.”
“Do you like it?” As usual, his big brother went straight for the jugular.
“Yes, I like it.” Nick made a face. “I think that’s a big part of why I feel so guilty.”
“Don’t. I know, I know, easier said than done.” Luke clapped his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I struggled a lot when I was getting into everything. I was ashamed of what I liked and felt as if I was enjoying something I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Exactly.” Relief surged, tinged with surprise. He hadn’t realized he and Luke might feel some of the same things, considering they were on opposite sides of the coin. Luke wasn’t spanking Olivia; it was the other way round. Though… he could see how that could cause shame, too.
Why did this have to be so hard?
“It gets easier.” Luke squeezed his shoulder. “Especially when you have someone to talk about it with.”
“Right now?”
“Might as well. Shane won’t judge. Right, Shane?”
“La, la, la, can’t hear you,” Shane replied, not looking up from where he was taking glasses out of the bar’s dishwasher and drying them with a cloth.
What could it hurt?