Xander #3
“You’re going to say shit like that where she could hear you?”
“Please, I’ve known people like her; she would love hearing that I pity the rest of us having to deal with her.” Well, he didn’t have common sense, but he clearly had enough brain cells to understand people, if only a little. “What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m attempting to start the meal I was assigned, but I’m a little lost and a little frazzled because my…” he stopped and something like alarm flashed over his face before he let out a laugh and shook his head. “My new boss busted me choking the chicken.”
“What?” came the startled shout from the hallway, and Reno appeared, his eyes wide. “You were doing what? And he what?”
“You heard, dunno why you think I’ll repeat myself,” Colin said with a scathing dryness that even I appreciated.
“But if the aura of death energy coming from behind me is any indication, you should probably be more worried about what you’re supposed to be doing rather than my poor attempt at quick self-gratification. Just a thought.”
He was a lot smarter when he wasn’t focused on his dick, because I could see the moment Reno realized I was sitting there and with a sheepish grin, ducked out of the room again. I rolled my eyes. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by making me think you’re an idiot. Reno has a big mouth.”
“Getting my balls busted by a bunch of guys for doing something all guys do, I can live with,” he said with a shrug. “And I’m going to be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Jesus Christ, another idiot who doesn’t know how to cook.”
“Oh, I can cook, at least, basic stuff. The problem is, all my life, I’ve either had food cooked and served up to me, or I was only responsible for cooking for myself.
Cooking for a group of guys isn’t exactly my thing.
I don’t know how much to use here,” he said, turning to shrug. “I assume a lot.”
“God save me,” I muttered, pushing up from the counter to see what was supposed to be cooked since I didn’t know either.
Colin leaned back slightly just as I realized I had butted my way into his personal space.
I glanced at him, daring him to say something, but he looked amused as he took a step backward, giving me space to look.
After reading, I did the quick mental math to calculate how much food would need to be put together.
With that, I opened the fridge and gathered the meat before moving to the pantry.
Setting it all out, I directed him toward the pots and pans, and he diligently went about filling one of them with water, albeit with a measuring cup, which made me roll my eyes. “Just fill the damn thing.”
“I’ve been told that the amount of water you cook the pasta in affects not only the taste, but how well it cooks. Since I don’t really know what I’m doing in the kitchen enough to be confident, I’m going to take the expert opinion on this,” he said, with another one of his shrugs.
I went back to the counter. “If you want to waste your time, be my guest, but don’t waste our time.”
“An extra minute or two to make sure dinner doesn’t turn out to be a disaster won’t hurt,” he said as he continued.
“You’re really going to argue with me over this?”
“If measuring the water is so significant a crime, then I can fill it up the way you want me to.”
His tone was agreeable enough, but his words made me feel like I was being unreasonable.
I glared at him as I took a deep drink of water, as he slapped the large pot onto the stove and lit it with the sound of clicking and the whoosh of flames.
He opened the cabinet that held all our spices, giving a grunt I couldn’t decipher before grabbing the large container of salt and frowning.
“Slightly like the sea,” he muttered to himself before dumping salt in and stirring.
“You just made it take even longer,” I told him with a sigh.
He glanced over his shoulder with a blank expression. “Huh?”
“Salt raises the boiling point of water,” I told him with a pleased smirk. “Which means you should add it at the end, when it’s already boiling, to make things quicker. I guess that expert opinion only got you so far.”
“Huh, did not know that, handy for the future,” he said, sounding almost pleased as he set the salt aside as if he hadn’t already caused himself a problem. “Probably won’t make much difference now, but I’ll wait to add more until after it boils.”
How was it that he was new and had been caught in an incredibly awkward and embarrassing moment, but was still less unnerved by me than the guys who’d been working for me for months, or years in some cases?
I would say he wasn’t taking me seriously, but so far he had taken me completely seriously while not being fazed by a lot else, including his own indiscretion.
The image popped back into my head, and with a flash of annoyance, I shoved it aside…
again. It was clearly a stubborn memory, not content to be shoved where it should curl up and die quickly out of the sun.
The only explanation was that in all the years I’d done this job, I had never had to stare a strange man in the eyes while he held his dick in his hand.
That was bound to make an impression on anyone, and while that made complete sense, it did little to cure the annoyance I felt toward this dipshit for causing the problem in the first place.
“Don’t forget to clean up once it’s done,” I told him with a scowl.
“I remember,” he said lightly as he opened the meat and went rummaging around for a jar of spaghetti sauce, looking to see how many jars he should use per pound of ground beef.
“And you’re on special kitchen duty, which means scrubbing the entire kitchen and dining area.”
“Clean enough to eat off the floor? Or something less?”
“Look, you’re new, and our first introduction has pissed me off, so I’m going to take mercy on you. So here’s a helpful clue: I don’t need a smartass when I’m telling him what he is or isn’t supposed to be doing.”
I thought for a moment I had finally broken through that benign, almost dismissive attitude of his, until his eyes met mine and he smiled softly.
“It sounded like a joke; I can hear that now I’m running it back through my head.
But I can promise you, I meant what I was asking.
Cleaning is something I’m familiar with; it’s the standard of cleaning I’m asking about.
So, do you want the absolute cleanest I can manage without creating a weapon, or is ‘hey, we have to live here and this place should be livable and comfortable’ what you’re looking for? ”
I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help but ask, “Why the fuck would you create a weapon?”
He chuckled. “Not my idea. The squad I was assigned to decided our punishment duty would be done a lot faster and better if we took a bleach cleaner and an ammonia-based one and put them together with a floor scrubber.”
I stared at him. “That—”
“Creates chloramine gas, which I pointed out to them. They decided that suiting up and wearing gas masks was the safe bet. To their credit, no one got sick, and the barracks were never cleaner…after it aired out for half a day,” he said with a snort and a shake of his head.
I stared at him as he began heating the large saucepan for the meat. “And you…let them?”
He laughed. “It was a group of marines. You can’t stop young marines from doing stupid shit.
Or, well, you can, but it’s exhausting and should only be exercised with great caution and some planning.
Most of the time, the best you can do is mitigate the damage, both personal and property.
I let them do their thing, but I made sure their masks were functioning and on right, and that everyone kept their goddamn gloves on. ”
I couldn’t help but ask, “And how the hell did you explain why no one was allowed back into the barracks while it aired out?”
“Slippery floors meant someone tripped and mixed the two together on the floor. It’s why we had to requisition the masks and extra protective gear.”
“Which was—”
“My idea, yeah.”
“So they came up with the harebrained scheme, and you helped them.”
“I guess that’s the basic summary, yeah.”
He seemed entirely too nonchalant about the whole thing. “And you guys…didn’t get in more trouble?”
“Oh, we got reamed for not being careful, that’s for sure,” he said as the meat sizzled in the pan. “But they had to admit the place had never been cleaner after it was safe for human habitation again.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, draining the rest of the bottle and setting it down with a thunk. “I’m regretting this more than before.”
“Well, you can take it up with whoever placed me here, I guess,” he said, squinting at the seasonings again as he contemplated what to dump into the meat.
I had enough sense to keep my mouth closed rather than admit it had been me who’d snatched up his application and claimed it before anyone else could get their hands on him. On paper, he seemed like the perfect candidate to deal with the guys, but the reality was making me nervous.
My mind flashed to the other two men currently in the building.
Jake already struggled to put two brain cells together, and some days I wondered if he even had two when he wasn’t working.
Reno could be…fine, at least enough that I could trust him around an open flame, unlike Jake.
But when he got together with others, like Jake, he forgot he had some intelligence and could be counted on to be neck-deep in the idiocy.
Based on everything technical in his application, as well as the recommendations that had been attached, I had been expecting someone with enough sense to know not to do stupid shit just because it sounded good.
It seemed I was dealing with another enabler who would sooner let a bunch of idiots do stupid shit rather than be sensible and reel them in.
I hadn’t expected someone who would help keep the guys in line as I or Cait did, but at least have one more voice of reason to balance the scales a little.