Chapter Five
Five
The car and Anna’s husband were a godsend.
Charles was a good dude, a role model who’d helped him navigate an unfamiliar city.
Juke had given Rashad the name of a casual friend who’d relocated to KC years before, but aside from a quick meetup when he’d first arrived, Rashad had kept to himself.
Trouble often followed this friend like a shadow.
The last thing Rashad wanted was to get caught up in something shady.
He wanted to turn the page on his old life and start a new chapter.
Unfortunately that sometimes meant cutting off good people who had done nothing wrong to him personally, but whose energy he’d simply outgrown.
There were other reasons why Rashad was being careful about the company he kept.
Removing people not headed in the same direction helped him stay focused.
Life had given him another chance to get it right.
To show the world who he really was. He didn’t want to mess it up.
He had some things to prove not only to himself but to others.
Like the ex who’d betrayed him with the former friend she was now dating.
Since arriving in the middle of America, he’d spent most of his time with Charles, a solid man and Anna’s second husband.
Rashad respected how he’d provided for his family and Rashad’s godmother with twenty-plus years at the post office and a musician side hustle good enough to secure weekend gigs.
He’d even developed an unexpected friendship with Monique’s son-in-law, Leon, whom he’d quickly nicknamed QNA, the Quiet Nerd Assassin, for his encyclopedic knowledge of hip-hop, expertise in programming and coding, and love for video games.
When questioned about the nickname, Rashad explained to Leon that where he came from having one was almost a requirement.
It meant that you’d graduated from acquaintance to friend.
Everyone who meant anything to Rashad had a nickname, as did almost everyone he knew back home.
In LA circles he was the Ra God. Anna was Goddess.
Charles was Pluck, for the way he handled the strings of his bass guitar.
He thought of Jamilah, the slightly uptight but all right woman with the curvy figure and heart-shaped face and eyes that told him she was feeling a vibe between them even as she tried to keep it strictly professional.
She reminded him of the women he’d met when hanging out in the valley with his engineer cousin.
The ones who graduated college and attended church and joined groups with Greek names.
The ones who acted all stuffy until the music turned up and the lights went down.
The ones who, if seen later while out with their peers, would look through him as though he were beneath them, as though they hadn’t sucked his blow pop days before.
He didn’t quite get that feeling with Jamilah and felt her posture was more an act of defense than one of superiority.
Something about that observation made him want to protect her, out here ballin’ with her own business and whatnot.
This could be a great opportunity, one where he could learn a lot.
He’d keep that in mind when they met later, and use the head above his shoulders to check the one below his waist.
Rashad reached his destination and parked in front of a large building that housed two spaces.
He was immediately struck by the location’s proximity to Paseo, a major thoroughfare with easy access and lots of traffic, great assets for a customer-driven business.
A popular chicken restaurant nearby also got his attention.
It looked desperately out of place amid the area’s rich history, but had a line of cars at the drive-through.
Wonder how her wings are holding up against that national chain? He was about to find out.
Rashad checked his reflection in the mirror, straightened the signature black-and-white bandanna holding back his shoulder-length locs and gave himself a quick pep talk.
“Nobody in this city cooks better than you. You’ve got this.”
He walked to the door and turned the knob.
The door was locked. The business was closed.
Their appointment was at eleven. Not trusting a sometimes-flawed GPS navigation system, he’d left Anna’s house early and arrived at Side Chic’k with fifteen minutes to spare.
He stood on the sidewalk and took in his surroundings.
The sun was bright, which made the temperature feel closer to the fifty degrees registered on the car’s temperature gauge.
Fifty was cold where he came from. Sometimes he still marveled that he actually lived in Kansas City, Missouri.
It was where he needed to be, but he missed California.
No matter what, LA would always be home.
Looking around and not seeing another car nearby, Rashad decided to take a quick walk to stay warm and familiarize himself with the area where he might be working.
Just as he reached the corner, a silver Lexus SUV rounded it almost on two wheels, the driver honking as it sped by and pulled to the curb in front of the restaurant.
Jamilah. Last night he had returned to the kitchen, but not before taking a moment to check out the revelers on the dance floor.
He hadn’t seen her go down the line, but a vision of her laughing with Anna, the white dress she wore hugging all the right places, swam into view.
His body immediately reacted. He moved to shift the hardening shaft in his jeans and pushed away the memory of how he’d low-key checked her out all last night.
She was his type, physically, and he hadn’t had sex since arriving in town.
Before prison, being celibate was something Rashad never imagined.
Discipline, however, was one good thing that had come from his time behind bars.
His ex, Brigit, had taught him the other lesson that curbed most sexual promiscuity.
After feeling what it was like to have his heart broken, he’d learned to have more care with those of the women he encountered.
Jamilah was fine, yes, and he was attracted. Still, he concluded that the only breast he needed to focus on right now was on a chicken connected to a paycheck. He exuded a casual confidence as he strolled back toward her car.
“Can you help me with these boxes?” she asked, opening the back door to her car without a direct look or greeting.
He almost replied with a knee-jerk answer about making demands without a proper salutation. But then he saw how well the ass sticking out toward him fit the corduroy slacks that covered it, and he swallowed the sarcasm.
He walked over and took the box she handed over. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Good morning.” Still in whirlwind mode, she hurriedly unlocked the door and headed back toward her car.
“It’s been a crazy morning. I just found out about a meeting I have to attend.
We’ve got about thirty minutes, forty tops.
I need to get the car unloaded. I usually pull around back,” she continued, reaching for two recycled bags and heading into the building.
“But I saw you on the corner and pulled up.”
“What’s all this?”
“Produce from a nearby urban garden, mostly organic.”
“Isn’t that expensive?”
“It can be.”
Rashad detected a bit of snap in her answer. She did say the morning was hectic with the unexpected thrown in. Maybe that was it.
“Business must be good. Are you open five or six days a week?”
“Set that top box in the pantry,” she all but commanded, ignoring his question. “Bring the ones with the lettuce, tomatoes and onions on top into the kitchen.”
Rashad had spent too many years being bossed around and disrespected, treated as invisible by those who felt a right to do so. Behind bars, he’d been forced to take it. Not so on the outside. That shit was over. If he was going to work at Side Chic’k, he needed to get that straight right now.
“You’re pretty bossy,” he said, following her into the kitchen instead of out to the car. “Is that how you run your kitchen? More importantly, is that how you speak to your staff?”
Jamilah placed the bags of frozen items she carried onto the stainless steel counter. “Is my being direct a problem?”
He took a breath, the way he’d seen yoga instructors instruct on YouTube tutorials.
Doing so was supposed to center you, help control your emotions.
Rashad knew he could be a hothead, a trait that had gotten him into more trouble than he cared to remember.
If he was going to get past the first stop on his journey to success, he’d best tame that beast right now.
“I don’t mind direct conversation. In fact, I prefer straight talk.
But being spoken at instead of to, like I’m a child?
Not so much. Look, I know this is your restaurant and I’m here for a job interview.
I’ve heard about kitchens where the chefs act crazy, like that dude from England who berates the cooks, slams shit around, gets in their faces.
That’s not the type of kitchen I want to work in.
So if that’s the kind of operation you’re running, where being rude and disrespectful is considered part of the job, then we don’t even need to do the interview, ’cause I’m not your guy. ”
He watched a myriad of emotions play across Jamilah’s face before she stopped unpacking the bag of frozen items and placed her palms flat on the counter.
“My apologies,” she said, without looking up. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
After a couple seconds, she lifted her head and eyed him directly, undoubtedly having no idea how mentally arousing it was to watch her regain the same control he’d also fought for moments earlier.
“I’m having a bad morning, Rashad, one that doesn’t need to be taken out on you. I’ll come back and finish this later. Alone, so if I explode no one else will catch the shrapnel.”
Rashad softened. “That’s probably a good idea, unless you’ve got some hella workers’ comp.”
“If you’ll have a seat in the dining room, I’ll put these in the freezer and be right out.”
“Or I can grab those veggies from the car.”
“Thanks.”
Rashad’s heart warmed as he walked away.
There was something about Jamilah that rubbed him the right way.
Maybe they weren’t as different as Rashad had imagined.
He liked a fiery woman, one who could hold their own against his alpha nature.
In the kitchen, if misused as it had been just now, it could be a liability.
But in the bedroom, between two lovers, it was an asset he immensely enjoyed.