Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (14 page)

I blush slightly at the thought of some other “passions” from the night before, but I quickly push that aside as the general chaos of the kitchen swallows me back up.

It’s the giggling that gets my attention finally,
just
as we’re starting to wind down. I look up, and my eyes instantly narrow on
Delia
, the bouncy little blonde waitress who
somehow
has managed not to get fired yet. 

She’s also somehow managed to get Oliver wrapped around her fucking pinky, and
that
gets to me a whole lot more than the fact that she’s still a waitress here.

If he’s yelling at everyone else all night and generally acting like a drill sergeant, he’s
all
smiles with her; all charm, all little jokes and winks. Actually come to think of it, I’m not sure who’s wrapped around
whose
finger there. Either way, it’s got me quietly seething in the corner, much more than it should, given my whole diatribe earlier to him about this ‘not being a thing’. 

But there I am, skulking in the corner and glaring at him as he leans against the service window and cracks jokes with Delia; Delia who’s got one button too many undone to be remotely appropriate in this sort of restaurant, I might add.

“Oh, him?” I turn to see Marco grinning at me from his spot by the grill. He smirks and nods at Oliver. “Oy, he’s the
master
, isn’t he.” 

“What,
chef
?”

Marco laughs, his dark, brooding eyes sparkling and that strong jaw cracking into a wide, white smile. “Well, sure, but I’m talking about being master of a different kind of dish.” He gestures with his chin at Delia. “Oh he
does
go through them,” he says with a dark chuckle.

I scowl, feeling the anger rising up inside, and again, that damned confusion about
why
I’m even angry about a man
I don’t even want
flirting with another girl. I mean what do I care?

Why
do I care?

Marco glances at me and laughs, “Oy, sorry, you probably don’t want to hear about his conquest do you? I mean your two families being so close and all, a bit too familiar, yeah?”

“Yeah, not really,” I say icily, trying to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. 

The ticket printer spits out a quick ticket, followed quickly by Ian, the Maître d’, bustling into the kitchen to announce that it’s the very last table. 

Thank
God. 

Pasta, too, which means the rest of us besides poor Julie on steam line can start wiping down and stocking before getting the hell out of here. 

Which of course, also means getting the hell away from Oliver flirting with that fucking girl. 

Marco swears a relief under his breath and suddenly elbows me. I turn to see him grinning as he pulls a little flask out of his apron pocket and winks at me.

I can’t help but giggle as he wags his eyebrows at me.

“Little nip to speed things along?” I shoot a quick glance at Oliver, who I’m sure would have something to say about his cooks drinking before they’re done, but he’s too busy sticking his fucking eyes down Delia’s cleavage to notice. 

I turn back to dark, dangerous, handsome Marco and shrug. “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“Atta girl!” He grins, “Listen, we’re going to the pub after for a few, you should come with.”

I know what an invitation for drinks means from a man who looks like Marco; from a man who looks at me the hungry way he’s looking at me right now. And part of me wants to jump at the idea of getting Oliver out of my head. Part of me says “why the hell not”, when he’s made it so perfectly clear that his only interest in me is to wind me up so that he can shit all over me. And of course, on top of that, it’s not like there’s anything that
can
or
could
ever happen with him. I mean our parents are getting married for crying out loud. He’s my boss, and a total man-whore, and probably has a rap-sheet from when he was younger that’s longer than his- 

I shake my head to quickly get the thought of Oliver’s, well,
anything
out of it.

But at the same time, I’ve got a feeling I know
just
how he’d react to me and Marco, even if it
is
just “going out for some drinks.” An alpha caveman like Oliver? I roll my eyes; I can’t even
imagine
the macho bullshit that would come out of that.

I turn to Marco and try and smile as I shake my head, “Thanks, Marco, but I don’t think I-”

The sound of Delia’s high-pitched little giggle rolls across the kitchen, and I whirl around to see Oliver on the other side of the line now, his arm draped over her shoulder and that cocky, smoldering, panty-melting grin on his face. He looks up for
just
a second and catches my dagger-look before he just turns back to her and winks. 

I can feel my hands clenching at my sides as I turn back towards Marco, suddenly forcing a smile to my face. “You know what, I’d
love
to.”

The bar is pounding some shitty techno-pop song that’s making my head hurt. One of those whiny little tween-twat blokes who can’t grow facial hair but cries about some girl leaving him as if he even knows what that means.  

It’s a little hard to take the little shit’s whining seriously when he can’t grow a proper fuckin mustache yet. 

The song grates at my ears, making my head hurt as I sit there peeling the labels off my beers. I
should
be paying attention to Delia, the little blonde waitress currently curled in my lap trying to keep my attention with her tits practically falling out of her shirt. Except I’m distracted.

I’m distracted by
Chloe
.

Chloe giggling and laughing at every bloody thing fuckin’
Marco
says, nonetheless. Touching his arm. Batting her fuckin’ eyes.

You should’ve just gone home,
I growl inside my head.
You fucking twat.

And I was all set to, too. I was all set to get the fuck out of that restaurant and head home for a pint and maybe some football highlights when I saw the two of them all fuckin’ chummy. 

There’s the first alarm bells; Marco being “chummy” with a chick. Of course, then I heard about my cooks going out for beers after that nightmare of a shift, and there’s no way I
wasn’t
chaperoning that shit.

So here we are. The rest of the crew probably thinks it’s “cool” that I’m out with them; probably thinks it’s so wicked that they get to hang with the rock star “Chef Ollie” while he slums it at the pub with the line-guys.

Yeah, right.
And here I am peeling labels from beer bottles, ignoring the hot little dish on my lap, and murdering Marco with my eyes while I try and get my stepsister out of my head.

Real fucking glamourous life I’ve got here. 

Chloe’s laughing at every damn word he says, which is one thing on its own, but then she’s also shooting me quick looks as if I somehow
don’t
see them. And that tells me she wants to make sure I see it, and
that
gets under my skin. 

Marco says something
hilarious
that he probably fucking stole from me anyways, and as I watch Chloe playfully slap his arm and bat her eyes at him like some sort of fucking ditz like Delia over here. I feel my temper start to get the better of me.

Delia turns to giggle with another waitress that’s out with us, and I take the moment to take my phone out and fire a text Chloe’s way:

“We need to talk.” 

She glances at the phone as it lights in her hand before shrugging and putting it face down on her lap as she turns back to Marco. I grit my teeth. This is
not
the kind of bullshit game I want to play; with
anyone
come to think of it, but least of all Chloe. I text her again, furious that I’m fucking
texting
her like the same sort of pussy as the one whining over the sound system:

“Now.” 

She glances at her phone when it buzzes on her thigh, and she smirks this time.
Smirks
. Delia’s hands is on my leg, squeezing my thigh, but I grab my phone and shoot off one more text: 

“Get your sweet ass up and meet me out back or I’m going to carry you there over my shoulder. Don’t pretend you don’t know that I will.” 

I follow it with one of those retarded winky faces, just to keep her guessing. 

It works. This time when she looks at the phone across the table from me and gets ready to smirk again, her eyes dart immediately to mine. 

Yeah, just try
and play the cool card, darlin
, I grin to myself.
Just try and call that bluff and see what happens. 

She smiles and says something to Marco before she gets up, shooting me another venomous look. I grin, pleased with myself, and give it a second before telling Delia I have to go smoke as I push her off my lap.

She looks at me with this stupid little pout that I’m sure looks cute in her mind. “Ollie are you playing? You don’t even smoke?” 

“Yeah, wow. Strange, eh?” I shrug, ignoring her and her friend’s dumb looks as I walk away and into the crowd of the pub.

Chloe’s waiting in the back, in the dark hallway by the bathrooms. 

“Okay,
what
is it that couldn’t wait, Oliver,” she spits at me, her eyes wild and glaring, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I know what you’re doing.”

She narrows her eyes at me, flashing that defiant look that somehow gets right under my skin and lights a fire there. 

“Oh, and I don’t know what
you’re
doing?”

“I don’t
do
games, you know,” I say, arching my brow at her and letting my eyes catch, for just a second, at the subtle rise and fall of her chest with her breathing. 

“Who’s playing games?” She spits.

I take a step closer, smirking at her as my eyes dart across her face in the dim shadows of the hallway, “Trying to make me jealous?”

“Oh,
please
, like you aren’t pulling the same shit with that little blonde thing that’s been crawling all over your lap all night. I’m not
trying
to make you jealous, I’m just out having a lovely time with a nice man.”

She gasps as I suddenly grab her wrists and pin her back against the wall behind her. She doesn’t say a damn thing, but her eyes dart across mine and her cheeks flush a deep red that I can see even in the dim light back here.

I move against her and she gasps as I lean my mouth right into the crook of her neck, “Let’s get something straight right now, luv,” I say into her ear, my voice low and deep, “I don’t want you out having ‘a lovely time’ with anyone like Marco.”

I can see her throat move with a swallow as she opens her mouth, “You can’t just
decide
who I talk to, you know.”

She trembles as I run my hand up her side; sliding higher until my hand brushes against her breast through her shirt. She moans softly and quietly, and it’s just enough of a sound to get my cock rock hard in my jeans. 

“Oh?” I chuckle deeply into her ear, pressing her hard against the wall with my body molded against hers and feeling her pulse jump in her wrists beneath my fingers. “
Watch me,
” I whisper, and before she can say a word, and before I can even let one more second pass by
without
doing it, I nip at her earlobe with my teeth before running my tongue over the skin there.