Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (9 page)

I’m sipping espresso, leaning over one of the prep tables and going over tonight’s menu when she comes in.

Finally
.

I think about chewing her out for being late, but - eh - I’ve gotta pace myself. I mean I can’t go all in at once with toppling little miss perfect now can I? After all, I’ve got
four
Goddamn months of this little walking distraction in my kitchen; no point in blowing my load on week one, right?

Wrong turn of phrase, dick.

Of course, she also blows through the backdoor like some sort of hurricane, shooting me a quick and withering look as she storms over to her station.

Oh, right, the whole terrorizing her in the bathroom bit. I’m slightly embarrassed of
myself
that I’d actually almost forgot about that.

I take another slow sip of my espresso as I watch her yank her knife set out of her bag and start to prep her station for the afternoon. Briefly, I wonder why I feel the need to act like such a fucking child around her; why I feel the need to poke and prod her like we’re children in a schoolyard. I mean objectively speaking, Chloe is a fucking
knockout
, and in that way where she really doesn’t quite know it, which is always just a deal-sealer when it comes to girls like her. 

“You’re just being a dick cause I wouldn’t fuck you five years ago.”

I frown, letting my eyes freely roam over her tight little ass in those jeans.
Is
that it? Am I really that much of a fuckin’ hard-on that I can’t let that go from five damn years ago? I mean Christ, I’ve fucked like half the waitresses, bartenders, and hostesses between East End and Notting Hill since then. So how in the world does
this girl
with her attitude and her jeans and t-shirt and no makeup and her
refusal
to give me my way get me all turned around and acting like a stupid little kid?

I think again about barging into that bathroom this morning and catching the eye-f of Chloe I actually wasn’t expecting, and I can feel my dick getting hard inside my chef’s whites. Just picturing those tits and the curve of her ass as she shrieked and jumped for a towel had my pants tenting. Truth be told, I was expecting her to be in the shower, not just sitting there without a stitch of clothing or glass between us.

And what an ass
. I can literally still picture running my hands over that ass as she moaned into my lips, albeit five years ago, and over pants of course.

Not, of course, that those details in
any way
diminish the throbbing of my erection in my pants.

She turns then, as if feeling my gaze on her, and for a second, our eyes meet and hold. And then she just
sneers
at me - fuckin’
sneers!
- before she actually
flips me off
and starts to walk out of the kitchen, presumably to go change for the day.

Yeah, I could -
and should
- totally chew her out for that little act of rebellion in my domain, but the only other cooks in the kitchen are looking the other way anyways, and part of me decides she’s at least
half
justified in being pissy at me considering my morning antics.

Besides, letting it slide just means I can continue this slow burn of our little power dynamic, which is just too much fun to blow all at once.

“Oy.”

I turn to see Marco, my grill guy dropping his knife bag on the counter behind me and nodding his chin at me. Marco and me go way back to when we were kids. We go back to even before our first restaurant job, when we were both kitchen-prep bitches getting our asses collectively chewed out by everyone from the Head Chef down to the fuckin’ dishwasher. He’s my age; another hungry young buck looking to make a name for himself in kitchens.

Too bad his dad doesn’t own the place.

Okay, I mean I kind of hate that mine
does
, but I
know
Marco hates it. We’re the same age, had the same comings-up, worked in virtually the same kitchens, and I know the fact that I’m 23 and running a kitchen, and getting shit like “hottest young bad-boy chef in Britain” blog posts being written about me while he’s still my grill-guy irks him something wicked.

But hey, that’s the way the cookie crumbled, and truth be told, I’d be lost with literally anyone else besides Marco manning the hot-line come dinner rush.

In any case, he might still be sore about having to work
for
me, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t cool. Because we both get it, unlike Chloe, apparently. Kitchen shit is just that, kitchen shit. I can call someone a fuck-face and promise to sodomize their mother during the heat of battle of a dinner rush, but we’re both gonna be cool after a pint and maybe some darts after. Hell, if we can pick up some girls, even
better
.

“How we doin’ chef?” Marco claps me on the shoulder. See? We’re buddies, but even he gets it; he gets the code. In here, there’s order, and buddies aside, I’m the commander in chief. 

“Big night,” I say, nodding and turning the menu notes I’ve written down towards him. Being Godfather in here doesn’t mean you don’t check in with your consigliere here and there; “Checked with Ian out front, too and we’ve got a full book for the night.”

“Yeah? Wicked.” Marco turns towards the espresso machine that I demanded we get for the kitchen staff right there on the line. Pricey little number, but you gotta figure, a bunch of cooks slugging down expensive coffee to get through a night is still probably a lot better - and cheaper - than having them blow lines of coke all night. 

Just then, the side door to the kitchen opens, and Chloe walks in wearing her kitchen whites, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She shoots me a quick, and what I’m sure she thinks is a withering look, before stomping over to start prepping at her station.

Marco nudges me, and I glance back to see him nodding slowly as he grins and gestures with his chin towards Chloe; “Who’s the new bird?”

I arch a brow at him, “Forget it, and forget her. She’s a charity case for my dad, she’ll be out of here soon.”

“Even better,” Marco says, grinning like a shark at me.

I roll my eyes, tempering the curiously sudden rise of red anger inside, “Nah, brother, she’s a no-go.”

Marco shrugs. “Says
you
. Now, a man not so keen on defeat might just-”

“She’s my old man’s new fiancé’s daughter, knobhead.”

He barks out a laugh that has a few heads turning our way, “Your
sister?!
Oh shit, mate.”

“Naw,
stepsister
,” I say, shooting a quick look back at Chloe who’s very conveniently stuck earbuds into her ears at this point.

“Well, shit, either way, you’re not chasing that then I take it?”

I make a face at Marco. “
No
, mate; fuckin’ of course not. I’m not a bloody pervert or something.”

Yes, I am.

“The fuck you’re not, mate,” Marco says with a raise of his eyebrows. “But still, slipping it to your sister might be a little low-brow even for you.”

“She’s
not
my sister, ass.”

Marco cranes his head over my shoulder and raises his eyebrows, and I can feel that temper start to flare inside again as I watch his eyes dart all over Chloe’s back. “Well then, I guess you don’t mind if I take a swing, yeah?”

I can’t say shit. Okay, there’s a lot I
want
to say, but I’m mostly concerned right then about why the thought of Marco hitting on Chloe, or doing anything in the slightest fucking bit with her gets me fucking
heated
. I turn to look at her, watching as she separates eggs over a mixing bowl, her head moving with just the faintest movements to the beat of whatever she’s listening to, and just one stray lock of brown hair slipping over her cheek.

Easy, pal.

I swallow that heat though and put on my most nonchalant face as I turn back to Marco, “Nah, fuck off mate; we’ve got shit to do.”

He shrugs, eyeing her again in a way that has my blood boiling. “Well, soon then, yeah? We could get drinks tonight after-”

“
Work
, Marco,” I say firmly, nodding at his prep list.

“You got it, chef.”

There’s a meditative sort of state to baking. That probably sounds weird, but really, go try it sometime. And I don’t mean cracking open a box of instant brownies and then throwing on Netflix, I mean
really
baking. It’s the feel of an egg-yolk between your fingers, the smell of flour hanging in the air, the twirl of a spatula through a thickening mix. There’s the heat of an open oven, the sizzle of a sauce-pan, the bubbling of a glaze or the frothing of cream.

When I used to watch my dad back in the bakery when I was a kid, it was like being in Willy Wonka’s factory. It was magic - literally magic - watching everyday things that we even had in our refrigerator back home turn into something like a towering cake, or rich velvety chocolate tart. Things that any eight year old would normally wrinkle their nose at, like raw eggs, or unsweetened chocolate, would suddenly and magically turn into something
amazing.

I bake to clear my head, and because I love it. But I suppose I also do it to capture a little bit of that magic, wherever it may be still floating around the world like flour dust.

Baking is making something good in the world. It’s making something wonderful that makes people happy. At the end of the day, a cookie is just a cookie; a quiche or a tart is just a slice of lunch, really. But stirring and beating and mixing are all labors of love that go into this one thing, and sometimes the world just needs a little love put back into it.

It’s quiet as the rest of the kitchen starts to pack up after the shift. The counters are washed down, the grills turned off, knives sharpened, glasses polished, cutting-boards bleached, and lights turned low. I should probably go home, considering the late, sleepless night I had, followed by the horrible wake-up call this morning, all thanks to Oliver.

But instead, I’m staying here, in the semi-darkness of a now-quiet kitchen, baking. 

“Need a taster?” 

I whirl, yanking the headphones out of my ears, my hands flying to my chest, and my heart about jumping right out of my throat. 

“
Jesus,
Oliver.” I suck in a deep breath, glaring at him, “You scared the
shit
out of me.”

“Let this be a lesson about wearing headphones in a kitchen then,” He says with a shrug of his shoulders. He’s out of his chef-whites, in jeans and a black-t-shirt with his face looking freshly scrubbed and his hair wet and slicked back from a shower downstairs. His full lips pull back into a cocky sort of grin. Smile lines etch his cheek and that strong jaw line draws my eyes before they dart up to meet his dark brown ones.