Sandbridge Box Set

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Scooter pried himself out of bed at fuckme o’clock on Memorial Day. Friday had been a good night, steady. Saturday had been crazy and Sunday had been so bad that they’d all collapsed as soon as they shooed the last customer out the door, deciding en masse to do cleanup in the morning. Which was a dumb damn decision, and they made it every f*****g year.

He practically cried, leaving the cradle of his bed and pulling on clothes. When he dragged himself into the restaurant kitchen, Kat was already there. She hadn’t done anything yet, but she was there, which had to count for something. She glanced at him, then poured a cup of coffee. And then she poured a Five-Hour Energy into the coffee and shoved it at him.

Which counted for everything.

“God, Kat, you have to marry me,” he said, draining the mug in one long pull. It was disgusting but he’d be grateful for it later.

“I am not marrying you,” Kat said, pointing a finger at him. “And do you know why that is?”

“I am positive you’re about to tell me.”

“Because you are an i***t. Epic. The biggest i***t ever. Even Jason did not need to be whacked upside the head so hard with the clue-by-four.” Liar. Of course, Jason’s one awkward attempt to ask Kat out had been painfully awful. Ever since, Kat just informed Jason what their plans were. It worked out for them.

“I’m not clueless,” Scooter protested. “I’m focused.”

There were exactly zero words in the English language to describe the dubious look she gave him. It was a masterpiece. It should be hung in a museum. Scooter held up his fingers to make a frame around her face. Yep. Hyper-realism, right there.

“I am going to make you eat those words,” Kat threatened. “But first, breakfast. We’re going to need it.”

Jason was already at the grill. He had at least two dozen burgers cooking; they’d stay warm and moist on the side of the grill, and even with that head-start, he’d be cramming them on with no space between to keep up with the orders once things got into full swing. Kat handed him a carton of eggs, and he cracked them all onto the griddle, one after the other. He fried them up and then slid them onto a plate, yolks still runny, for the quick protein jump.

“Where’s Andy?” Jason asked.

Scooter glanced at the clock. “Walking Trick, I expect.”

“Good. There’s a tiramisu and some gifts out in the car. Get ‘em upstairs at your place, before he gets back,” Jason said.

Something to look forward to, after they’d closed up tonight. Just a handful of people, really, but Scooter didn’t think Andy would want them to go all out anyway. He was still a little cagey around strangers. Scooter took Jason’s keys and made with the smuggling. The gifts were in a bag that he slung over his arm so he could use two hands for the cake-thing in Jason’s good crystal trifle bowl. It smelled like coffee and liqueur and cream and made Scooter’s mouth water immediately.

The smell of coffee hit harder when he opened the door. s**t, he’d forgotten to turn the auto-brew off. Oh well, Andy hadn’t had his first cup yet anyway. He stashed the cake and the gifts, then poured the coffee and headed back outside to wait for Andy, just like always. He was halfway through his second cup before Andy got back, and Scooter could already feel his heart racing and his brain vibrating from dumping that on top of Kat’s concoction.

“Happy Memorial Day,” Scooter said, offering over Andy’s mug. “How are you feeling? I had a bit of a Walking Dead vibe this morning myself. But today’s gonna be profitable, I can smell it.”

Andy all but curled around the cup with a grunt—so apparently, he was still a little bit zombie-fied. But he downed the coffee in three large gulps, and then shuffled his way into the restaurant to start the cleanup they’d skipped last night.

Three hours later, they were ready, and had about an hour to go before the crowds would start—Memorial Day brunch was popular. Everyone gathered around the staff table and Scooter put down a large jar of O’Keefe’s on the table. “Gimme your hands, Andy,” he said, straddling the bench.

Andy held out his hands warily, eyeing the jar.

Scooter turned Andy’s hands, inspecting them. His fingers were long and graceful, the nails bitten to the quick. The skin was chapped in places, and his forearms were dotted with bruises; nothing unusual for the kind of work he was doing, but today was going to be murder. Scooter scooped a double-fingerful of the hand cream out of the jar and started rubbing Andy’s right hand, working the cream into the skin and massaging out pain and stiffness.

“You know that’s just going to wash right off the instantooooooohhhhh God that feels good.” Andy half-slumped in bliss.

The rub-downs had been part of Memorial Day prep since Scooter had been a boy. Kat had already rucked her shirt up so Jason could spread the cream down her back. She was groaning almost as sensually as Andy. It was just part of the routine, Scooter told himself, but the fact that he was breathing harder just from getting to touch Andy—that was not routine, not at all, and he probably should have shuffled Andy over to Kat’s care because fuuuuuuuck, he was going to die, hearing those groans and watching the faces that Andy was making.

And Andy didn’t stop making noises the whole time, either. Moans and soft little whimpers and luxurious sighs, and yep, Scooter was straight up going to die. He very carefully did not acknowledge Kat, who he was sure was making a smug told-you-so face at him. Eventually, he stopped, and forced himself to let go of Andy’s hands.

And that was almost worse, because then Andy glanced over at Kat working the cream into Jason’s shoulders. Andy raised an eyebrow at Scooter, a question that he obviously was not sure how to properly voice.

Scooter couldn’t not answer. Couldn’t brush it off with an “I’m fine.” Kat would never, ever let him get away with it. She’d do one of those obnoxious “I do not understand your strange American customs” spiels and make it into a Thing. Scooter managed to conceal his wince as he shoved the jar in Andy’s direction and turned around on the bench, peeling off his tee. “Lower back’s the worst, hunched over that damn desk all the time,” he said roughly, body shivering at the core, waiting for Andy’s touch. Dear God, the shivers were going to be so obvious…Maybe Andy would chalk them up to the insane amount of caffeine Scooter had been downing.

And then Andy actually touched him and Christ on a cracker, why didn’t they do this every day, because the man’s hands were goddamned magic. Scooter gritted his jaw and an embarrassing noise still managed to slither between his teeth.

Andy laughed, just a little, close enough that Scooter could feel puffs of warm breath on his skin. “I think he likes it,” he said, teasing. “I’ve been told that I’m not half bad at this, so it’s okay, feel free to worship me as the benevolent god that I am.”

“I’ll get started on that temple first thing tomorrow morning,” Scooter swore. He rolled his neck from one side to the other, his spine popping loudly. Oh, Jesus, did he just say that? Out loud and everything? It was far too close to “I’ll make you breakfast,” which was a come-on he would never use, not in a million years. The back of his neck heated.

“Glad to hear it,” Andy said, and Scooter could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll stop in and offer suggestions after Trick’s walk.” He finished Scooter’s lower back, but didn’t pull away immediately, sliding his knuckles slowly up either side of Scooter’s spine, digging in just to the edge of pain. He hesitated at the base of Scooter’s skull, fingers teasing at the bottom of Scooter’s hairline, but then dropped his hands with a sigh. “Probably shouldn’t get this gunk in your hair, huh?” He sounded almost put out by it, as if he wanted—Scooter yanked that thought back by its tail.

On the other side of the table Jason was practically purring, slumping in relaxation. He tipped his head back to look up at Kat and said, “Really, woman, you have to let me marry you one of these days.”

Kat blinked down at him, then stared at Scooter. “Did you hear something? I think maybe the television got left on. I could swear I heard someone talking.”

Scooter leaned back against Andy for just a moment. “Outside,” he said, soft. “Now.” He adjusted his jeans and Scooter was just going to have to hope Andy didn’t notice, because he was almost a hundred percent positive Kat was about to either kiss Jason stupid or claw out the man’s throat, and Scooter didn’t want to witness either of those things.

Andy’s eyes were already wide, and he scrambled off the bench. “Yep,” he said, heading for the door at a brisk pace. “I’m just gonna go check the, uh. The thing.”

Scooter beat him out to the porch only by virtue of longer legs (and possibly by cheating and grabbing the back of Andy’s shirt to pull him back a few staggered steps). “Oh, God,” Scooter said as soon as the door closed behind them. “I hope he planned that, and he’s not just being a jerk. She will kill him if that wasn’t legit.”

Andy glanced back over his shoulder, expression vacillating between amused and concerned. “That was literally the least romantic proposal I’ve ever heard,” he said. “So she might kill him anyway.”

“That’s Jason Anderson, all the way down to the bone. You should have heard it when he actually asked her out the first time. So embarrassing. I was distressed on his behalf,” Scooter said.

Andy snorted. “Terminally straight and so very not-smooth.”

“Not like he has to be,” Scooter pointed out. “Before he took one look at Kat and fell down the escalator—not even kidding, by the way—all the girls and plenty of guys threw themselves at him as soon as he looked their way. But before he started with the running and the weights and the actual growing, he’d barely talked to anyone but me. Skinny kid, but mouthy. He was bullied a lot. Used to get his ass handed to him three or four times a week.” Scooter leaned on the porch rail and let nostalgia pull his mouth into a fond smile. “So, he never really learned how to talk to anybody. Not that it mattered much. Don’t think those girls wanted him for his conversation anyway.”

“No, probably not,” Andy agreed. His eyes were on the horizon, and Scooter had no idea what he was seeing. “She doesn’t seem to mind. She’s good for him, from what I’ve seen. Grounding. She doesn’t let him get away with anything, but she doesn’t play head games either.” He glanced at Scooter, smiling slightly. “She doesn’t care about smooth. She just wants…him. It’s nice.”

“Ekaterina, she gives zero f***s,” Scooter said. “And she’s brutally honest. If she’s ever given you one of her pep talks—” He laughed. “You’re never sure if you’re fired up and ready to face the world, or just terrified of disappointing her.”

“Is that what you call them? I think I got one the second day I was here. I’m going to go with terrifying.”

Scooter squinted down the road at a family of tourists walking up the beach toward them, and checked the time. “Yep, time to open,” he said, slinging an arm around Andy’s shoulders and giving him a half-hug. “Let’s go see if my cook and waitress are engaged or dead. If they’re dead, we’re going to be having a really long shift.”