Page 334 of Phobia
Fuck!
I’m just as bad as the man who robs him every day.
I need to get my shit together and focus on the busy-as-fuck day we’re about to have at the restaurant, but instead, I’m meandering in the kitchen, still thinking about the boy. I wash my hands. I check the time. I even run my hands through my shoulder-length locs and re-tie them at the nape of my neck. It's five in the morning and I know he won't be there – in the alley the back of my restaurant is facing, for at least another hour.
I worry about him, and I hate myself for it. I don't deserve to feel this ache in my chest. I've done nothing but watch him endure his misery.
I selfishly want to march over there and drag him kicking and screaming back to my home and lock him up. Away from the filth and pain. Away from the cold and hunger.I don’t want to teach him how to handle it on his own. No, I don't want him to be free.
If I have him, I’m afraid I’ll be jealous of the sun caressing his skin. Of the air entering his lungs. Of life coursing through his veins.
I’m sick. I’m fucked up.
I am not a good man.
Not the type of man this boy needs to rescue him from whatever messed-up situation he's in.
I don't want to save him.
I want totakehim.
I want him all to myself.
I want to coil myself around him like a serpent, suffocating him with my presence until I am all he knows and sees. I want his brain perfectly washed of every single thought, but the notion he belongs to me.
The beeping sound of a truck backing into the alley gets my attention, interrupting my unsavory thoughts.
I take the apron off and head into the main dining hall, where I toss it onto the bar. Once I’m out of the kitchen, I can hear Andre fumbling with his keys at the front and I pause in the middle of the dining area trying to decide whom to prioritize. I choose Andre. I always do.
I open the front door of our jointly owned business,The Salacious Goose, Bar and Bistro. He clearly doesn’t expect me to be there as he jumps back, startled, clutching his chest in shock.
“Jesus fucking Christ! You fucker!”
I grin at my oldest friend in the world. We’ve been working side by side ever since we got a job at a drive-thru as two skinny sixteen-year-olds, whom no one should have trusted with preparing food for paying customers or handling the ancient grill, thickly covered in old grainy fat, that was a constant fire hazard. That was nearly twenty years ago.Two homeless, nameless losers, with the same fake address, pretending to be kids from the foster home all the way on the other side of town.
Andre got his heavy breathing under control and rushed past me punching me in the shoulder. I lock the door after him, as we won't be open for business for a few more hours and follow him to the back. I can hear him already haggling with the delivery driver.
“What the fuck do you think this is? I can't serve this pig shit to my patrons! This is a two-hundred-dollar-a-plate joint!”
“Hey, it's not the season for them, okay, buddy? Do you know the crap I had to go through to get my hands on a single crate of these?”
“Well, you can shove it! I'm not paying, and I am not taking them.”
Here we fucking go again.
Some days, I wonder, who is the true madman between the two of us?
I get to the back just as the two men are locked in a silent standoff – both panting, looking like they would either start punching or fucking each other.
One never knows with Andre.
A crate with suspicious-looking asparagus is wedged between them. The rest of the truck is filled with crates of decorative miniature pumpkins we’ve been expecting so we can start decorating the bistro. We. Need. Those. Pumpkins.
And what a damn shame, as I can already see them roll away into the sunset.
I roll my eyes.
Of course.
