Page 32 of Christmas Spirit
A job that he’d helped make a living hell for Georgie. The unnoticed, unthought-of kitchen boy, except when he was being lambasted and — bullied. Bullied by everybody, bullied by him. He was King of his kitchen. He should have set an example for others to follow. He had, but he’d set the wrong one.
“It’s weird,” Georgie said, still gazing into the flames. “I found a newspaper on the Tube, so I picked it up. It was open at the job vacancies pages. I didn’t think papers had those anymore, ‘cause everything’s online. And there it was. A live-in position. It seemed perfect because I needed somewhere else to live, after Ned got together with his boyfriend. I’d also just lost my job. In a kitchen. The owners sold up.”
Georgie turned his attention to Roland, a sad, lopsided smile lifting his lips.
“I loved that job. I loved the rush of being in a professional kitchen. It was a family run Italian place. Not that I was family, but they treated me well. They let me help out with some of the more basic preparation, and they gave me time off to go to college once a week — I’d started a part-time catering course.”
Roland jerked, Georgie’s revelation taking him aback.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d started training?”
“It was on my application.” Georgie shrugged. “I had to give up, what with losing both my home and job at about the same time. I thought, if I could get a foothold in another kitchen, I could work my way up by learning on the job. It was kind of what I was doing at the Italian restaurant. Seems I was wrong. Or at least when it comes to Pendleton Manor.
“Everybody’s got a formal catering qualification and a lot of experience. No room for anybody else. That’s been made very clear. But working as a chef, even if I have to claw my way up, is what I want to do. As soon as I’ve saved enough money, I’ll leave and try my luck at getting a training position somewhere, maybe even restart college.”
Roland could do nothing, other than stare at Georgie, as shame gnawed at his stomach. The memory crashed into him. Georgie had approached him about helping the junior chefs, he’d gathered up his courage, he’d shown ambition — and all Roland had done was knock him to the ground.
He put aside his half-eaten mince pie. What had tasted rich and buttery and delicious was now as hard and tasteless as month-old pastry. He licked his suddenly dry lips.
“Everybody who comes to work in the kitchen comes with a formal qualification and a personal recommendation. It’s the way I work. It’s how I’ve always run my kitchens and it’s served me well. It’s not a training kitchen, nobody has the time to…” He had been about to say spoon feed or nanny a member of staff, but the words felt like they would just be another blow. “We don’t have time to give the support a trainee needs and deserves.”
“I know, I realise that now, which is why I’m going to have to move on as soon as I can. I get it. But I’m sorry, because it would have been good to learn from the best.”
Georgie jumped up, suddenly and without warning, making his way to the large bay window, where he stared out into the dusk over the snowbound landscape.
“It’s snowing hard again, and it’s already getting dark. How long have we been sitting here?”
“I don’t know,” Roland said, getting up and following Georgie to the window. “Perhaps we dozed off.”
Had they? He didn’t remember falling asleep in front of the fire…
“I don’t think we did,” Georgie said, “but nothing else makes sense. It seems to be getting darker by the moment.”
Roland gazed out over the barren gardens. Standing next to Georgie, he was aware of every atom of the boy’s presence, of each and every breath Georgie took, of the warmth of his skin. Roland imagined he could hear the rush of Georgie’s blood through his veins, and the beat of his heart. His own heart clenched. The boy who had started out as nothing more than an irritation, as an obstacle to his carefully laid plans, had become somebody he liked being with. More than liked.
Images from the dream that had left his skin hot and his cock hard flashed through his head, illuminating the increasingly gloomy world on the other side of the window with flashes of light, lightning strikes in the dark and featureless void that was his life. Georgie was standing so close, was so still… What would Georgie say, what would Georgie do, if he pressed his lips to his, if he took control of that mouth? In his dream, it had felt so real. It had brought him to life from the dead place he’d been hiding in for so many years.
“It’s so dark, and suddenly. Normally it creeps up on you, but it’s like a light’s been switched off.”
“What?” Roland struggled to make sense of Georgie’s words as he fought his way to the surface of his fogged-up brain.
“It’s like all the light in the world has been turned off and that doesn’t happen in England, does it? I mean, even when you’re deep in the countryside, there are roads and villages and towns not more than a few miles away, but here it’s like we’re outside of all that, somehow. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense. But, in a way I kind of like it,” he said, turning to Roland and smiling. “It’s like a break from the real world and real life, which isn’t that great. Or at least it isn’t in my case. Not like you, I guess. You’ve made it, and I’m not even on the first rung of the ladder.”
Roland stared down at Georgie. There was no bitterness or green tinge of jealousy in Georgie’s words. He was stating a fact as he saw it. But he was wrong, so damn wrong.
Yes, he had money, success, status, power, but in reality he had nothing, because he was alone, his life as featureless, cold, and barren as the winter-bound world beyond the window. But how could he even begin to explain to a boy who had nothing that he felt like the poorest man on Earth?
They were close, no more than a few inches apart. In the grate the fire crackled and candles shimmered in the still air. The soft light shone on Georgie’s dark hair, and Roland itched to run his fingers through those strands. His breath was heavy in his lungs as his gaze fell to Georgie’s lips.
Pink and damp, with a scattering of crumbs still clinging, how would they taste on those lips? Which would be sweeter? What would be more delicious? To find out, he only had to lean forward and taste—
“Gentlemen, I hope you have enjoyed your refreshments, and that you are quite recovered from your earlier ordeal.”
Both Roland and Georgie swung around, lurching back from each other as though jolted by an electric shock. Nicholas stood in the doorway, little more than a shadow in the undulating, uneven light.
“Yes, thank you,” Roland said, his voice rough and hoarse, his face pulsing with heat.
Roland rushed his fingers through his hair. He’d been about to kiss Georgie, a boy who worked in his kitchen. He couldn’t, shouldn’t. He could never do that again… If only the old man knew the favour he’d done him by his sudden arrival. Nicholas had stopped him from making a fool of himself. Then why did it feel like his heart had tumbled from his chest and crashed to the floor?
