by Kat Catesby
My work situation casts a cloud over the otherwise pristine sky above me. I’m going to have to do something about being unemployed, preferably quickly, but being unemployed in a new city with a hopefully stable roof over my head does give me some time and scope to think about what I’d like to do with my career. Mason won’t rush me into taking anything that I’m not one hundred percent happy with, but there’s a line between holding out for something good and stubbornly remaining unemployed because of pride.
I don’t want to have to go back to waiting tables as I did in college, but I also don’t want to chase down and compete for office or PA work where I’m just going to be treated like a doormat. I’m not looking for another Mayor Stevens to be my boss.
With my brain stuck on my job conundrum, I walk into the café and order my waffles and an iced latte. Mason wasn’t lying, these are the best waffles I’ve tasted; I’m going to have to do some serious walking to burn off all the sugar but it’ll be worth it.
I grab my phone and open an online job page and begin scrolling. There are thousands so I need to filter the list and the first option is the type of work and industry…exactly the question I don’t know the answer to.
I disliked Mayor Steven’s and the mundane and belittling crap he used to make me do. But I did enjoy organizing his time and any events he needed. My favorite days were when he needed one of us to accompany him and I got to leave the office. So perhaps a role where I’m not chained to a desk all day every day. And maybe a PA or administration role that has a greater focus on event management.
But who am I kidding; I’m after the same shimmering unicorn job that every other underappreciated PA wants; good boss, pay and conditions, and work that keeps you engaged, fulfilled, and is fun.
Without a letter of recommendation though, I’m probably going to end up waiting tables after all.
I look around the brightly colored café with its driftwood furniture and laid-back vibe and wonder if working somewhere like this could make me happy long term?
Probably not.
I pick up my purse and head back out into the sunshine, feeling full of syrupy goodness and with a little caffeine buzz. Jobs can wait until later, today is for exploring.
I spend my morning meandering around the streets until I find the beach, where I spend far too long squishing the sand between my toes and paddling my feet in the little waves that lap upon the warm sand. The day gets hot fast and I remember I haven’t put any sunscreen on; I don’t burn loads but I can tell my shoulders have gone a little pink, so I make my way back up towards the streets filled with shops and buy a bottle of water and hang out in the shade for a while, watching the tourists and locals come and go, the gentle sea breeze cooling my heated body.
It’s probably a good idea to find a shop and grab the groceries Mason asked for so that I can spend a few hours this afternoon unpacking properly and relaxing before he gets home.
I glance around to get my bearings, intending to head a little closer to home (is it weird that I’m calling it home already?) so that I don’t have to carry the shopping bags as far…but I can’t quite orientate myself.
Nothing looks particularly familiar – there are a lot of chain shops and unique local shops but I can’t recall if I’ve walked past them already today and which direction home is in. I know that the apartment is further away from the beach but for the life of me, I can’t work out in which direction.
Navigation isn’t my strong suit, it’s why Mason’s directions to the café were so thorough; he remembers that I’m shit with directions and didn’t want me to get lost. Finding the sea is easy: it’s a large object and sort of hard to miss if you head in the general direction of the beach. But home is a much smaller and specific location, requiring the right street and for the moment, I’m stumped.
If I could see the breakfast café, I’d be able to use his directions in reverse and trace my steps back home…but I can’t see it.
I try not to panic. L.A. is a big place but I can’t have wandered too far from home. I mean, I ambled along the beach for a while but I didn’t get far…did I?
My face flushes with embarrassment as I pull out my phone; I can’t believe I’m resorting to this but I don’t want to walk around getting more lost and further from where I want to be.
Me: Um, I’m lost. Can you help me? Xx
Chapter Twelve
Mason
I’m torn between laughing and panic as I hear Kelsey’s message spoken in full computer voice through the SUV’s Bluetooth connection. It’s so her to get lost the first morning she’s here, but somewhat frightening because that’s my woman and she could be anywhere in a vast fucking city.
Thankfully, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to consider this; Kelsey’s sense of direction is pretty shit so it’s easy for her to get turned around. She’s not much of a map reader either. Hell, she gets confused with half the directions from a sat nav so looking herself up on the map app on her phone probably wouldn’t help her much. She’s no idiot…but she’s also no navigator either.
We took a trip to New York for a long weekend when we first got together and I was so worried about losing her that I downloaded a ‘find me’ app – not the stalker kind, but one where we both sync our phones and grant each other permission to see the other’s location. I never deleted the app, here’s hoping Kelsey didn’t either.
I radio the following fire truck and tell them I need to make a small detour and pull my SUV over to the side of the road. We were heading back to the station following a call-out to a car accident and after what I saw, there’s no way I’m risking looking at my phone while I’m driving. The driver killed himself on impact and we had to cut his wife and baby out with the jaws of life. The baby was thankfully well cocooned in her infant car seat but it was touch and go for the mom. Last I heard, she was stable and for her daughter’s sake, I hope she stays that way.
With the sounds of crunching metal and baby cries still fresh in my head, I park the bright red LAFD SUV and unlock my phone. The app takes a moment to load and I prepare myself for the conversation I’ll have to have with Kelsey if she’s deleted the app; the one where she mumbles and stammers whilst trying to point out landmarks or road signs so that I have half a chance at finding her.
Thankfully, as soon as the app finishes loading, Kelsey’s phone is still there for me to select. It takes another few seconds to load her location on a map that will track her in real-time and I nearly bark out laughing when I see where she is.
I put the SUV into drive and make my way to pick up my girl, not trying to fight my amusement.
Ten minutes later, I’m pulling up next to a café where Kelsey has wisely decided to wait. She may have asked the staff for directions, but as previously mentioned, her navigational skills are zero at best so any helpful barista wasn’t likely to succeed in directing her.
Kelsey spots my work issue SUV and immediately goes the same shade of red as the paintwork with embarrassment. She picks up her bag and begins to walk over to me, head hung low, avoiding eye contact with passers-by, who’ve stopped to see why a firefighter has arrived on the scene. I can’t help myself…
“Someone need rescuing?” I smirk as I hop out of the SUV.
“Apparently,” she mumbles when she gets close enough.
I walk around the hood of the car and pull her into a big hug once she’s within reach.
“It’s okay, Baby Girl,” I say the pet name I occasionally use. It’s one of the elements of the older guy, younger woman dynamic that Kelsey found she enjoyed. It took me a while to warm to it, thanks in large part to Helen and her insistence that I was a pervert for dating someone so much younger than me.
When Kelsey hears me say it, she knows it’s a term of endearment and that I’ve got her and will keep her safe.
“It’s not okay,” she pouts against my chest as I hold her tight and kiss the top of her head.
“Sure, it is.”
“No, it’s not. It
’s never okay when I get lost. It’s even less okay when you have to take time out of your workday to come to rescue me.”
“Rescuing people is what I do, Sweetheart.”
“I shouldn’t need rescuing from a short walk and a grocery run, which I still need to do because I got lost before I found the grocery store. Just how far off course am I?” She asks dejectedly.
This is where I’m going to have to tread carefully; I might think her location is amusing but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Kelsey isn’t going to see the funny side. Part of me worries that I’m not going to be able to say it with a straight face.
I take a deep breath, calm the laughter that is bubbling up and demanding freedom, breathe out, and say what I know she isn’t going to want to hear…
“You’re on the same street you started on, Baby Girl.”
Her head snaps up, eyes boring into my own to see if I’m telling the truth, even though she knows I wouldn’t lie to her. I’ve never lied to her; I may not have had my emotional bullshit squared away but I was never dishonest about it. I don’t think it’s possible for me to stomach lying to the woman in my arms, the one who’s still staring at me with disbelief, brown eyes wide, lips parted in confusion.
“How?” she eventually breathes out.
“It’s a long road. You probably walked onto several other streets, found the beach, walked further, stopped to look at things, and when you walked back the way you thought you came, you ended up back on this road but in a different, unfamiliar place.”
“Seriously? You’re telling me that I got lost on the same street?”
I nod, pinching my mouth together to keep a straight face at the horror in hers.
“Afraid so.” I turn her ninety degrees and point in the direction she needed to walk. “five hundred meters that way is the grocery store, the apartment is one block after that.”
“I am never living this down, am I?” she groans.
“Afraid not,” I allow myself a small grin.
“This is so embarrassing,” she grumbles before trying to walk away.
“Where do you think you’re going, Sweetheart?”
Kelsey looks at me confused. She double-takes between me and the direction I pointed as if trying to confirm to herself that she has started walking the right way. She has, for the record.
“To the grocery store?” her voice goes up at the end of her sentence, exposing the truth that she’s asking whether she’s walking the correct way.
“I meant, why aren’t you getting in the car?”
“Because it’s only five hundred meters that way,” she says, pointing.
“So? You already got lost once and it’ll only take me a couple of minutes to drop you to the store.”
Casting a glance at the sweltering midday sun, Kelsey quickly climbs into the air-conditioned SUV and breathes a sigh of relief as her slightly pink skin makes contact with the cold seats.
“You need to put on more sun lotion before you head back out, Kels. You’re on the verge of burning.”
She glances at her shoulders, her brows furrowing.
“Not sure I’ll want to head back out after I’ve done the grocery shopping; I’m hot and tired.”
“It’s a nice apartment to chill out in, but I promise our next place will have an outside space or pool, something for you to relax in style in.”
“I don’t need shiny things and sparkly places to call home, Mason. The apartment is more than I can afford on my own so I’m more than grateful that you want me to live there with you.”
“Where else would I want you living? And I know you don’t need fancy things, Kels; that’s exactly why I want you to have them. Because you don’t ask for them or complain about not having them. You work your ass off for what you have and you love everything you’ve earned. If I can treat you to more because I believe you are a beautiful person and deserve more, then it will be a privilege to make your life a little more comfortable, if you’ll let me. And besides, if we’re going to live on the West Coast, we may as well live with an ocean view. And if we have an ocean view, we should have an outside space to enjoy it.”
“When you put it like that, I look forward to house hunting with you. I do want to have a job before we do that though. I know you don’t need my input financially, but if we’re going to be a team then I want to contribute. It might not be much but I want our life to feel like it belongs to me as well because I helped build it and fund it. I don’t want to live off your generosity and give nothing back. So after the grocery shopping, I’ll start applying for jobs.”
“As long as you are happy, Kelsey.” I don’t need to reiterate that she doesn’t need to work because actually, she does. Not for financial reasons, but because it’s important to her, to her sense of self-worth and achievement. It just makes me love her more; she wants to work for the sake of working, to better herself, and to carve something out of life that is all hers.
Helen was happy to never work a day in her life. She called her ‘charity’ endeavors working, but organizing fundraisers on your own time is hardly the same thing as the daily grind of working for someone else.
Helen’s family is comfortable and respectable but not in the same league financially as mine. She had a small trust fund that she blew through by the time she graduated from college. Helen is a brat who jumped from living off of mommy and daddy to living off the Fox estate.
I might have a trust fund, that I was smart enough to figure out how to invest, but I know the meaning of working a hard day until you’re bone-weary and your soul aches. I learned how to survive on the income of my salary alone.
After dropping Kelsey at the grocery store – ensuring that she has thorough directions and can recite the way back to the apartment three times without mistake – I head back to the station.
I’ve not been gone long and no one bats an eye at my brief absence; they probably just assume that I took the SUV to get gas, which will make Kelsey happy as I doubt she’ll want my crew knowing about her appalling navigational skills.
I wonder idly how many times I’ll have to drive her around the city before she remembers where everything is? Thankfully for us both, she is a quick study but L.A. is a behemoth of a city so it still could take a while.
The rest of the shift passes without incident and I’m home with enough time to cook steaks for me, Kelsey, and Xan.
Kelsey has put a bunch of beers on ice for us, prepared a salad, and is now sat at the small breakfast bar, nose in her laptop searching for jobs while I prepare dinner. She has an easy listening Spotify playlist playing in the background and I take a moment to appreciate the peaceful slice of domestic bliss and how content it makes feel. She’s only been here a day but I already feel…healthy.
It’s a weird way to describe it but my brain feels free from stress and able to relax from the constant problem solving I’ve been putting it through. My emotions feel calmer, more settled (except when I’m fighting a hard-on for her) and my soul feels light and relaxed. Overall, the effect is that I feel healthy. I feel the way I’m supposed to feel, the way I want to feel, and like I can be myself when Kelsey’s around. The craziest part is that she has no idea of the positive effect she has on me or how vital she’s becoming to my survival.
I check the contents of the frying pan to make sure I’m in no danger of burning anything and/or starting a fire and walk over to her, taking her cheeks in my hands and tipping her face up to mine, and planting a deep, lush kiss on her unsuspecting lips.
She moans softly into my mouth as my tongue dances with hers and I run my fingers through her hair, holding her firmly in place so that I can slide my tongue deeper into her hot mouth.
I swear Kelsey has an oral fixation because she loves it when her mouth is completely invaded. Whether it’s my tongue or my cock, she wants as much of it as possible. It’s probably a good thing that she doesn’t have much of a gag reflex because every blow job sees her deepthroating me completely. It’s im
pressive and fucking sexy as hell because she takes all of me and I have more length and girth than the average guy. So when we kiss, Kelsey accepts nothing less than my total domination of her mouth. She whimpers as she sucks on my tongue, nails digging into my triceps, her body arching towards mine as I tower over her. I take half a step closer, bringing us chest to chest, hip to hip so that she can feel the bulge of my erection when there’s a knock on the door.
I reluctantly pull away and will my cock to calm down. Kelsey groans in frustration, running her fingers through the strands of hair I messed up to make it look presentable.
“One of these days I’m sure we’ll get a chance to fuck,” she complains, but with a side of dry humor so that I know she’s not pissed off.
No doubt she’s as frustrated as I am and had I been a gentleman about it, I probably wouldn’t have gone all-in with a passionate kiss with so little time to follow through. Now I’ve wound us both up and Xan is at the door.
Kelsey shoots a sly look at the bulge in my jeans that refuses to subside and smirks; she looks gorgeous and as though nothing happened, I have a monster erection that you can probably see from space. Guess that’s my punishment for starting what I can’t finish.
I futilely try to readjust and tuck my cock under the waistband of my boxers, but the trouble with having a girthy dick is that the bulge is still visible, even when it’s not poking out like a tentpole.
I awkwardly step towards the door, imagining some hideous three-way between my parents and Helen (yes, it’s gross and way past the line, but that’s the point; anything to make my cock go down). It begins to work, but not enough, so when I open the door, Xan glances at me and raises a wry brow at my current predicament.
Thankfully, Xan is a gentleman (for the most part) and doesn’t say anything about it. I’m sure once he knows Kelsey better and realizes she wouldn’t be embarrassed by the situation and would more likely laugh along with him, he’ll unleash his sarcastic whit.