Jazmin didn’t even realize until she was supposed to be getting comments from the players at halftime that there was no way she could let Caleb suffer in silence just to help her own career. When the players were lined up to be interviewed live after the game, she faced the camera and started to speak.
“There’s been one question in everyone’s minds tonight: Why is Spur point guard Caleb O’Connell sitting on the bench tonight? I’m sure that all of you have been waiting to hear about his latest outlandish deed, but here’s the truth. Caleb O’Connell is on that bench tonight because he’s a hero.”
Vince flushed dark red, and there was murder in his eyes as he shut off the camera. It didn’t matter though. In the hush that had preceded the interview it appeared that several reporters had heard Jazmin’s claim. Their cameras all now pointed to her. She dropped the useless microphone and smiled as she addressed them all.
“I recently found out that I’m pregnant. As all my female colleagues could affirm, it isn’t at all uncommon to find out when you’re expecting that your contract hasn’t been renewed. Mine is up for review in a few weeks, and I had planned to keep my condition quiet until after the station decided whether or not they would choose to keep me on. After all, it’s a hard thing to lose your only income source with a little one on the way.” She smiled softly at the last statement, but then she paused and let some of the fear and anxiety she’d felt that night show in her face. Jazmin gestured to Vince before continuing to speak.
“This man knew that, and he decided to blackmail me…He told me that if I would have sex with him, he wouldn’t let anyone know that I was pregnant.”
A chorus of surprise rippled through the people around her. Vince dropped his equipment where he stood, looked down to the ground, and quickly made his way out of the room. Jazmin continued to speak, and she didn’t hide the shame she’d felt as she continued.
“I scheduled a time to meet up with him…I’m still not sure even now if I would have gone through with it. I never had to make the decision though. Caleb O’Connell had talked to me on the phone. He could tell something was wrong, so he came to make sure that I was okay. In the end he was benched tonight for getting in a fight with the man who tried to force me to have sex with him in order to keep my job.”
She scanned the camera. “He doesn’t deserve our judgement. He deserves to be praised like the hero he was. My hero.”
She turned and left then, not even bothering to answer the questions that were being fired at her rapidly. By the time she made it outside and called a cab she was shaking with nerves, but she felt that she’d done the right thing, even if it meant losing her job. Jazmin wasn’t about to let Caleb sacrifice his own career to save hers.
Chapter Eleven
Caleb made his way back to the bench with his head hung low. They were only behind by six, and he was sure he could lead them to a win during the second half…if only he wasn’t benched.
“Caleb O’Connell! Is it true that you saved a woman from being blackmailed--“
“—O’Connell...what is the nature of your relationship with—“
Caleb looked around in bewilderment as he was swarmed by reporters. He was almost relieved when Coach called out to him.
“O’Connell!”
“Ya, coach?”
“If you’re done being famous, get your ass out on that court. We have a game to win.”
He smiled. “Damn right.” By the end of the game they were up by ten.
Jazmin and Caleb’s story made headlines for weeks after that night while speculation about the nature of her and Caleb’s relationship ran wild. Caleb was taken off the bench, and he continued to keep his nose clean and to play better than ever before. And every night found him right where he belonged in Jazmin’s bed…and in her heart.
It was after the end of the game that secured the Spurs a spot in the playoffs—one of the best he’d ever played, if he didn’t say so himself—that he made sure everyone knew exactly what his relationship with his beautiful little reporter was. As soon as the buzzer sounded signifying the end of the fourth quarter he jogged over to her.
He kissed her quickly, then dropped to one knee.
“Jazmin, I think I’ve loved you since the first time you looked me straight in the eye and put me in my place like no one else would. I’ve only come to admire your strength and beauty more since then, and I’ve only come to love you more. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you by my side.”
Tears were filling Jazmin’s eyes, but her lips were turned up in a smile so he continued, feeling encouraged.
“What do you say, Jazz? Will you marry me?”
The tears did start to fall then.
“You wonderful man. I thought you’d never ask.”
This, he thought as he slipped the ring on her finger and stood to wrap his arms around her and press a kiss to her lips—first a chaste one, then one that made the crowd around them laugh and cheer—was, without a doubt, the finest moment of his life. In a few months he would be a father, and that? That might just be even better.
*****
THE END
Boss’s Order
Chapter One
Ella Bostwick sighed as she looked up through the pass-through at the line of customers in the front. She was glad she was working in the back of the cafeteria for this lunch rush; it looked ridiculous out there. Apparently all the businessmen in the building decided that Wednesday was the day to buy lunch in the building instead of going out to an expensive restaurant. The rush was huge and the orders were coming in faster than she could keep up with on her own.
She did her best to hurry, adding the required ingredients to each pita and salad that came through the order machine. Her hairnet was itching, it was hot as hell, and her boss, Derek, kept yelling at her to keep up. She should not be alone in the kitchen on such a busy day, but they had had someone call out and the only replacement was a new kid, so Derek was up front watching him ring people up and cash them out.
Ella started on the next order, setting the finished one up on the pass-through and reading all the modifications to the salad on the next order sticker. She wondered what was even the point of ordering a Greek salad if you asked for no feta, no olives, and no onions. It was basically a garden salad with Greek dressing for two dollars more than if they ordered it properly.
This was not her dream when she worked her butt of to pay for culinary school, and it was definitely not where she imagined she would be when she graduated. But the pita and salad restaurant in the Lorde Corporation building was the only place that had offered full time hours. Even if she was only making minimum wage, at least she did it at forty hours a week, with no weekends. It was tedious, and it did not fulfill her idea of a fun way to experiment with the skills she paid to learn. Actually, it did not allow her any experimentation at all to work with flavors and combinations of her own. Except if she made her own lunch, which was strictly not allowed. She managed to do it occasionally though when her boss wasn’t there. No, the job was absolutely no fun. And having Derek yell at her daily because he was dissatisfied with his own life and their fairly recent break-up was even less fun.
Sighing through another order, Ella went to grab the next ticket to start. The machine was out of tape and she called through the pass-through to see if Derek could come change it. If she changed it, she’d have to take her gloves off, change the tape, then wash her hands and put new gloves on. It would take at least two minutes out of her order making. He yelled through that he was busy and to hurry up already, the next order had already been waiting for eight minutes and she needed to move faster.
She ripped her gloves off, going as fast as she could to change the paper roll. Once the new roll was in the machine, she slammed it shut and waited for the next order to print out. It popped up, so she ripped it from the machine and hung it up on the holder in front of her station. Ella went to the sink, washing her hands in scalding hot water and drying them
as quickly as she could. By the time she had fresh gloves on, two more orders had been taken and she was even more behind.
Ella knew she could not handle this anymore. She couldn’t work for Derek; she could absolutely not deal with his constant berating of her almost every day that she worked. This was nowhere near where she saw herself in her career. She silently cursed her parents for their insistence that culinary school was not a suitable option if she wanted a steady career. She had never agreed with them, but in that moment, it was exactly how she felt.
She had never been a spontaneous person. When she was cooking, yes, but never when she was making big decisions about her life. But that day changed it all.
“Derek,” she called.
He turned, huffing ridiculously and making her roll her eyes. “What, Ella? Did you forget how to make a pita?”
“Actually, you might want to come back and wash your hands, because I quit.” Ella ripped her gloves and hairnet off, throwing them into the garbage and grabbing her purse. “Have fun with that lunch rush.” With those words, she left, without even a glance back to see whatever stupid look Derek would surely have on his face.
Chapter Two
Ella sat down at the tiny dining room table she and her roommate, Ginnifer, had in their small apartment. She had stopped and gotten herself her favorite comfort food for lunch, authentic Mexican food. It was her favorite place to eat if she was going to forgo making her own meal. She knew that walking out was probably the worst way that she could get a good reference for a new job, but she could just say on any new applications that she left because her boss was her ex-boyfriend and he harassed her. Maybe that would help.
Pulling out her phone, she scrolled through an online job-sourcing page as she ate. She knew that getting a job in a real kitchen was going to be hard, and she was okay with doing hard work or working her way from the bottom. Ella would even be willing to work as a dishwasher in a kitchen if it got her into a real kitchen with food that was actually prepared and presented instead of thrown haphazardly into a wrap or a bowl in as minimal time as possible.
There was an ad for a sous chef. But that required a minimum of two years kitchen experience, which she did not have. She continued scrolling, but almost every job she looked at showed the same. How was she supposed to get two years of experience if nobody would give her the chance without said experience?
There was one posting that read that it was only for people over eighteen, the words typed in bold print with an “x” on either side. Ella eyed it cautiously for a long moment, ultimately deciding to open the link. It was a position for a company called Crave. It seemed to work almost like a mail-order service. Men went on the website, messaged a woman whose profile interested them, and the woman goes to their appointed address and makes them a meal, eating and enjoying their company for the night. It was like being a call girl, but cooking, too.
She wondered if it required sex, or if the age requirement was only because it involved going to men’s houses. The compensation was incredible. It paid more in one session than weeks of working at the pita place. Maybe she would get away without having sex. Or maybe she would decide that it was no bother to have sex with these men. Maybe some of them would be incredibly attractive and if she got to do what she loved to do, if she got to cook real meals for someone besides herself, someone who would have their own opinion on her food and could give her constructive criticism, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
She called Ginnifer for advice. After reading the description to her, Ella waited for her response.
“So… do you think you’d have to have sex with these guys? It sort of sounds like that kind of website. Did you go to the main source and look at the website?” Ginnifer asked.
Ella sighed. “You have to make an account to even see anything on it. I can’t even put an application in through there; I have to make a profile as a cook. I didn’t know if I should make an account before I got your opinion. Does it sound too weird?”
There was a long pause, but eventually Ginnifer said, “Well, I think you should try it if you’re willing. If someone seems like too much of a creep, don’t reply to them, you know? It seems like you’ll have options for who you cook for?”
“Yeah, it says that you get to look through profiles of people who show interest in your profile.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad then. Maybe you should just make a profile and see how it goes. If it gets weird, just close your account.”
Ella thanked her friend for her sound advice and hung up the phone. Taking a deep breath, she looked around the room. She took the last bite of her food and pushed it away. She opened the webpage, looking at it for a long moment. Finally, Ella decided to do it. She was going to put up a profile on the page. She looked through the selfies on her phone, trying to find one that would best showcase her looks.
Her pictures made her self-conscious for a moment. She was a size eighteen, though thankfully proportionate enough that clothes still looked amazing on her. She loved herself, but it had taken a long time, and she worried for a moment that people would pass her profile because of her size. With a shrug, she decided that she knew she was beautiful, even if she was bigger. Any man who wanted someone to cook for them who wouldn’t even eat their own food could suffer from less tasty meals, and the ones interested in her would have a deliciously prepared meal.
Hitting on the final button to create her profile, Ella smiled to herself. She was going to survive. She would be just fine without the stupid pita place and without Derek yelling at her every day.
Chapter Three
Ella had turned her phone off after Ginnifer got home. She had no desire to talk to her parents that night, and she suspected she would be getting a call from a very angry Derek once the pita place closed, and she did not want to deal with that. Of course he would leave voicemails, but those she could just delete without listening to the incessant ringing of her phone when he would undoubtedly call several times.
The next morning, she and Ginnifer had cleaned up their apartment, since she no longer had somewhere to go during the day and it was her roommate’s day off. After that, Ella made them a great breakfast, eggs benedict with a side of homemade hash browns and brown sugar bacon. As they sat to eat, she turned her phone on to check her messages and several social media sites. She had sixteen unread emails, so she opened the app and raised her eyebrows. Turning the phone to Ginnifer, she sat in her chair completely stunned.
“All those are from men who have interest in you cooking for them?” she asked excitedly. “Oh my god, Ella, that’s amazing. Answer them!”
“Well I need to look at their profiles first.” Ginnifer agreed with her that that was a definite requirement, so they decided that they would look on the computer once they finished eating.
Ella was certain neither of them had ever eaten so fast. She was curious to see what these men were like, and Ginnifer seemed to be experiencing the excitement vicariously. They skipped cleaning the dishes, deciding to do it later, after they looked through the men interested in her cooking for them.
Pulling up the website on her laptop, Ella went to her messages to find the first interested person. She was disappointed to see that the men shopping for a cook were not required to supply a profile picture. Regardless, she looked over the first profile. The man literally named his profile Foodie18. There was nothing wrong with being a foodie, she was one, a fact she was very aware of; it was simply odd to see someone use it as a username, particularly on a website where it was implied only foodies would go. It was too unoriginal for her.
The next man had in his profile that he only ate fish and organic vegetables, did not like butter, and refused to eat anything cooked in something that wasn’t coconut oil. Even Ginnifer rolled her eyes at that. Everyone knew that coconut oil was the worst oil to cook fish in, because getting it hot enough to cook the fish perfectly made the oil bad. She moved onto the next. He was considerably more tolerable in his profile t
han the previous two guys, but still a bit particular. Not that she minded cooking for picky eaters, she could definitely do that, but he was vegan, and she just had no clue how anyone could go without eating meat. Or fish. Or cheese. How normal could someone be if they never ate the best food on the planet?
The next couple of profiles came with other strange tastes. One man hated chicken; one had a texture problem and a list of sixteen different foods he absolutely refused to eat. Another had an even more problematic list—one that only contained foods he would eat. And it was small. Ella sighed. She was never going to find someone to cook for at this rate.
Ginnifer took the laptop from her and selected the next profile. “Don’t worry. There has to be someone out there who will love anything you would make them.” Clicking on the next profile, her roommate smacked her thigh excitedly. “Look at this one, El.”
Ella leaned over and looked at the profile. The name was simply Hungry. But his tastes had only one line: “I like everything.” She looked over the rest of his profile, wanting to make sure he was seemingly normal. He was, so she sent him a message.
Hello, I’m Ella. I saw that you showed an interest in having me cook for you and I wanted to see what you would like me to make and when you’re available.
She waited, staring at the screen. It took several minutes, but he got back to her quickly.
Hello Ella. I would love to have you cook for me. I saw on your profile that you could cook anything. I do not care what you decide to make, I just want something delicious.
That was easy enough, she thought. Maybe she would make fish. Or steak. Maybe she should make something healthier. Should she make a dessert, too? Or just the dinner?
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