Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 140629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
He’d asked about that before, but it always came with a dose of teasing, which prompted Gunner to reply with vague jokes. But after Lionel had shared his story, Gunner’s throat dried with the lies it didn’t want to produce. He could ask Lionel to keep his truth to himself. Before the exchange they’d just had, Gunner assumed his secret would go straight into the gossip bin, but—
“Oh. Okay. The bride wasn’t supposed to be here yet.” Lionel turned his face to speak into the little device he used to communicate with Katie when she was far away. “Bride alert. I repeat, bride alert.”
Three people stepped through a gap in the manicured bushes surrounding the garden where the reception was to take place in two days’ time, and while one of them was tall as a giraffe, it wasn’t the groom.
The only man in the party was handsome, with a muscular chest and arms, but he looked extremely average between a woman in fishnet and leather, and a pink-haired stunner whose simple clothes couldn’t hide her enormous height. She not only dwarfed her male companion but was twice the size of the goth chick.
“Aaand we might have to raise the wedding arch a bit more,” Lionel said absent-mindedly before welcoming the bride with a smile.
The woman was taller than Gunner, yet she still wore high heels, approaching them in quick strides. “I just had to see it, you know? And this is the donut station? Oh, God… it’s everything I’ve ever wanted!” She wiped the tears already glistening in her eyes, leaving Gunner bewildered.
It was just a board with rows of nails made to her specification. It hadn’t even been painted yet.
“Yeah. Katie will apply the finishing touches later. You wanna talk to her… maybe?” Gunner didn’t feel like the right face for a Candyland wedding, and he’d hate himself if Barb got complaints about him, but the bride nodded, offering him a broad smile.
“Oh, yes, I’d love to chat to her, but this is amazing!” She pointed to the board with a glittery nail before Lionel swooped her away.
The groom smiled at Gunner and patted his arm. “Great job, man,” he said and quickly followed, leaving Gunner with a warm feeling in his gut.
The board hadn’t been his idea, and he’d simply done his job, but being appreciated felt nice anyway. Working for Barb and living with the Bradys had opened his eyes to just how little of it he used to get. Every now and then, he’d hear Barb complimenting Thomas’s tie, or Caspian telling his mom how much he liked her breakfasts. Gunner tried slowly adapting to that, yet still struggled with feeling awkward during such exchanges.
To express his gratitude for letting him stay, and as an excuse to spend more time with Caspian, Gunner was learning to cook. He hadn’t tried making anything too fancy, but he was allowed to use any of the many recipe books and kitchen staples, and he found that he enjoyed transforming ingredients into food. In a kitchen as grand as the one in the Brady home, cooking wasn’t solely a utilitarian task to fill his stomach, but a pleasure in itself.
Just like melodies consisted of single notes, elaborate food was made of many ingredients, which created a symphony of flavor only once he put them together. Without having to worry over wastage if he messed up, Gunner felt free to experiment and added his own flair to the culinary tunes. But there was one thing he enjoyed even more than the challenge learning to cook posed.
Feeding his hosts.
He’d served them pancakes for breakfast last Sunday. Since then, they’d acted as if he was King Sugar, Barb had bought him a book on baking, and Caspian had gifted him a jar of vanilla pods. At first, he worried they were patronising him, offering praise as if he were a dog that finally learned to fetch. But the truth was that the Bradys were genuinely nice and appreciated his efforts to give back.
Now that they knew him as a person, not a stranger with a facial tattoo and bulging muscles, they no longer saw him as a threat. While Gunner had experienced as much unreasonable hostility as kindness since he’d started working for Barb, he decided to at least try seeing people the way they were instead of making the same kinds of assumptions others made about him.
He was about to return to his work when he realized that the goth chick in cut-out leather pants that showcased the fishnet stockings she wore underneath stayed behind and was now smiling at him. She had unusual makeup, with lots of pink and peach hues on the cheeks, nose, even around the eyes, but the amount of piercings she managed to collect on her face would have set off metal detectors at any airport. There was even a silver chain resting across her nose, above the upturned tip, and unless Gunner’s eyes were tricking him, it was attached to piercings in both wings of her nose.