The potatoes needed peeling and dicing, the carrots had to be scrubbed and chopped, and the beef waited to be prepped.
The burden of the whole feeding of the five thousand had fallen on my twenty-year-old shoulders, and getting the veggies simmering was the key. It was pretty hectic in the kitchen, and I was under qualified to run it; on paper, at least.
The final head count for the meal wasn’t actually five thousand, thank heaven. And I’d had four years experience of volunteering in the Christian soup kitchen—that was more than anyone else who’d shown up to work that day. I could handle being in charge.
Understaffed, I had to wield a knife and chop some potatoes with the rest of them.
Although Grace Miller chopped carrots right next to me, creating the sort of distraction that meant I risked slicing off my own fingers and throwing them into the boiling water.
Yeah, being older than her wasn’t a big deal, but there were a few hurdles in my way.
The two years age gap was one thing—a small thing.
Me being her boss was another issue entirely. Even at a nonprofit where she worked for free, and I didn’t really have the power to fire her, there was an element of authority standing between us.
At my last job, the scumbag boss tried to use his position to extort favors from the young naïve staff, and I swore to myself I’d never be that. I didn’t want to take advantage of my position.
And I’d been her manager ever since she started helping out. That was how I’d gotten to know her. Damn, she was hard to ignore. That smile, those curves. The way I thought about her wasn’t befitting within the walls of a Christian charity. And the way she featured in my thoughts much later when I was alone in bed... I wanted her badly.
Cruel fate threw me into the situation where I saw her often but had to maintain a professional distance instead of asking her out.
“So, Grace, how have your first few days as an official high school graduate been treating you?” I flashed a friendly smile.
“Hmm? Oh, what? Uh...” she stammered and gave me a slight smile.
There was something different about her, and it had nothing to do with her status as a student.
“You graduated two days ago. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Oh, is it? It is. Yes. I’m just... I don’t know. I’m distracted.”
“Don’t give her too much shit, bro,” Noah said, punching me in the shoulder before returning to chopping duty. He was on mixed roots.
My little brother was the third thing between Grace and me.
He was a fair-weather volunteer who only turned up to the kitchen when it suited him, and mostly it didn’t suit him. He did enough stints to get credit for the volunteer work on his resume, which might have been one of the reasons he was there, but mostly he turned up to spend time with Grace.
My brother seemed to have a bit of a crush on my most committed worker, and as she was the same age as him and in his class, I wondered if I should step back and or even help out to make things easier for him by throwing them together.
Plus, as far I knew, my little brother was still a virgin. So he really needed a helping hand with that. Not that I was a big bag of stories when it came to sexual matters, because I didn’t believe in sleeping around. But I just had a smidgen more experience than my baby bro.
Even though I put in many free hours for charity, there was a limit to my altruism when it came to helping another guy hook up with Grace.
Noah and Grace were in some of the same classes, so he had an advantage over me, but failed to make use of it as he hadn’t made any kind of move on her. I just caught him from time to time looking at her across the kitchen with doe eyes: pathetic, really.
He was a successful businessman and secret internet millionaire who’d been playing at high school geek and walking out with top grades. He’d had every opportunity to wow Grace.
I was the older and better looking of the two of us, and I’d spent quality time with her—no reason for me to step aside.
She was a hot woman, a sweet one too; she could get any guy she wanted, and she modestly behaved as if she wasn’t any of those things. As if dating didn’t interest her. And she cared enough for people less fortunate than herself to show up at the kitchen, no matter what.
Like me, she’d been a regular volunteer here all year round, rain or shine, for at least a couple of years. And as she still showed up for duty even after graduating. I liked that about her. She had an extra strong dose of altruism in her veins and tat made her my type.