“That’s great. Now, I’d love to enjoy my lunch. So, you guys can go.”
Juliette and I don’t even waste a second before we leave his classroom.
***
I make my way down the hallway and to the outskirts of school, instantly finding my motorbike. In the sea of Teslas and Lamborghinis, my shabby, Yamaha V—star 650 Classic motorbike stood out.
This bike was wrecked when it first landed in my brother’s garage, but thankfully, he fixed it up and gave it to me. Sometimes, having a mechanic brother works out.
I harness my helmet on my head and get on my bike, ready to leave.
While there aren't many nice places in my side of town, there is still Miss Kim's dumpling shop. The best restaurant in this city if you ask me and coincidentally, where I work, which is where I'm going to right now.
I've been working there since I was eleven. It was cash in hand first, to avoid getting the restaurant in trouble for employing a minor.
Miss Kim is actually my neighbour and was the one to take me in when my father died, which was a few months after my brother, Adam, went to prison.
I didn’t have many other options considering I didn’t want to go into foster care. She has been a family friend for years and did an unbelievably gracious thing by taking me in.
She signed any papers she had to and fostered me, but let me live alone in my house—after I begged her—just checking on me around fifty times a day from her house was enough.
I didn’t want to be anyone's burden, but that never stopped her from constantly helping me out over the years. Even when Adam came out of prison and regained guardianship over me, she never wavered.
I park up beside Miss Kim's restaurant, a smile gracing my features as I take in the faint smell of scallions.
“Reporting for duty!” I holler loudly as I walk into the restaurant.
Miss Kim smiles brightly as she sees me. She is always so adorable, with her small, five-foot-one stature and her chubby build. Her dark chocolate brown eyes and curly black hair also amplified her cuteness. She didn't look fifty at all.
“How was school?” she questions warmly, handing me the apron. I take it and tie it around my waist.
“Boring, as usual,” I respond, getting ready to take over the cash desk.
“I made an extra batch of dumplings for your brother and you,” she says excitedly, showing me the red box she had packed them in. If you couldn’t already tell, her love language is cooking me food.
“You spoil us too much.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder. “It's not spoiling if you're family.”
I clench my jaw, repressing any tremor or tremble that I know my body is about to feel at that comment and I just nod in a gracious manner.
Hot meals. Kind words. Constant calls. She has been like the mother I never had and I guess I’ve been like the child she’s never had. She doesn’t have a spouse either, but she always assured me she loved being single and having her own space. I can always relate to her in that way.
“I'll be in the back,” she whispers before pressing a kiss to my head and leaving to cook up more food in the back.
I shake my feelings off and start getting ready to take orders. We’ve only just opened, but lines are always exceedingly long here. I take about a dozen orders before I see a familiar face.
“Hey, Addie.” My brother greets, his six-foot-four frame towering over me. People often say we look alike. He shares my green eyes, tanned skin and black hair, although his was now buzzed off.
“Here to pick up your free dumplings? Fat ass.” I joke and he mockingly gasps, putting his hand on his chest in fake outrage.
“He's a growing boy,” Miss Kim calls out from the back in his defence.
“He's twenty-six!”
“Exactly!” she laughs, handing me the red box of dumplings through the kitchen gap.
“Don't be jealous because she loves me more.”
