"Let's go you guys! You're gonna be late for school. Jenny? Patrick? Come on, I'm not kidding. Get a move on." Kennedy Cooper was packing lunches and making sure homework folders were signed and put back in their book bags as she tried to finish a piece of toast and a cup of coffee. She loved her brother and sister, but they could be a royal pain in the butt sometimes. Patrick was seventeen and Jenny had just turned fifteen. It was hard enough dealing with typical teenagers, but like her, they'd had to endure the loss of their parents to a drunk driver a year ago and that loss impacted every area of their lives. Most of the time, the impact was negative although overall, they were still really good kids. She was now essentially raising them by herself and running a very busy restaurant while trying to have a social life of her own.
Her parents had owned The Crown Jewel in Columbia, South Carolina, for 15 years and it was doing very well after a typically rough start for any new business. It got so bad at one point the first year that her mom and dad nearly threw in the towel as they struggled to meet ends meet. She was only ten and her siblings were too young to have any idea why mom and dad were at work 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week for so long, but eventually all that hard work and effort began to pay off. The two years before their tragic death on New Year's Eve, they'd been able to hire someone to run the place and finally spend some time with their two younger children. The person they put in charge however, had to be watched like a hawk and even then, the restaurant began losing money. Their last official act at the restaurant, made on their way to the party that New Year's Eve, was to inform the general manager of The Crown Jewel they were letting him go the following day and that they would be returning to run the place themselves.
To their credit, they did their best to make up for lost time with their two youngest children. Kennedy was just out of college and already had her own apartment. Her bonding time had come before the bought The Crown Jewel, but they had gradually grown apart over the years. That didn't mean she didn't still love them dearly. It just meant she wasn't the recipient of this extra time and devotion.
She was even doing reasonably well for herself selling real estate in the greater Columbia metro area and was dating a guy she really liked. She was out with him at a party that New Year's Eve when the phone rang. She would have ignored it, but Patrick never called her. He tried to explain what had happened, but he was still in shock having just had the police at the house informing them of the news. He'd agreed to stay home with his sister on New Year's Eve so their parents could have a rare night out alone. It was just after midnight when a man who was twice over the legal limit plowed into the side of their car when be blew through a red light at an intersection at 60mph. He was still in jail, but that was no comfort to the Cooper's children as they were still orphans. Kennedy felt she had no other choice but to move back home and take over the business. She gave up her promising career in real estate as well as her very comfortable relationship and did what she had to do.
When the public learned the Jewel had not only lost its owner but the general manager, monetary losses quickly turned into hemorrhaging money even after an ad campaign emphasized the Jewel was still family-owned and family-run. As a precaution, Kennedy hired a tax attorney to audit their books to give her a solid assessment of just how bad things really were.
That's how she met Dylan Walker of Walker, Walker, and Breckenridge fame, the most prestigious law firm in South Carolina. As a tax attorney, Dylan was a machine. Socially and physically, well, not so much. He was nice enough looking in spite of being rather slight of frame, but no one would ever call him handsome. Kennedy remembered thinking when she first met him that he reminded her of the guy who played Niles Crane on Frasier only without the neurotic personality. She'd almost choked one night during dinner when out of the blue Patrick referred to him as Niles. Jenny had nicknamed him Bookworm, and Kennedy hadn't bothered to even try and correct either one of them because their assessments were heartfelt and accurate. To her, Dweeb was the name that wouldn't go away whenever she thought of Dylan. And yet, she had to admit he was kind, polite, thoughtful, and thoroughly professional.
Beyond the obvious outward issues, there were other areas that raised red flags. She loved football, basketball, hip-hop and the blues while he loved opera and the theater. She liked hiking and camping; he preferred a five-star hotel with room service. But she wasn't a teenager anymore, and there was a lot more to a relationship than liking the same kind of music. At least that's what she kept telling herself.
Kennedy had never dated anyone for money, but she was well aware his family had a ton of it, and the reality of the situation was she had two siblings to raise and both of them wanted to go to college. She didn't want to admit it, but financial concerns played a role in accepting his offer of a first date. He took her to the most upscale restaurant in Columbia and introduced her to a number of very influential people in the local community. She'd been generally well received, and she overheard several people mention how beautiful she was. Even so, she was perceived to be an outsider in Dylan's social circle, and as such, she was well aware there was also a kind of coolness in the way she was treated. She couldn't possibly miss the aloof way some of them looked at her. In other words, she could tell they were thinking she must be using her looks to get to his money.
The evening left her with all kinds of new and mixed feelings. On the one hand, she'd never gone out with someone she felt wasn't at least her equal in terms of attractiveness. She knew that sounded snobbish, but snobbish or not, it was still true. Dylan was average or maybe slightly above-average looking. She hated the so-called 1-10 rating scale but even so, she thought Dylan was probably a 6. Not ugly, not UN-attractive, but definitely not very A-ttractive. He wasn't muscular at all but he wasn't totally a stickman, either. Well—not totally. He had sandy blond hair, a thin face, and wore glasses. On the positive side, he had a great smile and very caring eyes. Looks aside, she'd never felt intellectually inferior to anyone before, but Dylan was a veritable genius and a repository of more knowledge (both substantive and trivial) than anyone she'd ever known. He was charming in a, well...dweebish...sort of way, but that was also offset by the fact that we was clearly very well off financially. He drove a Jaguar, lived in a very large, beautifully-furnished home, and dressed impeccably. Whatever discomfort she felt dating a rather average-looking guy like Dylan tended to be mostly offset by other things that were in his favor.
So whatever misgivings she'd had about dating him, she'd said yes to a second and then a third date after which he finally kissed her goodnight. It wasn't a terrible kiss, but it seemed so forced, so...perfunctory. It was as though it was expected so it was therefore delivered. It wasn't until after their fifth date that he even made out with her and it was several more dates before he tried to sleep with her.
That first attempt was...well, what had it been like? Kennedy settled on the word—clumsy. Like that first date and like Dylan himself, his lovemaking skills left her in a kind of quandary. He wasn't terrible. She'd slept with a couple of guys who were and Dylan wasn't that bad. But she'd also slept with several incredibly good lovers and Dylan fell well short of them. Short. Ah, yes. Short. That led her to another serious problem. He was indeed...short. Kennedy wasn't a size queen, and she knew what a guy did with what he had really was more important than size alone, but when a smaller-endowed guy lacked other valuable skills, it made for a rather average experience at best. There was just something...delicious...about being filled up by an attractive guy who sported a decent-sized Johnson. Dylan wasn't what one of her college friends who'd served in the Army had called a "Tango Delta" which was Army-speak for Tiny Dick, but he was most definitely smaller than average. Okay, he was a lot smaller than average and she could pretend it didn't matter, but it did. And yet, for the most part he was...okay at lovemaking. The problem was, he was just okay. So she did her best to focus in on his positive attributes and played down his um...'short'—comings.
She put the last item in the backpacks and was ready to move on to the next task. By now, she was firmly into the rhythm of the daily routine which started at 6am for her and ended somewhere after midnight most days. She called out to her brother and sister again and the two teenagers finally made their way downstairs, grabbed their book bags and even remembered to say thanks on the way out. Patrick had been driving them both to school every day since he turned sixteen relieving Kennedy of one extra burden for which she didn't have the time.
She finished her coffee, brushed her teeth, and headed to The Crown Jewel just as she did every morning. She was already mentally ticking off all of the things she needed to do which started with inventory and ended with payroll. Payroll. Every two weeks she now faced the daunting task of making payroll which now typically meant going without a salary or taking a severely reduced draw from what little savings remained. Somewhere in between she had to make time for Dylan who said he had a very special evening planned for them.
She intended to hand things over to Kate, who was her new general manager, around 6pm so she could home, change, and meet Dylan by seven. As she drove through the heavy morning traffic, she kept telling herself how fortunate she'd been to meet him and what a great guy he was. She'd once heard it said that repetition brings forth conviction. Perhaps if she just said it enough times, she might end up actually believing it because he really was a decent guy...right?
As she pulled into her private parking space, she gave up thinking about it and turned her attention to the laundry list of things that had to be done that day, just like every day. Kate met her at the back door and started in with the most pressing concerns and worked her way down the list. For the next ten hours, Kennedy and Kate worked through the it getting as much done as they could.
Just before she left for the day, she looked out the window into the alley behind the restaurant. There was a van parked there and someone got out and was going through their crates and other stuff stacked against the back wall. She opened the back door and said, "May I help you with something?"
The man looked up and said, "I was just looking for leftover food."
