Air: Elementalist Book 1 by Rebecca Wolf (christmas read aloud .TXT) 📗

the most people, especially if we throw in some cheap grains, or egg noodles,” Brian explained. Aiden nodded, his face serious as he listened to the way we organized everyone for the food distribution. By the time we got everything set up the first people were trickling into the room.

“You better not flake on me,” I said to Aiden when the two of us were standing next to each other, serving food. “These people depend on this soup kitchen.”

 “Trust me when I say, I’m in this for the long haul, Sweetheart.” Something about the way he said it made me feel uneasy, maybe it was time to end this little visit before he really set his claws in. Brian wouldn’t be so brokenhearted if Aiden quit after the first day...

“So, Brian,” Aiden said conversationally, as he started handing out the bowls of soup I was ladling, “how do you guys know each other?”

“Oh, I’ve known Zephyr since she was in her mom’s stomach,” Brian answered. “We lived together in a group home.”

“Wow, that’s a long time,” said Aiden.

“Oh yeah, I know everything there is to know about Zephyr,” said Brian, passing behind me and giving my shoulder a squeeze.

“Yup, that’s me,” I said in a syrupy sweet tone, “I’m like an open book.”

 “An open book of obtuse poetry,” Aiden countered.

“Ohohoho, this one’s just met you, and he’s already got your number, Zephyr!” chortled Brian.

“If he does, it’s only because YOU gave it to him.”

“You’ll have to forgive Zephyr,” apologized Brian. “She takes a little bit of time to warm up to new people.” He gave me a hard stare and mouthed “be nice.”

 Just then Rusty walked in. Oh, THIS should be good, I thought gleefully. Rusty will definitely scare him off. Rusty approached with his usual shifty-eyed side shuffle.

“Hey Rusty,” I said with a genuine smile. Rusty kept walking right up to the table, and gave Aiden the death stare.

“Hi,” Aiden smiled, and then held out a bowl of soup for Rusty to take. Rusty didn’t take it. Rusty didn’t like changes or new people. Sometimes he didn’t even like old people. From the way Rusty was posturing, it seemed like he was aiming to intimidate. He was a head shorter than Aiden and his nose only came up to Aiden’s chest, however, this didn’t deter him.

He leaned forward and said without breaking eye contact with Aiden, “Is this guy bothering you, Zephyr?”

“This guy is named Aiden, he is going to be replacing Brian,” I explained.

“REPLACING BRIAN??” Rusty exclaimed, he grabbed Aiden by the shirtfront and hauled him over the tabletop, the soup in Aiden’s hand went flying, luckily splashing harmlessly against the back wall.

“WHAT’VE YOU DONE WITH OUR BRIAN??” Rusty yelled, spit flying onto Aiden’s face, Rusty began gnashing his teeth and growling, as his hands went around Aiden’s throat. “OUCH!” said Rusty, suddenly letting go and shaking out his hands. “What the hell was THAT??”

Just then Brian ran out of the kitchen. “Hey Rusty, buddy, what’s going on?” Rusty looked back and forth between them. “This guy is trying to usurp your position in the soup kitchen!! Did you know that? Don’t let him take over for you!! He’s got demon eyes, devil hands!” Rusty poked at his own eyes and waved around his hands to articulate his meaning. “ Don’t let him replace you!!!”

“Now Rusty, Aiden is a very nice man,” Brian tried gently, “I’m sure he will do an even better job than I ever could.”

This was apparently the wrong thing to say. Rusty started shaking his head back and forth pointing at Aiden and yelling “devil man, devil man” over and over . He reached down into his pants and from seemingly nowhere, pulled out an electric cattle prod, which he sparked with a manic gleam in his eye. Pointing it at Aiden he shook it menacingly, but after a few moments of seeing that Aiden wasn’t moving from his spot on the floor he inched over to Brian, to say hello.

I stared on in shock. Well, that had gone way better than expected. Apparently, I had underestimated Rusty’s level of crazy. I looked over at Aiden to assess how he was doing. To my surprise, he didn’t look ready to throw in the towel. Looks could be deceiving though, maybe he was in shock.

“You ok, Aiden?” I asked, coming around the side of the table and offering him a hand up. Aiden took my hand and held it gently while pushing himself to stand with the other hand.

“Thanks,” he said, examining my face, for what, I wasn’t sure.

“Is he going to be ok?” he asked, nodding his head towards Rusty, as Brian gently guided him to a secluded corner of the room with a new bowl of soup.

“I hope so,” I said, feeling a little zing of worry, “he’s a little nuts, but he’s one of my favorites.”

“A little, huh?” Aiden responded, I gave him an apologetic grin.

“You knew he was going to have a negative response to me,” Aiden stated accusingly. “If you’re trying to get rid of me, you’ll have to do better than THAT.”

“Duly noted,” I said sweetly, while thinking, oh it is ON.

Two weeks later Brian felt that Aiden’s training was complete, and he took off on his new retirement adventure. We had his goodbye party at the soup kitchen and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I had stumbled in on a funeral. Brian was the biggest crybaby of the bunch. The only part of his speech he was consistently able to get out in all three of his attempts was the phrase, “thank you”. It was a real embarrassment of a party, to be honest, and I spent most of it handing out tissues and hiding in the kitchen.

At one low point, even grumpy Mrs. Fredrickson hunted me down to give me a sympathetic grunt and a pat on the back. I snuck into the kitchen, and ducked