Intemperance IX - the Inner Circle
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 7: We Got a Run to Make
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 7: We Got a Run to Make - The ninth book in the long-running Intemperance series finds Jake Kingsley balancing family, music, and media chaos as his world grows stranger—and more fiercely loyal—by the day. With fame fading and life deepening, the Kingsleys and their inner circle face new challenges in love, trust, and the price of peace.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa BiSexual Fiction
Santa Clarita, California
June 6, 2004
Barb Macready turned into the parking lot of KVA Records at 9:53 AM in her scratched-up 1994 Camry. No air conditioning, one working window, and a Jesus-on-the-dash that had been bleached so white by the sun he looked like a ghost.
She let the car idle for a moment, looking up at the building.
Glass front. Neutral signage. Could’ve been a dentist’s office or a tech startup. The kind of place where nobody bled, screamed, or called you to say their husband was hitting the kids.
Already an upgrade.
She turned off the car, grabbed her purse, and stepped out.
Barb was five-foot six inches in height. She was in pretty good shape for a woman of fifty-two thanks to a conscious effort to take care of herself over the years. Back in her younger days she had been smoking hot with a body men cried over—and then decided to cheat on after marrying her, but that was fuckin’ cops for you. She was still attractive in her way, an aging cougar that looked like she could still play the game if she wanted to—and sometimes she did ... and she would. Her hair was dirty blonde, natural, not out of a bottle, and her breasts were original equipment, not aftermarket.
She had dressed nice for the occasion. It was a job interview after all, though one of those deals where she already knew she had the job if she wanted it. She had on a black pair of business slacks and a light pink button-up blouse. Her hair was done up in a professional ponytail, just like what she had to wear at LAPD’s Valley dispatch center.
The front lobby was empty. No receptionist, no magazines, just a sleek desk with a beige multi-line phone blinking like it was asking for mercy. Somewhere deeper in the building, she could hear faint music—guitars and drums, layered, good.
So, this was a record label. It was not what she had been picturing.
A door opened to the right. A woman stepped out. Tailored blazer, smart shoes, clipped haircut. She looked like she didn’t tolerate small talk or excuses. Barb liked her immediately.
“Barb Macready?” the woman asked.
“Unless I died on the drive in.”
“Pauline Kingsley. Thanks for coming.”
They shook hands. Pauline’s grip was firm. Not performative. No perfume, no bullshit.
Barb followed her into a small meeting room with a round table, two chairs, and a coffee pot. The smell coming from the coffee pot was divine. That was not Folgers or Yuban in that pot. It was something expensive, something that came in a vacuum-sealed black bag. Something that had not been purchased on an office supply website or at the local grocery store. She hoped Pauline would offer her a cup of it. Though she could and did live on Folgers supplied by the City of Los Angeles while at work, she was an aficionado of good coffee when at home.
Pauline sat. Barb did the same. Pauline did, indeed, offer her a cup of coffee and then poured it for her—into an actual coffee cup with a handle and not a paper cup. The cup was black and had the initials KVA in gothic silver.
“As I’m sure you’ve figured out by this point,” Pauline said, “we really want you for the job. That puts you in a position of strength in this negotiation. I acknowledge that and am prepared to make leaving LAPD and coming to work for us worth your while.”
Barb nodded slowly. “That’s what a guy said to me once before he tried to sell me a timeshare.”
Pauline didn’t flinch. “I was straight with you on the phone. This is a tough gig. Our last receptionist walked out just as this latest media storm started to swell. I mean ... this chick was tough as nails. Worked at the Hollywood Boulevard Starbucks, for God’s sake. Left the phones ringing and told me she was ‘done being a conduit for the chaos.’ That was her exact phrase.”
Barb snorted. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means we’ve had four receptionists in the last two years. All of them cracked. Some quit. One joined a naked lesbian cult. Another renounced her religion and is now doing webcam orgies in Orange County somewhere. We need someone who can handle stress, hostility, and a phone that doesn’t stop ringing for an entire shift.”
Barb raised an eyebrow. “And you got my name how?”
“I read about your suspension in the Times. I looked you up. Then I had someone look you up deeper.”
Barb frowned. “You read the butt plug quote?”
“I did.”
“And you still called me?”
“That’s why I called you.”
Barb leaned back slowly. “You got guts.”
“No,” Pauline said. “I’ve got a problem. And I think you might be the solution.”
Barb considered her. “And those hours and that salary you gave me? That’s the real fuckin’ deal?”
“It’s the real fuckin’ deal,” Pauline said. “Nine to four-thirty. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. You answer the phones. You don’t need to be polite once you’ve established it is a media person seeking a statement. You just need to give the company line and hang up. We’ll train you on what to say for the polite part. Once they cross the line, however, you let yourself shine in all your inappropriate glory.”
Barb blinked. “You’re serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. We need someone who can not just answer the phone and talk to these media fucks, but someone who can deal with them effectively. If you’re willing to ask someone in the middle of a family disturbance what’s got their butt plug too far up their ass, you are that someone.”
“That was taken way out of context,” Barb said, giving her standard reply on that subject.
“I’m sure it was,” Pauline said. “This is the deal in a nutshell: Six thousand a month. Full benefits. Medical, dental, vision. If you make it two years, it vests for life. And, you get to speak your mind when the caller goes too far—and they will.”
Silence.
Barb stared at her.
“Where the fuck do I sign?” she asked.
Pauline smiled. “I’ll dig out the paperwork here in a minute. Welcome aboard.”
Barb took another sip of the coffee. It was the best coffee she had ever tasted in her life. She held up the cup. “Is this standard office coffee or did you bust out some of your personal shit to impress me?”
“It’s the standard office coffee here,” Pauline said. “This is Hacienda La Esmeralda. Geisha varietal. From Panama. It’s a direct import we found a way to get a piece of thanks to our vineyard and winemaking operation. At home, I drink Jamaican Blue Mountain most of the time, although sometimes it’s hard to get my greasy little hands on it.”
“Wow,” Barb said. “It must be nice to be rich.”
“Actually, it really is,” Pauline said, unapologetically.
Barb nodded. “Okay. You got me. When do you want me to start?”
“Tomorrow, if you can,” Pauline said. “Nobody has answered the phone in a week now. Not only is it driving the pap into a foaming at the mouth fuckin’ frenzy, we’re missing any legitimate business calls just as we got two major acts starting a tour back east.”
“Tomorrow? You can’t be serious. I may not be the most exemplary employee that LAPD has ever hired, but I’ve been there for more than twenty years and I do owe them something. I need to give at least two weeks notice before I can start here. That’s a minimum. They would really appreciate an entire month.”
“That doesn’t work for us,” Pauline said plainly. “I need your butt in that seat as soon as possible.”
Barb was shaking her head. There was no fucking way she was going to let her new boss start off the relationship by dictating shit like this to her. “Not gonna happen,” she told the woman. “Two weeks minimum.”
“I’ll give you a three thousand dollar signing bonus if you start tomorrow,” Pauline told her. “An under the table signing bonus. In cash. No report to the IRS or the FTB about it.”
“Three thousand dollars?” Barb asked, her mood instantly softening.
“Cash,” Pauline said. “Unmarked and non-sequentially numbered twenty dollar bills. Delivered upon your butt touching that seat at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
She thought this over for five and a half seconds and then, “Fuck the LAPD,” she said. “What have they really ever done for me?”
“Excellent,” Pauline said. “If you make it two weeks I’ll get you a custom placard for the desk that says ’Barb Fucking Macready, Gatekeeper.’”
Barb smiled. She could see that Pauline was not joking. “I like that,” she said.
Monday morning brought a new routine for those at Kingsley Manor. Caydee was no longer in school. She would return to the hallowed halls of American public education on September 7, the day after Labor Day. Until then, there would be no more weekday trips to and from kindergarten, no more packed lunches, no more homework assignments.
The Kingsley and Ramirez families had agreed to let Carlos and Emilia play with Caydee over the summer—Caydee would visit their apartment on Monday afternoons, and the Ramirez kids (accompanied by their parents) would come to Kingsley Manor on Saturdays for swim time and a Jake Kingsley barbecue, schedules permitting.
The schedules did not permit for the first weekend. The Ramirezes were making their annual trip to Bakersfield to visit family, a three-day pilgrimage to the land of dust, strip malls, and lukewarm carne asada.
For Jake, Laura, and Celia, however, it was business as usual. Another week of grinding work had begun.
They climbed into Laura’s SUV and headed for The Campus at 8:15 AM. Liz and Little Stevie followed in their own vehicles but quickly lost sight of the green Lexus—Jake drove faster and more aggressively than they did.
As usual, Jake checked in with the members of Celia’s band to see what they were planning to work on that day. Since it was Monday, he and the Nerdlys would come over after lunch to listen, offer feedback, and help shape the sound. Coop and Matt would head home early, while Charlie would stay overnight in the Campus housing room he’d claimed as his own. He seemed to like the solitude.
Jake drank a cup of coffee and munched on a leftover slice of pizza as they laid out the day’s plan. Celia wanted to focus heavily on Don’t Even Try, one of her harder-rocking tracks for the new CD. It featured dual Drop D guitars—Celia and Little Stevie playing together—building toward a dueling Drop D outro. The bones were there, but the primary melody still needed shaping, especially at the bridge transition.
Laura had done the best she could composing the structure, but it still needed Jake’s touch to make it true.
While Celia and her band headed for the cramped, unused studio, Jake made the walk to the rehearsal building, arriving exactly at 9:00 AM. He swiped his access card at the door and stepped inside. Everyone else was already present and accounted for—even Sharon, who was working with Intemp today (she alternated her days).
“Wassup, brother?” Matt asked mildly. He was sitting in one of the chairs, tuning his red rehearsal Strat. An auto-tuner was clipped to the headstock—Jake had finally convinced the guitarist that the entire music industry wouldn’t come crashing down in flames just because he used a little piece of modern tech to save time.
“I want to have a brief meeting with everyone before we get started,” Jake said, heading for the guitar rack. He pulled down his red Ibanez acoustic-electric.
Today they’d be working on The Skies of July, his new track for Cap. It was every bit as deep and emotional as Winter Frost had been for Caydee—though heavier, more driving, shaped by the full weight of Intemperance behind it instead of Jake solo.
Even Matt, not exactly known for his tender sentiments, had shown appreciation. “That shit’s gonna make all the fuckin’ bitches cry like they’re on their fuckin’ rags when they hear it,” he was on record as saying.
Everyone gathered around as Jake settled into his usual chair in front of his microphone and effects pedals. Coop sat on the edge of the drum platform instead of behind his kit. Sharon, who had been dialing in the board for their morning soundcheck ritual, joined him there. Nerdly stayed at his electric piano, while Charlie and Matt took their usual chairs at their respective mics.
“Is this about Janelle coming to stay with us?” Coop asked. “‘Cause if it is, you don’t have to worry about that shit. Me and Matt worked it out.”
“We didn’t work shit out,” Matt grumbled, rolling his eyes. “You said you’re moving her ass in and that’s fuckin’ that. It ain’t enough of an offense for me to fuckin’ kill you, so ... your new fuckin’ snatch gets to stay.”
“Right,” Coop said. “We worked the shit out. Just like I fuckin’ said.”
“Uh, no,” Jake cut in. “That is not what this meeting is about.” If they wanted to scream at each other in the kitchen at three in the morning, that was their business. As long as it didn’t fuck with the music, he didn’t care. He was not their dad. He was not their landlord. And he had some serious shit to talk.
“What is the topic of discussion then?” Nerdly asked. “If it is not about the domestic harmony between Matt and Coop, what is it?”
“It’s about the band,” Jake said. “You know ... official band shit? I think we’re ready to head over to the studio and start putting down tracks.”
“The man sees fuckin’ reason!” Matt said. “I’ve been saying that shit for weeks.”
“It hasn’t been true for weeks, though,” Jake said. “It’s true now. Or at least almost true. We’ve got our tunes worked up, and all we’re doing at this point is tweaking shit here and there. We can tweak when we start laying it down. The time for preproduction is over.”
“I disagree,” said Nerdly.
“Me as well,” added Sharon.
“Of course you two fuckin’ object,” Matt said. “It’s part of your fuckin’ charm and we respect that shit. But now it’s time to agree with Jake and move the fuck on to the studio. We got the basic shit down.”
“I think we’re pretty solid,” said Charlie.
“Fuckin’ A,” Coop chimed in. “We could play these tunes at D Street tonight and be proud of ‘em. That’s always been the standard, right?”
“Fuck yeah,” Matt said. He held up a hand to Coop and got a high five.
Jake knew he was the “Grand Fucking Poo-bah” (as Matt referred to him when he wanted Jake to lean in his favor on something) of the project. He had real—but unspoken—veto power over everything. He wasn’t just Jake Kingsley, singer and lead guitarist of Intemperance. He was the producer.
But he didn’t like to use his power. He liked consensus. He would override the Nerdlys if they kept objecting ... but he’d rather persuade them to drop it on their own.
Jake leaned forward a bit in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs.
“Look,” he said, “I know you two want to keep tightening every goddamn nut and bolt. And I respect that. You’re the quality control. Always have been. But we’re not talking about foundational shit anymore. We’re talking about fractional tweaks to stuff we’re already happy with.”
Nerdly didn’t reply right away. Sharon glanced at him, eyebrow raised like they were about to mentally transmit through their secret married couple frequency.
Jake gave them both a second, then added, “At this point, all we’re doing here is looping ourselves. We need to capture it while it’s fresh. If we wait too long, it won’t be fresh anymore. It’ll be clinical.”
“I’m not suggesting perfection,” Nerdly said, finally. “I am just suggesting optimal conditions.”
“And I’m saying those conditions have been met,” Jake replied. “It’s time to move to the next step in the process.”
Charlie put his two cents worth in. “We could spend another couple of weeks rehearsing, but it would only be like trying to prevent tapeworm infection by avoiding mammalian muscle meat as a practice while still eating the meat of avians and reptiles. True vegetarianism and aseptic culinary conditions is the only true path.”
“Uh ... yeah, exactly,” Jake said. He was used to Charlie’s way of speaking his mind and did not try to follow his train of thought too far. That path led to madness. He might end up joining their former receptionist at the lesbian commune. “Well put, Charlie.”
“What a fuckin’ freak,” Matt muttered under his breath.
Nerdly looked at Mrs. Nerdly again. They shared another unspoken conversation. Sharon finally shrugged. Nerdly did as well, though his shrug was more reluctant.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fuck yeah,” Matt said. “We doing this shit today, or what?”
“We can’t move everything over today,” Jake said, “but we can break it down. I’ll call Miguel and get him to put together a work crew for tomorrow morning. We’ll be able to cut out early today and come in a little late tomorrow. Sound like a plan?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt agreed happily.
“We should get some fuckin’ beer if we’re gonna be working and not playing music,” Coop suggested.
“Why don’t you send your old lady on a beer run, Nerdly?” Matt asked. “That’s what she started off doing in this business, remember?”
“I believe she has proven her worth enough by this point that she has risen above driving to a nearby convenience store to acquire alcoholic beverages,” was Nerdly’s retort.
“I don’t mind,” Sharon said cheerfully. “At least I won’t have to ask how much to get this time.”
Everyone had a little chuckle at that. On the first beer run she had made for Intemperance when she had been a twenty-two year old intern in National Records’ studio, she had asked if a twelve pack would be enough. She never made that mistake again.
Sharon was out the door three minutes later. The band (including Jake) were instantly in a good mood, just like any working stiffs who had just found out that instead of a full, grueling day on the job they had been granted a reprieve. Just do a little light work, have lunch, and then go home.
Jake, Matt, and Charlie all carried their guitars over to the storage area. Their travel cases were there and they would need to put every single one of their guitars (a total of nine between the three of them) away for transport.
“Listen, brother,” Matt said to Jake as they went to work, “I been meaning to tell you about this deal I’m hooked into. Remember we were talking about me trying to get an in with some of that medicinal shit?”
Jake did remember. Matt was a big fan of medicinal marijuana for his smoking pleasure. He did not have anything wrong with him—nothing that marijuana was going to fix, anyway—but he liked the modern ganja that was produced in legal grow houses under the supervision of people with PhD’s in horticulture and plant biology. He had a source for such ganja in Orange County where he lived, but had to buy his pot from the Kingsleys’ pot dealer while living in SLO. And Nico, the pot dealer in question, only dealt in Humboldt County shit, which was really, really good shit, but not as good as the medicinal shit produced by fuckin’ science.
“Yeah,” Jake said, not really interested. He had tried and appreciated Matt’s medicinal shit before (and it was the smoothest, mellowest, most intense high he had ever experienced from just two hits), but he was okay with Nico’s shit. They had been buying from Nico ever since setting up shop in SLO county. The man was not family, not really a friend, but they did owe him a little loyalty. “Did you find someone?”
“I did,” Matt said with a smile and a nod. “It took me awhile and I had to name drop, but I got a connection now. This dude—his name is Tater—runs that new fuckin’ warehouse they got over in San Miguel. The one the fuckin’ rich people are all up in arms about.”
Jake knew what he was talking about. The warehouse had been in the news lately. It was a legal distribution warehouse for medicinal marijuana, its purpose to be the middleman between the growers and the licensed dispensaries in San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Santa Barbara counties. The entire operation was above board under the laws of California, but the conservative element of the county was appalled by its existence and were constantly calling for it to be shut down. The operation was clearly illegal under Federal law, but, so far, the feds had not cracked down on medicinal marijuana operations, likely fearing bad publicity. And, since it was state legal and had a proper business license from SLO County, there was no state or county legal means to shut it down.
“Dude’s name is Tater?” Jake asked.
“I’m sure it’s not his real fuckin’ name,” Matt said, “but he’s legit. One of the owners of the operation, he told me.”
“You talked to him?”
“Just on the phone,” Matt said. “I talked to the dude over at that dispensary in Paso Robles. You know the one on the east side?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jake said. This was true. He had never been there, however. For him, Paso Robles was a place to pass through or fly over on the way to somewhere else. And its east side was notoriously shady. Not South Central LA shady, but still pretty mean for a county like San Luis Obispo.
“I started there,” Matt said. “Went in one day and talked to the manager and tried to see if we could make a deal. I ain’t got no fuckin’ weed card and I ain’t getting one. I’m not gonna fuckin’ lie to get my smoke. That’s fucked up.”
“An interesting moral stand to take,” Jake said, closing his black Les Paul into its case and flipping the latches.
“I’m not a fuckin’ barbarian,” Matt said. “I play by the fuckin’ rules that make sense to me.”
“Unless they contradict something you really want to do,” Jake said.
“Fuckin’ A, brother!” Matt said. “You fuckin’ get me! Anyway, the dude at the dispensary wouldn’t even talk about selling me any of his shit—even if I was Matt fuckin’ Tisdale. He was nice about it though. He said the local cops watch that place like a fuckin’ hawk, just waiting to catch an unauthorized sale. But he did have sympathy for my cause. He gets his shit from Tater and his boys so he told me he’d talk to them. He did, and Tater told him to give me his number and have me call. I did that last night and he’s willing to deal.”
“That’s cool,” Jake said. “Let me know what kind of deal he’s offering. Laura likes the medicinal shit. I’ll buy a quarter or so from him the next time you make a run.”
“I’m making a run today,” Matt said. “He said to meet him at the warehouse when I was done for the day. I just texted him and told him I’d be there within the fuckin’ hour.”
“Oh ... well the early day works out for you then,” Jake said, reaching up to grab his sunburst, Drop D tuned Les Paul.
Matt didn’t say anything for a second. Then: “Uhhh, there is one fuckin’ thing though.”
Jake looked at him. “What’s that?”
“You have to come with me.”
Jake blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I kinda told them you were gonna be there. That’s how I got the in.”
“You dropped my name?”
“Just a little. You know, like—’me and Jake might be interested in buying some of your premium botanical sciencey shit.’ I was being diplomatic.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Matt.”
“Dude, I had to. I was losing him! He was hemming and hawing and shit so I had to up the fuckin’ ante. You’re my closer.”
Jake sighed and rubbed his temples. “I am not your weed credibility reference.”
“Just this one time?”
Jake sighed. “Let me see how pissed off Laura and Celia are about this before I commit.”
Matt looked at him in confusion. “Why?” he asked, genuinely perplexed why Jake would need to run something like that by his old ladies. True, Jake was a known domestic pussy for his women, but this was just a fuckin’ weed run twenty-five minutes away.
The band was done breaking everything down by lunchtime. They walked over to the main building, where the catering company would deliver the daily bread. Inside the unequipped studio, the faint sound of a bass guitar could be heard. Celia and her band were in full-on music mode. That was a good thing.
They all had another beer out of the refrigerator while they waited. Charlie drank his beer out of the bottle, but only after thoroughly washing the bottle with antimicrobial soap and cold tap water. Jake drank his out of a glass. Nerdly did not drink at all. He still planned to put in a full day in Celia’s studio, nitpicking at their sound.
The catering truck arrived at 12:30, just like always. Two workers, admitted to the building and accompanied by a campus security officer, brought in tubs and boxes and bags. Today was sandwich day. There was a deli platter with turkey, ham, and salami. The cheeses were kept separate for the kosher Nerdlys. There were lots of vegetables and a vegetarian pasta soup for Charlie. There were even fresh baked brownies.
The man and the woman who had delivered the food were regulars on the Campus. They rarely saw the actual musicians though. Most of the time when they dropped off the food the bands were in their enclaves doing work. But not this time. They were looking at the entire band Intemperance sitting in one place! They stared unabashed at their good fortune. And holy shit, didn’t Matt Tisdale look terrible?
“Thanks, guys,” Jake told them with a professional smile when they were finished.
“Uh ... yeah,” the female stammered. “Glad to help.”
The music came to a halt in the studio room and the soundproof door opened. Celia and her band, alerted to lunchtime by the security booth calling the studio phone, filed out one by one. They were surprised to see Jake and the others already there.
“We’re making it an early day,” Jake said. “We decided it was time to move into the studio. We spent all day breaking everything down so a couple of Miguel’s guys can move it over for us in the morning.”
“Oh ... that’s awesome,” Celia said with a smile. “We can move over to the rehearsal building then. Get out of that cramped studio.”
“It was never meant to be used for workups,” Laura said. “It lost its cozy charm a month ago.”
“Amen to that,” said Liz, who had a little sheen of sweat on her. They had been playing First Light in there. Jake had been able to tell just by the rhythm of the bass that had made its way through the soundproof wall. Liz had a lengthy piano solo in the tune and she had likely expended some energy doing it. “It gets stuffy in there with all of us in the main room.”
“It works out for everyone then,” Celia said. “I love progress.”
“Mommmm,” Little Stevie said to Celia in a remarkably well-done whiny child voice. “Can we leave early today like the other band? Pleasssssse?”
“Do not ever call me ‘Mom’ again, Stephen,” Celia said in her actual mom voice—like the one she used when telling Caydee to get her little butt back on the continental landmass when she swam out into the freaking ocean. “That disturbs me in a way I cannot even begin to express.”
“Sorry, C,” he said, looking anything but. He had found a button he could push on the boss! “But what do you say? Let us get rested up for the hard work tomorrow?”
“That would be totally, cool, Celia,” Tif said. “I could totally go hit the sand for a few hours if you let us go.”
Celia sighed. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of laziness,” she said. “All right. After lunch and cleanup, we all make like a tree and get the fuck out of here.”
They sat down to eat, each person finding their usual spot around the table. By unspoken agreement, Matt and Tif always sat as far apart as possible—an arrangement born out of a single failed attempt at flirtation early in the process.
Matt had made a clumsy suggestion that the two of them should “get to know each other better.” Tif, unbothered and literal, had agreed with this, but then asked him how many of “those boner pills” he usually had to take in order to have sex.
She hadn’t been mocking him—Tif wasn’t sharp enough for sarcasm. She’d meant it sincerely, like she was asking about weather conditions for a hike. The directness of it—not what she said, but how—had been enough to make Matt back off permanently. Matt Tisdale, He Who Had Boned Women By the Thousands, undone by a woman with a room-temperature IQ.
The two studio musicians, like usual, sat apart from everyone. They still weren’t trusted by the rest of the band. Charlie sat by himself too, though close enough to join in the conversation if he wanted. Liz and Little Stevie sat together in one corner of the large dining room table while Massa and Tif sat on the other side, across from Nerdly and Sharon. Matt sat with Jake, Celia, and Laura.
After establishing their places at the tables, everyone hit the sandwich bar on the kitchen island. Jake made a club sandwich with a little bit of everything on it. He grabbed some napkins and made his way back to the table. Laura, Celia, and Matt soon followed.
“Premo fuckin’ chow,” Matt said as he munched on a large bite.
“It’s adequate for catered cuisine,” Jake said and then shook his head a little. “Jesus. I sounded like Greg there for a second.”