“I get cold brew every day,” Hale said. “It’s better than any of that drive-thru garbage you drink.”
Mel looked at me. “We’ve lost him to the Naked girls.”
Hale held up a finger. “Just a thought, but maybe we shouldn’t refer to them asthe Naked girls. I understand what you mean but it could be misconstrued and—”
“Yeah, yeah. We get it,” Mel said. “I still don’t need their coffee.”
He folded his arms on the table and leaned in. “Why not?”
Mel started to respond but stopped herself to shuffle her schedules and reports. I tapped a pen to my lips as I waited for her. I needed to hear this. It would help me make sense of my own issues.
It had been days since the incident on Sunny’s patio and I still didn’t know what had happened there. I wasn’t her type. She’d said that as if I didn’t already know. As if all the reasons why she had to stay as far away from me as possible weren’t already engraved on my brain. As if one wrong move toward Sunny wouldn’t ruin twenty years of friendship with Lance.
With an impatient huff, Mel said, “Because I put milk—realmilk from cows—in my coffee, and everything there is vegan so—”
“But you said all you want is cold brew and never once in five years have I seen you put anything more than whiskey in your coffee so what’s the real problem?” Hale asked.
“I have no interest in their coffee,” she snapped. “I don’t want to know about anything they’re doing. I don’t care about them. Especially not the one who keeps parking herself at the bar and slow-drinking lemon drops.” She looked up from her paperwork and speared Hale with a glare. “Why do you like them so much, Woot? You’re always talking to the chef and the one who lurks at my bar and the little one who drives Beck crazy. Can you help us move this conversation along and just tell us if you’re trying to get with one of them? We have more important things to discuss.”
I swallowed a growl. Hale was charismatic as fuck and he had a lot of game when it came to romance. And Sunny—well, Sunny was a goddamn pain in my ass. She was impossible. Everything about her, impossible. He’d have a fucking field day. I had a lot of experience with silent suffering, but something about Sunny and Hale made my head pound in a way that had me thinking I’d sooner drown myself than stand by while it happened.
A smile pulled at Hale’s mouth. “You just said you don’t want to know about anything, Mel. I’m terribly confused.”
Mel pushed up from her seat and started gathering her papers all over again. “If you want to date one of them or all of them, I don’t need to hear about it.” She hugged a few folders to her chest. “Beck, if you have a problem with Emily, Everleigh, and Evyanna, you have to figure out which is which first. Until then, let’s see if we can survive a week without firing anyone. It’s not been great for morale.”
“Unless you’re talking about firing Devon,” Hale added. “Because he’s a nightmare.”
Mel glared up at the ceiling. She was really phenomenal at grudges. Even with the smallest grievance, she could refuse to make eye contact for entire days. Weeks if she put her back into it.
“What’s the problem with Devon?” I asked. “I thought he was one of the few we wanted to salvage from the old crew. Customers like him, right?”
“They request him by name,” Mel said, now staring at the water. “He’s always the top server of the night, regardless of whether it’s a slow Wednesday or full-house Saturday.” She let out a lengthy sigh. “But he’s a bitch to schedule and his behavior is questionable.”
“Hmm.” I held out my hand and she passed me last week’s sales report.
Devon’s numbersweregood and I needed all the wins I could get. We were working with barely enough staff, Decker still hadn’t returned my calls (and I didn’t count a text reading “ok” as a real response), and my attorney called every day to tell me how bad the evidence looked. One less problem on my roster would be awesome.
“He’s a nightmare,” Hale repeated.
“Yes, and if we can hang on to him a little longer, that would make my life less of an ongoing train wreck. It’s summer on the seacoast, Beck. We’re booked solid for the next three months. Unless you’re putting Woot on the schedule, I don’t think we’ll be able to replace Devon anytime soon.”
“Walk over to Naked with me for a cold brew and you can schedule me every night this weekend,” Hale said. “I’m going regardless of your non-arguments and I’ll bring drinks back for both of you but it would be a lot more fun if you tagged along.”
“Please explain to me why my presence would change a damn thing,” Mel said.
“Because you light up my life, Melissa.” He beamed at her. “And I need to visit with Sunny. We talked about going to the festival together this weekend so—”
There it was. That was the line. The point of no return.
“No.” I leaned forward and flattened both hands on the table. There was a noise in my head like a swarm of bees. “Not for a damn minute you’re not.”
I reached for my water bottle and drained the contents. There was a ton of bricks on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even think past the idea of Hale strolling around the high school football-field-turned-festival-grounds with Sunny on his arm. And I liked Hale. A lot. He was a good guy—agreatguy. But, fuck, I wanted to throw him into the water for hinting at an interest in Sunny. It was spectacularly unreasonable. There was no defending that reaction, especially given that Sunny was as good as barricaded behind heavily reinforced lines. She was not an option, not for me, not for a fucking minute.
“Should I interpret that to mean you’re interested in her?” Hale asked.
“That does seem to be the implication,” Mel said.
Hale nodded. “Definitely the implication.”
