“And stop calling him Vann Delane. You know him by now. Surely you’re on a first name basis.”
He shrugged, staring at the dish I’d been experimenting with in front of me—a croque monsieur that I’d made with heirloom tomatoes, jalapeno jam, and gruyere cheese. I couldn’t decide whether to add thinly sliced prosciutto or thick slices of peppered bacon.
“I don’t know,” Ezra admitted. “I thought we were too, but now Molly is going to all these lengths to put on the perfect brunch and make sure you’re there and he’s there… It feels right to move back to when things were formal and unfamiliar.”
I laughed at his silly overprotectiveness. “You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”
He nodded. He did know that. “So, should I tell her you’ll be there?”
“Let’s trade favors,” I suggested. Sucking in a shaky breath, I set my knife down and planted my hands on the counter. “I want to change things up here.”
His eyebrows furrowed over his nose. “What do you mean? Like the menu?”
“I mean, like a lot of things.” I launched into a pitch about the menu change, honing in on my casual French philosophy and then adding in the brunch idea and a couple different happy hour suggestions the staff had helped me come up with.
“You don’t want to change the menu, you want to restructure the entire restaurant from top to bottom.”
Nibbling my bottom lip, I decided honesty was better than blowing smoke up his ass. “This place is failing, Ezra. You know that. You probably know that more than anybody. You hired me to fix that for you. I’ve only been here a little while, but it’s been long enough to understand that what we’re doing now isn’t working. Not even a little bit. This place needs an overhaul or it’s going to fail. And I would really, really like for my first time as captain to not be of a sinking ship.”
He smiled, his eyes flashing with awe. “I would like that for you too.”
“Will you sign off on the changes?”
“You want to change a lot, Dillon. And those changes sound pricey,” he argued, shifting back into the frugal, domineering business genius I knew him to be.
“But if the changes bring in more clientele, they’ll pay for themselves. Right now, not changing isn’t an option. I don’t know how much longer you can go on bleeding money like this, but if I were you and there were other options available, I would at least explore them.” He appeared to be listening intently, so I pushed on. “And the brunch thing doesn’t have to be permanent. We have the freedom to explore it and then pull back if we’re doing better in the evenings. But I’ve done my research in this area, Ez, and there aren’t upscale brunch or breakfast spots in this area. But there are a lot of churches. Which means a lot of people out and about during the breakfast hours on Sunday. This could work.”
He stared at me. “I hate when you call me Ez.”
I smiled, I couldn’t help it. “Or it could fail,” I answered honestly. “Friendly reminder that I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. I’m just trying to save your restaurant.”
“Hey, this is your restaurant now too.”
Ignoring him, I added, “I think Molly could sell this on social media. She’ll weave her promo web like the killer spider she is, and we’ll give Bianca a renewed look. A younger, fresher, more hipster image. And we’ll catch everyone. The entire freaking city.”
“I’m impressed,” he said. My insides beamed from his praise. I would never let him know, but his praise meant the absolute world to me. It always would. “I mean, you have no real numbers or figures. But you seem to have thought about it a lot.”
The feeling of impressing him shriveled inside me. “You can’t keep the restaurant the way she is. You have to do something.”
His hand was back to his face, rubbing his jawline. “I’m inclined to believe you.”
“Yes, do it,” I pushed. “If we don’t turn things around or make money, we’ll go back to this way. This… outdated, geriatric, sad way.”
A surprised laugh burst out of him and he shook his head at me. “All right. Tit for tat. Call Molly. Figure it out.” He pointed a finger at me. “Just don’t rub my face in it when you’re wildly successful and make me millions.”
He already had millions, but I decided now wasn’t the time to mention that. Instead, I placed a delicate hand on my heart and promised, “I would never.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Taking a step back, he added, “I’m working out of Lilou today. See you Sunday. Molly said don’t come before ten.”
“I’ll bring mimosas.”
“Don’t you have to work later that day?”
I shrugged. “I’m at my best when I’m a little tipsy.”
Dad voice was back. “Dillon…”
“I kid, I kid.” He shot me his most parental scowl but left me to it. He knew me better than that. Although if Vann was going to be there, then maybe I wasn’t kidding after all.
