The idea had started spontaneously, but now it had legs. And maybe wings.
“Come on,” I told him, jumping up from my desk.
“Where are we going?” He sounded quite dazed. As if I’d confused him so much that his brain couldn’t comprehend what I was asking him to do.
“We’re going to show Will you’re not a total idiot.”
He snorted. “Totalidiot?”
I shot him a grin over my shoulder. “Well, you know what I mean.”
The main floor was still pretty slow as we worked our way toward Miles. It was the perfect opportunity to teach Charlie a thing or two.
“Hey, Miles,” I said, smiling at our longtime bartender. He was wiping down the counter with a bar towel and pretending he hadn’t been on his phone when I’d first come out of the kitchen.
“What’s happening, Eliza?” he asked. He had this rich, deep voice and was notoriously smooth with customers. We were lucky to have him, but sometimes I wondered how long he planned to stay. He was in a master’s program at Duke. Something about biochemistry. He had a real job too, as an actual scientist. Although he swore up and down it was unimportant, and he basically made people coffee. This was just to help him pay for his crippling student loan debt—his words. Barista by day, bartender by night, his life revolved around beverages. “You coming out of your cave to help me?”
I smiled hopefully at him. “Actually, I wonder if you could teach Charlie a thing or two about making some drinks.”
Miles didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Charlie? You want to learn how to make drinks?”
Charlie played it cool next to me, although I could sense how much he wanted to learn. Our original plan was that he’d be behind the bar as much as Will. But he’d not been great at mixing drinks in the beginning.
Actually, he’d been terrible. So he’d been quickly demoted to dishwashing duties. Which sucked for him—although he didn’t complain very often.
But that had been years ago. He was older now. We all were. And he’d had a taste of what he didn’t want. So maybe he’d work hard for what he did want.
Maybe.
This was Charlie, after all.
“Uh, yeah,” Charlie told Miles. “Figured it was time to learn how to help out behind the bar.”
Miles nodded thoughtfully like that made excellent sense, then tilted his head back, beckoning Charlie to join him. “All right, let’s go.”
Charlie shot me a grateful smile, and it was all the confirmation I needed to know I’d done a good thing. I waved at Ada and then ducked back into the kitchen lest I be tempted to micromanage Charlie’s bartending tutorial.
Charlie and I were close, but he always needed so much help. It was easy to mother him into doing what he should. If only he recognized how much my “mothering” helped him. I often tried to help him by telling him what to do, only for him to resent me butting in.
Ugh, brothers.
Case was back in the kitchen when I walked in. Unlike Miles, he didn’t even pretend he wasn’t on his phone. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have any orders right now, and the prep work was all done.
Our gazes clashed as the door closed behind me, and he jumped straight to what was on his mind. “Did you talk to Will about getting some help?”
I’d been waiting for him to ask me. It had been a couple of weeks, but I knew last weekend had been brutal for him. “I haven’t had a chance yet...” He immediately looked like a toddler on the verge of an epic tantrum, so I quickly added, “But I get that you need help.” Whether we could afford it or not didn’t really matter. If Case couldn’t do the job alone, Will, Charlie, and I had to figure out how to support him. Otherwise, we would lose him, and unlike Miles, who had a whole bright future ahead of him, this was exactly what Case wanted to do with his life. So if he couldn’t do a good job here, he’d go elsewhere, and we’d never find anyone as innovative and efficient as he was. I had too many friends in the food industry. I knew better than to lose Case.
I’d deal with Will later.
Maybe.
I talked a big game. But big brother syndrome was scary.
“I’ll tell you what, Case, if you write up exactly what you’re looking for—ability, available hours, experience, etc.—I’ll post an ad and start interviewing.”
The tension around his eyes eased a little. “You’re serious?”
I nodded, a sick feeling in my gut twisting into a ball of dread. Will might kill me. But, I might kill him too... so... even Stephen. Ahem. “Yes, I’m serious. But I need a list from you. I can put out a general idea of what we’re looking for, but if you want certain days or hours off or whatever, I can’t help you unless I know exactly what they are.”
