She was just about to sit down when Jonah asked his question. Immediately she walked away from the barstool and pointed a stern finger at him. “Do not speak his name around me right now if you expect to keep all your fingers and toes, Jonah Mason. I will cut them off out of pure, unadulterated annoyance. Don’t push me.”
We all watched her stomp into the kitchen, cursing Charlie the entire way. On second thought, maybe Charlie wasn’t milking his surgery but simply avoiding Hurricane Ada. Because yeah... I’d be scared to come back to work too.
Honestly, I knew we were lucky to still have Ada. And Miles, for that matter. Although we were more reliant on Ada’s full-time position, so she would have been the bigger loss.
I wasn’t even sure we could run Craft without her. She did so much and was in charge of so much that without her, we’d be irrevocably fucked.
“Wow,” Jonah said with a whistle through his teeth. “What did I miss?”
Oh, just about five years of choking sexual tension, constant bickering, and two people who loved each other and also really hated each other. But out loud, I said, “I think she’s still pissed at Charlie for not taking care of himself.”
He gave me a wide-eyed look. “You think?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I bumped his shoulder with my shoulder. Everything he did was funny. And flirty. And... Will was watching us.
I straightened and took a sip of my drink. “This might be too sweet for you,” I told Jonah. “But I think it’s delicious.”
Will slid another one in Jonah’s direction. “What are you doing here tonight? I’m surprised to see you since you’ve been so swamped with work lately.”
My cheeks turned a brighter shade of red. Is that what he’d told Will?
“Is Lola here?” Jonah asked, doing a big, fake look around the room.
“Yeah, she’s in the back taking a break.” Will went back to scrubbing the clean countertops.
In an attempt to change the subject, Jonah said, “Did you hear that The Social Club is closing?”
Will and I both straightened to attention. That was big news. The Social Club, or TSC as locals called it, had been the new thing in Durham last summer. We’d all been there and had a great time.
They were a cocktail bar and changed their menu seasonally as we did. But they’d been all modern and trendy with lots of curated corners and styled backdrops. They used their cute spots to blast themselves all over social media. Everyone loved posting their hashtags with filtered pictures of themselves in front of their selfie spots. It was genius, free marketing.
And it had worked. When we went in late August, we’d had to wait an hour and twenty minutes before they let us in. And then we didn’t get a table for another hour after that. By the time we sat down, I’d been famished, only to find out they didn’t have a kitchen.
But they did have a platter of free bar snacks. We’d been shocked when they’d come out with huge bowls of fancy olives, asiago cheese crackers, and artisan nuts. We’d been so hungry that we asked for a second round. They hadn’t batted an eye.
“Was it the free snacks?” I asked solemnly.
Jonah nearly spit out his drink. “Yes, how did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
He smiled at me, his gaze holding me captive and looking at me like... I didn’t know like what. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before.
Will made a thoughtful sound from the other side of the bar, shattering our moment. “It had to be more than the snacks,” he mused. “Their cocktails were expensive, and there was always a line out the door.”
“It was poorly managed,” Jonah put in, jumping back to reality like we weren’t hiding this huge secret from Will. From everyone. “That’s the rumor anyway. They spent too much. And they were way overstaffed.”
“Dang, it’s so hard to make it in this biz.” I sighed.
Will nodded. “No joke. It’s hard to find that balance of having enough employees so you don’t kill yourself or run people off and being able to pay them.”
Oh, shit. “That reminds me...” I gave Will my best repentant puppy eyes. “Case needs someone in the kitchen. He’s losing it. I put an ad on Indeed and talked to Bob to make sure we could afford to hire someone else. I have interviews starting tomorrow.”
Will looked as though he might have accidentally swallowed his tongue. “You did what?”
“He threatened to quit. Several times. And I see him struggling back there. We can’t just close the kitchen every time he’s not here. It’s getting its own reputation. People aren’t just coming for the drinks anymore, they’re coming for his food. But he deserves a day off every once in a while.”
Will took a deep, meditative breath... and then launched his attack. “Eliza, people come here for Case’s food. Is he going to make an official menu? Train this new staff to replicate what he does? Is he now the head chef and can tell everyone what to do? Or are you thinking these people are coming in as equals? What about pay?”
