Irritation crept under my skin and buzzed like a hundred angry bumble bees.
“Whatchya doing, Ada?” Joey asked from behind me.
I’d been slapping ingredients onto the butcher block without realizing it. Fuck. I consciously unclenched my jaw then my hands. Now would be a great time to get my shit together. “Oh, sorry. I just realized I forgot to eat today, and my blood sugar is dropping quickly.”
Will popped his head in the kitchen. “Hey, Ada, can I get your opinion on something out front real fast?”
My jaw snapped back to tight and rigid. Sucking in a calming breath, I gave up on the idea of eating something. “Sure, Will. I’ll be right there.”
“What was the plan here?” Joey asked as she hopped over to my side.
“A sandwich?” I reached for a piece of sliced provolone and folded it up so I could eat it in one bite. “Or something. I don’t know. I should have eaten earlier, but—”
“Hey, no worries. I regularly forget to feed myself. And I work with food daily,” she commiserated. “It happens. Especially when you’re busy.”
Her kindness twinged something in my heart. I hadn’t been expecting empathy, especially over something as stupid as missing lunch.
I cleared my throat instead of bursting into tears. It seemed like the more responsible way forward. “Yeah, right. I’m like a neglected house plant.”
She laughed. “I got this. No worries.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I needed some of this stuff anyway.”
“Thanks, Joey.” Our short interaction had calmed my frayed nerves, and while the piece of cheese wasn’t exactly a full meal, the calories were nice.
I hurried out to the main floor. There would be time to eat later. Possibly when the fryer was on and I could swipe some cheese curds. Or onion rings. Or... chicken fingers.
My stomach growled again.
Eliza was at the bar with Will and Charlie. Seeing the three of them together used to give me massive anxiety because I knew things were about to explode. All of them could be the loveliest people on the planet. All of them could also be total assholes. And nothing brought out the assholery more than interacting with each other.
But things had improved over the past couple of years. Will found Lola—who had helped him calm down. I mean, I didn’t want to say sex saved the man. But he hulked out at least seventy percent less than he used to. Eliza had found Jonah; their friends-to-lovers trope was absolutely adorable and incredibly expected. But they made a good pair. And it kept Eliza too busy to bug her brothers.
And Charlie had also maybe, slightly, possibly grown up a little over the years too. He wasn’t nearly as airheaded as he used to be. He actually contributed to the bar now that he could help out behind it. And he’d slowly but surely stopped bringing all his random friends in for free drinks or jobs.
They were hitting their sibling bonding era, and I loved it for them. Even if one-third of them still drove me to drink.
And sometimes forced me to drink.
“Hey,” Will said. His brow quirked again as he took me in, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. “Come have a seat.”
Will and Charlie were behind the bar, so I dropped onto the stool next to Eliza. She smiled brightly at me. Something was up.
“What’s going on?”
“We need to have a bigger conversation about this,” Will said, taking the lead. “But we’re thinking about opening a second location.”
“What?”
“The bar is doing pretty great right now,” he explained further, “so we’re looking into adding a second Craft on the other side of town. In that new plaza area with the green space.”
“Highland?” I guessed.
They nodded. “We’ve been working with a real estate agent, and they have some bays that haven’t been leased yet. It would obviously be a more modern look for us, but we think there could be potential.”
“Bougie,” I managed to say.
