Doing my best to imitate Aurora’s authoritative voice, I read out the next comment. “‘Glad to see you are willing to consider expanding the menu options after all, Alexis. Wyatt, your niece, and I all choose option B. Make sure you count all three votes. One could argue that my vote should hold extra weight, but doesn’t look like this poll needs it, so fine.’”
“That doesn’t even count,” Lexi grumbles, an arm flying up.
“I think she’d argue otherwise, but all right, here’s one from someone you’re not related to. ‘Is this post a joke? Who wants option A when option B is on the table?’”
I think I can hear Lexi’s eyes hitting the back of her sockets with how hard she rolls them. Clearly she’s not sold yet, so I continue.
“This one is just a gif of Monica from Friends saying ‘seven’ over and over again, with a bunch of Bs in her comment.”
That one isn’t too far from accurate, if you ask me. As a chef, I know delicious food can hit the spot for a woman better than most men can.
Not me, but most men.
I digress.
“‘Literally drooling at option B. Or maybe that’s at the new chef I got a glimpse of the other day.Rawr,’ and then there’s a tiger emoji.”
If Lexi were wearing a cuff to monitor her vitals, pretty sure the machine would be beeping at us in warning right about now, so I move on quickly, clearing my throat. “She voted for B and that’s what counts.”
“I’m going to punch Gracie in the tit if that was her. This is…” Lexi splutters, trying to find the word, before settling on the same one from before. “—ridiculous. Surely noteveryonevoted option B. That’s statistically impossible.”
Humming as I scroll through the dozens and dozens of comments, I find one. “‘Serve roadkill if you want, I’ll be atSuds.’ That was from an Ernie Seltzer… He didn’t vote for B. But he didn’t vote for A either.”
Exasperated, Lexi whips her phone out of her back pocket and thumbs open the screen so she can start reading comments for herself. Her voice leaks arrogance when she starts reading aloud. “‘I’m just happy we’re getting a restaurant option again, period.’ Ha! That one didn’t pick your menu.”
One brow creeps up my forehead as I meet her gaze. “Keep reading.”
The features of her face crumple as she does. “‘But option B sure sounds nice.’ Oh, what the fuck.”
I pick another favorite of mine and read it aloud, while her brows furrow lower than I thought biology allowed them to go. “Don’t ask stupid questions. You know the answer. While we’re making decisions, the sauces should go on in the back. No bottles on the table. Keeping ketchup on the table is gonna get nasty so fast. Those bottles are gonna look like your uncle’s ass plugs in a month.”
Lexi’s face pulls at the visual, and she steps back.
One side of my mouth hitches up in a smile. “That one’s from Wanda.”
“WANDA!” she bellows, to no response from the dining room downstairs where the servers are doing side work. “You’re the one that’s supposed to clean the ketchup bottles!” She huffs out a sigh and crosses her arms.
“Come on, Boss.” I smirk at her. “Would it really be so bad to elevate the menu a little bit? It’s all the same items you wanted, just…better.”
She drops down heavily in the captain’s chair in front of the desk.
I know an opening when I sense one.
Swiveling the screen to face her, I swap windows to the menu I designed.
“Instead of a chicken sandwich with American cheese and wilted lettuce?—”
Her eyes turn to slits. “My menu didn’t say wilted lettuce, asshole.”
“Firstly, I love when you flirt with me on the job.”
The vein in her neck throbs when I grin at her, and I imagine her pussy doing the same. My mouth waters.
“Secondly, the lettuce was going to wilt with the setup you have in the back,” I point out, one eyebrow raised. “If I hadn’t changed up the line, moved the bins around the station, that lettuce would’ve had permanent whiskey dick. It was right next to the tomatoesandless than a foot from the blacktop. A greens graveyard.”
Her breaths look like they’re taking effort. In, then out.
I keep going, hoping today’s the day we progress to anything other than a scowl from her. “Heights Bites is where lettuce went to die. God’s waiting room for plants. The Florida of kitchens.”
