25. Shane
Chapter 25
Shane
Work was immediately a shit show. The delivery was wrong. The driver was new and didn’t know shit. My morning with Archer had lifted my mood, but for the first time since I opened the bar, I found myself wondering why I didn’t hire a manager to do all this stuff for me. At first, I’d wanted to work. I’d craved the normalcy that a steady job offered. Something where I called the shots. But a few years in and I was learning that normal was overrated.
If I had a manager, I could let them do all this shit and just show up when I felt like it. I could do the fun part like hanging out behind the bar. Or better yet, I could hang out upstairs with Archer. It made me feel like a lovesick teenager, but I was beyond caring. I’d done so much for other people, I deserved a little daydream of my own.
Cyrus breezing in and greeting me with his usual grin pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Hey, Cyrus, quick question.”
He turned the water on and started washing his hands so he could dive into prep. “What’s up?”
“If I hired someone to run this place for me, would that be a job you’d want?” Cyrus had been with me from the beginning. It only seemed fair to offer it to him first. He’d been there the longest and he knew the place better than anyone .
“Hell, no.” Cyrus didn’t have to think about his answer. “Why? Are you quitting?”
“I’m thinking of taking more time away from here.”
“Good. You work too much. You’re either here looking after this place, or you’re at your mom’s looking after her place. Mickey is too green to run the show. What about Vivian? I know you gave her time off so she could get her mom’s affairs in order, but I don’t hate her.”
Coming from Cyrus, that was a ringing endorsement. He had never been shy about letting me know what he thought of some of the staff I hired. It was why I’d put him in charge of the kitchen staff, of which there currently was only him.
“Why don’t you hire someone to help you in here? I thought we had this conversation months ago.”
“I like doing all this, Shane.” Cyrus waved me off. “Now let me do my job and go find someone to do yours.”
“Yes, boss.”
I ducked into my office to call Vivian and offer her the job if she wanted it. Starting immediately. Vivian jumped at the offer, and though I said she could come in the next day, she wanted to come in tonight and start getting her feet under her. I wasn’t going to abandon her on the first day, but Vivian was smart as a whip and she’d have the hang of things in no time.
By the time people started to trickle into the bar for dinner and drinks, my mood couldn’t have gotten any better. The delivery shit from earlier was all but forgotten. The bar was busier than usual so I was doubly glad when Vivian showed up and stepped behind the bar.
“Good to see you, boss,” I said to her and her eyes sparkled.
“Oh, I like the sound of that.”
Vivian greeted Mickey and he seemed enthusiastic about her return and her promotion. She stepped in like she’d never been gone. The customers were happy to see her return. She’d always been popular with the regulars here. Their warm greetings proved that I’d made the right decision.
Sometime after dinner, Vivian sent me away. “You need a break, Shane. Knowing you, you haven’t stopped since you got here.”
“You got me there.” I wondered what Archer was doing. I could go up and see him. And if anyone got suspicious, it no longer mattered because we were going to have to tell everyone eventually.
Vivian pushed my shoulder. “So get out of here. Let your manager manage. I can close up tonight. I happen to remember how.”
When I didn’t move, she rolled her eyes. “Shane, I’m sorry, but you’re fired. Get out of my bar.”
“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted.” I tugged at the apron strings and pulled it off. “If you need me—”
“I won’t.” Vivian glanced at Mickey, who’d been doing his best to ignore the exchange, but had laughed at her most recent statement. “You’re distracting my staff, Shane.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going. I’m gone.” I slipped through the back, exchanging a quick greeting with Cyrus, who’d made it through the dinner rush seemingly unscathed.
“I think you should hire someone to give you a hand back here. Or see if Trev wants to learn some basic kitchen shit.”
Trev was the food runner slash dishwasher. I’d offered to teach him to work behind the bar, but he said that he didn’t want to deal with people as much as that and he was fine with his current position.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Cyrus joked, but I wasn’t laughing.
“The opposite, actually. I don’t want you to burn out.”
“Ugh. Stop being so annoyingly nice all the time. Get out of my kitchen. ”
“Wow, first Vivian kicks me out of the front and now you’re kicking me out of the back. Of my own bar. Maybe I should go home.” Or upstairs to see Archer. Or upstairs to get Archer and then home.
“Take the hint, then.” Cyrus motioned to the back door. “Get out of here. Go have a life or something.”
“Love you too, Cyrus.” I made my way to the back door and pushed it open. Daylight was quickly fading and the heat of the day was slipping away with it. The air smelled like dust and hot asphalt. The last of the day’s fading sunlight glinted off chrome and I squinted. Before I could think about going upstairs to see Archer, the back door opened like I’d conjured him up.
“Hey, I was just going to come see you. I have news.”
“I have a tattoo. Well, it’ll need to be rendered properly and… whatever. Here. Look.”
He flipped his sketchbook open to a full color picture of a little flying saucer robot surrounded by sunflowers. “It’s you. You’re the robot who flies around fixing shit. The sunflowers mean generosity, because that’s you too.”
Archer snapped his mouth shut and looked at me, pink slanting across his cheekbones.
“It’s amazing.” I couldn’t think of a better way to describe it, even though amazing seemed lame and flimsy, not nearly enough. “This is how you see me?”
He shrugged a shoulder, looking embarrassed. Clearly it had taken guts to reveal these things to me. It was like a private window into the very heart of him.
“I want it. When can we do it?”
“Yeah? You do?” Archer cleared his throat and took the sketchbook back. Flipping it shut, he tucked it in against his side. “I mean, of course you do. And whenever you have time is fine by me. ”
“That reminds me of what I wanted to tell you. I’m about to have more time because I just hired a manager.”
Archer’s eyes lit up and he stepped in closer to me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s selfish, but I want to spend more time with you.”
“I don’t hate that.” Archer stepped into my space and ghosted a kiss against my lips. Then another. And a third. I reached for him, sinking my hand into his hair. As much as I loved The Anchor, I didn’t want it to be my entire life anymore and I had the luxury of stepping back and not suffering for it. I didn’t want to schedule seeing Archer around both our jobs. Hell, he wouldn’t have to work ever again if he didn’t want to, but I doubted that he’d want to give up his job. It was part of him. I’d seen firsthand how happy he was when he was working on a piece. Taking that from him, or asking him to give that up was the furthest thing from my mind.
He deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into my mouth to dance around mine for several drawn-out moments before he pulled away.
“Holy shit,” he exhaled.
“Yeah, I’ll fucking say.” Cyrus’s angry voice cracked through the atmosphere like a whip. Archer and I spun around and it was impossible not to feel a flash of guilt at the look of total betrayal on Cyrus’s face.
“What the fuck, Shane?” A bag of trash landed on the ground at Cyrus’s feet and the back door of the restaurant banged shut. “What the entire fuck is going on here?”
“Cyrus, calm down,” Archer said, but Cyrus paid him no attention.
“Archer’s been through a lot of shit. The last thing he needs is his fucking landlord putting the moves on him. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Jesus Christ, Cy, calm down.” Archer stepped closer to him. “I got ripped off. I didn’t have some sort of trauma. ”
“You’re in a vulnerable position.” Cyrus folded his arms over his chest. The muscle in his jaw ticked and throbbed and I thought the vein in his forehead might burst. “You don’t need this shit.”
“What shit, Cyrus? Someone who fucking cares about me?”
“I care about you!” Cyrus shouted.
Watching them fight was like watching a train wreck. I’d never had an out-of-body experience before, but it was sort of like I was outside of everything, watching it go down.
“Cyrus—” I wanted to tell him that Archer was it for me. That I’d rather chop off my own arm than ever hurt him. That I’d do whatever it took to keep him happy and safe. Forever.
“And you. You fucking asshole. The whole goddamned town of people and you have to go after my little brother? That’s like… illegal.”
Archer snorted.
“Okay, not illegal, but immoral. It’s against bro-code.”
“He’s not a child, Cyrus. And neither am I. Whatever problem you have with this, I suggest you find a way to get over it.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” Cyrus tugged at his apron and shoved it at me. I stood there, slack-jawed and stunned as Cyrus stormed toward his car.
“I’ll deal with him.” Archer shot me an apologetic look and handed me his sketchbook, then took off running after Cyrus. Left holding Archer’s sketchbook and Cyrus’s apron, I watched the brothers stand by Cyrus’s car and bicker. Cyrus was clearly pissed about the whole thing, but I didn’t quite understand why. So long as my brothers were with people who cared about them, people they were safe with, I would be happy for them. Instead, Cyrus had thrown a temper tantrum .
Fuck. Did I still have a cook? I had to get inside and get shit under control. I’d close the kitchen for the night if I had to, but I hoped that Cyrus just needed a few minutes to get it together.
I took the trash to the dumpster and caught a few curse words carrying through the parking lot from where Archer and Cyrus were still fighting. As much as I wanted to go over there, I doubted my presence would help matters much.
Making my way back into the bar, I went out front and waved Vivian over to me.
“Houston, we have a problem. Cyrus walked out.”
“What?” Vivian’s eyes went wide. “Where? Why?”
“Long story short, he found out that I’ve been seeing his brother.”
Vivian sighed dramatically. “I can’t even begin to understand any of this and I’m not sure I want to. What are we going to do with all the food orders?”
“Cancel them, I guess.”
Mickey appeared a second later. “Sorry, but I overheard and maybe there’s a solution. A temporary one.”
“What’s your solution?” Vivian asked Mickey.
He turned his head and pointed at Ethan, who had come in sometime in the few minutes since I’d stepped out back. Mickey waved Ethan over before Vivian or I could protest.
“Ethan, there’s a bit of an issue and Cyrus had to step out so there’s no one in the kitchen.”
“There’s me, but the kitchen was never my domain.”
Ethan reached out and took the apron from me. He stole a kiss on the way past Mickey.
“Come on,” Ethan said to me. “I’m sure between the two of us we can manage to put out a few fires.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I was willing to give it a try .
“It’s a damn good thing I’ve eaten just about everything on your menu.” Ethan slid the apron over his head and tied it behind his back. “I’m sure I can fudge my way through a couple of orders. Can I ask what happened?”
He went over to the grill and cleared off the few items that were there, burning away. He tossed them in the trash, started new burger patties, and went to read the orders to see what he needed to be doing after that.
I gave Ethan the simple honest answer. “I fell in love with his brother.”