Chapter 18
DALTON
“The two new girls seem to be doing well.” Jimmy the Fish eyes me over a shot of whiskey. “Seems like they’ve always been here.”
“Yes, Rosie and Sage are good additions to the team.” I down the whiskey from my seat at the bar and look over at them as they greet customers and take orders. “Don’t tell Lucia I said that though, or it will go to her head.”
“Lucia seems to be on that dating app so much that she and the other girls are unlikely to notice anything you have to say.” He grunts as he pours me another shot.
Then he makes his way back down the bar to greet two new diners who want to sit at the bar. I turn around in my seat and observe the dining room. We’ve got ten tables seated, which is good for this time of year, but we’re still not turning the profits we need to stay in business for years to come.
I get up and make my way to the kitchen to see if Gracie needs any assistance, and I can’t help but notice that there’s smoke coming from the stovetop and someone is at the back of the kitchen, cursing up a storm.
“Everything okay in here?” I call out, and I see Izzy’s head popping up from the back. “Where’s Gracie?”
“She went to the store to grab some fresh tomatoes,” Izzy mutters as she flips something in a pan. “She told me to watch this fish, but I think I messed up.” She wrinkles her nose. “I thought the pan needed more butter, but it just started smoking, and I think I might have burned the fish.”
“Why didn’t she ask you or me to get the tomatoes?”
Izzy shrugs, and before I can say anything else, Gracie is back in the kitchen, sniffing like a bloodhound.
“Oh Lordy, what burned?” She waves her hand back and forth in front of her face and grimaces as she heads toward the stovetop.
She mumbles something under her breath as she removes the pan from the fire.
“You go on back to the front, Izzy.” She places a plastic bag down on the countertop. “I’ll fix this.”
“So sorry, Gracie,” Izzy apologizes as she leaves the kitchen quickly, and I wait until she’s gone to say something.
“You sure you don’t need some real help in here, Gracie? I can find a sous chef or—”
“I know we’re not making enough money for a sous chef, Dalton.” She frowns as she grabs another pan. “I shoulda just sent Jimmy to go to the market for me, but he sure has a bad time picking fresh and ripe produce.”
“I coulda gone.”
“You’re busy.” She looks up at me. “Plus, you have other things to concentrate on.”
“What do you mean?” I say a little too sharply.
Has she seen me scrolling on my phone or checking out Sage? I thought I’d been careful, but maybe I hadn’t been.
“With Toby’s mom and the new businesses,” she says matter-of-factly.
Of course, she meant those things.
“How’s that going, by the way?”
“Brett has a lead, and we’re going to meet up this evening for fifteen minutes or so. He thinks there’s a possibility that—”
The door swings open, and Sage is standing there with an anxious expression on her face.
“Hey, Dalton. I was wondering if I could have a quick word with you. There’s a customer who is being a little difficult.” Sage makes a face. “She’d like to speak to the manager, and Lucia said that she’s not really comfortable.”
“What’s going on?” I frown as I step toward her.
She’s got an impish smile on her face, and I can’t help but look at what she’s wearing. She looks gorgeous today, and this is the first time I’ve been able to have a one-on-one conversation with her without making it seem awkward.
“She ordered the beef stew, and … well, she’s upset that it’s beef.” She shrugs. “And we don’t really know what to do. She said she thought it was going to be tofu.”
“The name of the dish on the menu is beef stew, correct?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why she thought it was going to be tofu, but she says she wants to speak to the manager or the owner because it’s not acceptable.
And Lucia really doesn’t know what she should do because she thinks it’s ridiculous.
I also think it’s ridiculous, but obviously, I’m just a server, so I spoke to Jimmy the Fish, and he said that maybe you would want to talk to the diner. ”
“Okay, let me go out.”
I smile at Gracie, and she laughs.
“Good luck with that one, Dalton.”
“Thanks, Gracie. And think about the sous chef,” I say to her. “Don’t let money be the reason why we don’t hire one. I can figure it out.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Sage and I head out of the kitchen, and she looks up at me, surprised.
“Does Gracie want a sous chef? I’ve always wondered why she’s the only one in the kitchen. I just assumed that maybe she liked to do it herself.”
“She initially thought she would be able to handle it herself, but this is a large restaurant, and she needs help, and … yeah, we’ll have to figure it out.” I smile at her. “Don’t suppose you have any interest in learning how to be a chef or a cook?”
“Not really.” She wrinkles her nose. “I like cooking, but not that much. But I could ask Rosie if you want. She might be interested in helping.”
“Yeah, definitely let me know if that’s something she’s interested in. Maybe we could do some sort of training. Otherwise, I’ll look into hiring a professional. Gracie doesn’t want it, but I think that’s because she knows the restaurant’s not doing well and she doesn’t think we can afford it.”
“It’s doing that badly?” Sage asks with wide eyes.
I shrug. “You know how it is. With new restaurants, it’s very hard to make them profitable right away. We put a lot of money into the infrastructure and the decorations. But enough about that, I haven’t actually spoken to you since your date the other evening. How did that go?”
“It went fine, thank you.”
“He looked like he really …” I pause, and her eyes narrow.
“What were you going to say?”
“I was just going to say, he looked like he really took care of himself for being in his eighties.”
“He was not in his eighties.” She shakes her head. “He was in his fifties.”
“Yeah, and I’m seventeen.” I start laughing, and she groans.
“I know. I didn’t even believe he was in his fifties either, but I told him straight up that we weren’t going on another date. I really don’t like men who lie to me.”
“So, if he told you that he was that age—”
“I never would’ve gone on a date with him in the first place. So, yeah …”
“I guess that sucks then. Any other potentials?”
I wonder if she’s going to bring up Bradley to me.
I don’t know how I’d feel if she did. It’s not like I can tell her I’m Bradley.
It’s not like I can tell her that I created a fake profile with a picture that was me, but wasn’t quite me, and that we’ve been chatting back and forth.
Not now that I know just how much she hates lying.
I initially thought I’d set up the profile and then come clean immediately, but I already feel like it’s been too long.
“No, not really,” she says, and I’m slightly disappointed.
“Oh, well, that sucks. I’m sure you’ll meet someone to go on a date with soon.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I have no dates planned. In fact, I have a date this evening.”
“I see, that’s…” I bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from saying something that comes across as jealous.
“That’s what?” She furrows her brows and waits for me to continue.
“I’ve actually been meaning to ask you if you could babysit Toby for me for just a little bit. I have a meeting with Brett later, and it’s going to be a couple of hours, and I don’t really want to leave Toby alone, and Izzy and Lucia are working here, and I don’t really have anyone else.”
I’m not sure why I lied about the length of the meeting. Maybe I just needed a way to explain the chagrin on my face. I could hardly say I was upset that she had a date.
She looks down at her watch. “What time exactly is your meeting?”
“It’s at four o’clock. So, what time is your date?”
“It’s at six thirty,” she says. “If it’s only going to be a couple of hours, I guess I could watch Toby and then just leave for my date from your house, if you don’t mind me getting changed there and doing my makeup and stuff.”
“Oh, of course not, I would just be so grateful to you for looking after Toby that I wouldn’t mind whatsoever.”
“Okay”—she nods—“I can do it.”
“Great. You are a lifesaver, Sage.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do believe it takes a village to help raise a child.” She pauses. “Is Toby’s mom not in the picture at all?”
I so badly want to tell her the truth about Toby and his mom and everything, but once I go down that road, I’ll have to tell her everything, and I’m just not ready for her to know exactly who I am, exactly who I’ve been, and exactly what my life has meant.
I want her to get to know me without having any judgments in her mind, and I fear that once I tell her the truth, she’ll never look at me in a positive way.
“He—” I pause. “Look, I …”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t mean to be nosy, and if you’re not ready to say anything, it’s not my business. I’m happy to look after Toby.”
Before we head into the dining hall, I grab her hand. “It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to Toby as well. Thank you, Sage.”
“You’re welcome,” she says.
“And I just wanted to say that I hope your dating experience on the app is proving to be all that you hoped it would be.”
“It’s early days, so we’ll see.” She offers me a wry smile. “Maybe I’ll meet the man of my dreams, or maybe I won’t.”
“Just as long as he’s rich, huh?” I say the words jokingly, but I can hear a note of bitterness in my tone, which I don’t like. “I hope you meet the man of your dreams.” That’s not really true, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Or maybe I don’t really want to know.
“Thanks,” she says. “It’s the table over there.” She points toward the front of the restaurant, where Lucia is standing. “That’s the lady.”
“I’ll go and figure it out,” I say with a smile. “I’ll text you the information for this afternoon.”
“Sounds good,” she says.
When I head past the bar, Jimmy the Fish looks at me, his eyes narrowed, and then he looks back at Sage.