Chapter 7
Maverick
As I walk towards the bakery, I catch sight of Sydney through the window. She’s chatting with Mr. Raven with a big smile on her face. She throws her head back and laughs at something he said. I can’t help but stare at her. She’s so beautiful.
I push through the door and her gaze strays from the old man to me. Her smile widens even though I didn’t think that was possible.
“Hey, Mav. How are you?”
I love how she’s started calling me Mav. It feels more intimate since only my friends call me that.
“I'm good. I’m excited for today.”
“What’s going on today?” Mr. Raven watches me carefully. He’s the nicest old man in town. He’s always asking if you need help and willing to go the extra mile for his neighbors.
“Well, as of today, I’ll be selling Sydney’s Sweets at the bar. Sydney helped me pair the desserts with drinks. There will be a limited amount of them each day, but I'm hoping it can help both of our businesses.”
“That’s a great idea! You two have the best businesses in town. You always go the extra mile to bring in more customers and you actually care about them. I'm proud of you both.”
“Thanks, Mr. Raven.” Sydney smiles proudly.
“Thanks. How have you been? I haven’t been able to swing by recently. I’ll make sure to stop by this weekend if the weather stays safe.”
“Oh, I'm doing just fine. Colt’s been bothering me again about finding the person responsible for TP-ing my house.” He chuckles and shakes his head.
“I wonder if he’ll ever figure it out.” I grin. Half of the town knows who’s responsible, but it’s been driving Colt nuts for years.
“Sooner or later, I’ll have to let it slip.
I'm afraid that boy will have a stomach ulcer over this.” He rolls his eyes.
“Thank you, Sydney, for the wonderful sweets. You keep this old body running well.” He flashes her a grin before turning to me.
“Mav, I’ll have to stop in soon to see what all the fuss is over these dessert and alcohol pairings.
Have a good day, kids.” He waves as he walks out the door.
“I love that man.” Sydney chuckles. “He’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, he is. He was like a second grandpa to me when I was growing up. My parents used to send me to his house in the summer to help him in his woodshop. Mr. Raven loved the extra help and my parents liked knowing I wasn’t getting into trouble. He taught me so much.”
“That’s so sweet.” She places her hand over her heart.
We watch each other for a few moments, neither of us knowing what to say now, but I don’t mind the silence. I just like being with her.
“I have your box ready.” She squats down and rummages through a shelf under the counter before placing my box in front of me.
“Awesome… Do you think I could actually get another six of them?” I scrunch up my nose, feeling like an idiot.
“I should’ve thought of this last night.
I want to make sure my employees get to experience this too.
If they know how good the dessert pairs with the drinks, they’ll be able to talk them up to customers. ”
“Of course.” She slides the door open to the display case and tugs out the tray of lemon bars. She places half a dozen in the box before spinning around to wrap the box in red and white string to keep it closed.
“What do I owe you?”
“I think I’d rather charge you once a week if that works for you? That’s what I’ve been doing with the restaurants I’ve been working with. I feel like it’s easier.”
“That sounds great. Thank you for this, Syd… How much longer are you working today? Didn’t you say you had to come in at four o’clock this morning?”
“Yeah, I got here a little before four.” She winces. “It’s a long day, but I’ll be leaving any second.” She glances at the clock. It’s a little before noon.
“I can’t even imagine being finished with work for the day at noon.” I chuckle. “I don’t even start until four o’clock at night. We basically work opposite shifts. You’re probably waking up when I'm going to bed.”
“Yeah, we don’t have the best schedules.”
My heart falls as reality sets in. As much as I’d love to have a relationship with Sydney, we’d never get to see each other.
If we were married, we wouldn’t even get to sleep in the same bed at the same time.
I can’t even imagine that. She’d come home from work only a few hours before I’d be leaving for work and that’s the only time we’d get to see each other.
“Thank you for this. I’ll let you know how it goes.” I nod towards the box. I hurry out of the bakery before I can say anything else. I need to remember the reality of our situation before I make a move.
My head is in a weird spot since I realized a relationship between Sydney and me would be practically impossible.
I know she feels something towards me. Something I’d like to explore, but what’s the point?
The last thing we need is to fall in love with each other and break up because our schedules don’t line up well and we never get to see each other.
I work in the office, printing out the specials for the rest of the week. I have a little plastic stand on each table and on the bar that tells customers the specials for the night. I make sure to change them out every day and I don’t keep set specials for set nights. I like to surprise people.
I make these signs a little more flashy than normal. I want people to realize this is different from what I normally have. I want them to want this even more.
By the time I finish in the office and make my way out into the bar, one of my bartenders is walking through the door with two servers behind him.
“Hey, guys. We have a special going on tonight and we’ll be doing this daily from now on. I want you to try this.”
I head behind the bar and grab four glasses. I pour a small amount of champagne into each one. Pulling the box from Sydney’s out from under the bar, I place a lemon bar and glass in front of each one of them.
“Every night we’ll sell a limited number of pairings. Tonight, it’s champagne and lemon bars. Tomorrow, we’ll have a hot toddy with an apple fritter and the next night is a grasshopper with chocolate cake.”
I motion for them each to try the combination. I normally wouldn’t encourage my employees to drink while on the job, but I think it’s important for them to understand what we’re doing. Also, they deserve to try this and enjoy a little treat.
“This is amazing!” Mark, one of the servers, says.
“Yeah, I'm not a fan of champagne, but this is good together.” Brad, the bartender, nods his head.
“This is delicious. Are these from Sydney’s Sweets?” Doug, the other server, asks.
“Yeah, we’re working together. We met last night and have almost twenty combinations we want to try and see how they go. I'd love it if we could figure out thirty pairings so we could do something different every day of the month. It would be fun.”
“How many do we have available for tonight?” Mark asks.
“We have fourteen left. I told Sydney we’d start with a dozen a day, but then I wanted to let you guys try them so I got some extras. We can easily adjust those numbers, I just don’t want to overdo it in the beginning.”
“This will be amazing! We should take photos of the pairings to put on the specials sign. We could also keep a running tally of how many are left on the white board. This way people will feel pressured into ordering theirs faster. Also, it will help make sure we don’t tell someone we have a dessert available if we don’t,” Doug adds.
“Oh! We should call it out to Brad when we get an order. Say something like ‘We’ve got another special!’, that might make people realize how amazing these are and make them feel like they’re missing out if they don’t get one.
I know I feel that way whenever I go to a fast-food restaurant and the cashier calls out that they need another order of mozzarella sticks or chicken tenders. I immediately want them.”
“That’s a good idea.” Brad nods. “There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ll get something special and then finding out you can’t have it.”
“I love these ideas. You guys are the best.” I shake my head, but I can’t hide my grin. They’ll make sure this turns out even better than I ever imagined, I have no doubt about it.
I'm in my office working on our alcohol order for next week. Every few minutes I hear Doug, Mark, or Brad call out ‘We’ve got another special!’ and each time my smile widens. I can’t believe how well this is going.
Within the first hour of the bar being open, we’ve sold out. I contemplate sending Sydney a text, but I change my mind.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sydney, it’s Maverick.”
“Oh, hey! How are you?”
“Fantastic, thanks to you.”
“What’d I do?” I can hear the smile in her voice and I wish she were here so I could pull her into my arms and hug her.
“Well, you did so much work and put together these pairings. My employees went above and beyond tonight. They came up with even more ideas. We sold out of the desserts within the first hour of the bar being open.”
“Are you serious? That’s so awesome!” She’s so excited and I love knowing I did that.
“What do you think of increasing our order to thirty for tomorrow?”
“You want to do that already? What if tomorrow is slow?”
“Then I’ll get to eat thirty delicious desserts. This sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
“You will not!” She giggles. “Do you want me to send someone over with more lemon bars for tonight?”
“Nah, you don’t need to do that. I don’t want customers to think there’s an endless supply. Plus, I can’t expect you or your employees to make a trip over every time we run out.”
“Ok… I'm really happy this is going so well, Mav.”
“Me too. What’s on the menu for tomorrow?”
“Chocolate cake. I made the cakes today and I’ll ice them and decorate them in the morning.”
“You make the best chocolate cake. Maybe we need to up it to fifty slices,” I practically groan.
“Nope! You get thirty. I'm not letting you kill yourself on my desserts.”
“Wait… Is thirty too much if you already made the cake? If it is, we don’t need to do that much.”
“It’s fine. I was planning to serve them in the bakery. I made ten cakes. I keep them in the fridge until we need them so they stay longer.”
“I don’t know how you keep all of your orders straight. I’d forget something… Or a lot of things.”
“It’s just a habit at this point.” She giggles. “Plus, there are massive white boards in the kitchen. Every week I write our orders for the week in one color and we always make extras. In another color, I write what we plan to have available in the bakery.”
“How many boards do you have?”
“Seven. It’s intense, but it’s the system that works best for me. As we finish an order, I can erase it and make myself feel like I accomplished something. As the board gets more and more empty, I get happier and happier.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe I need to start doing that.” I rub the back of my neck.
There are murmured voices on the other side of the line and Sydney says something, but I can’t make out what it is.
“Hey, Mav, I need to go. We had a little issue with our science project and the world is falling to pieces.”
“Yeah, no problem. I should probably get back to work anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course. Night.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”