Chapter 6
After that, it was back to the shop and one of our newest additions: Olive Wilburn.
She was a sweet, grandmotherly lady I thought was in her late fifties, who Davin and I had been forced to hire when it turned out we were going to be out of the office most of the time, doing installations and meeting with clients.
She answered the phone, took notes, did paperwork, filed everything, inventoried stuff, made orders, and also, knitted a fair amount.
In the month she’d been with us, I was pretty sure she’d made no less than two baby blankets, which I thought was pretty darn impressive.
It was either two or more than two, since there had been neon yellow yarn earlier, and now there was some kind of basketweave thing she was making in three different shades of ecru and sage.
She could be making multiples of the same things, but that still meant two or more.
That was probably also why I called her grandmotherly, since she’d said both were for new or soon-to-be grandchildren.
It would surprise no one that just like Davin, Mother had found her and sent her to us.
On the other hand, the money we’d just gotten from Mei was probably going to cover Olive’s paycheck as well as other expenses for a good long while, so there was that.
It was the problem with doing actual work. The more clients we got, the more expenses there were, like paying someone to answer the phone. This was why I had always been so hesitant to start a real business.
Okay, no, I’d had no idea there would be Olive, who brought chocolate chip cookies and knitted blankets that looked so soft I was jealous of her unborn grandkids for getting to keep them.
She also thought Amelia was the finest thing that had happened in the history of the world, and the two of them spent hours chatting about tea, which was super weird, but also great. I loved tea, but I didn’t know how much there was to talk about.
So when we got back to the office, toting multiple bags of heavy tools and one bored hungry kitten, I asked Olive, who was in the process of closing up shop for the day, “You coming over to Teas(e) with us for dinner?”
She gave me that warm smile of hers that always made me think she was about to reach over and pinch my cheek, but shook her head.
“My daughter-in-law went into labor just after lunch, so I’m off to sit with her in the hospital.
I . . . I might be late tomorrow, if things go long. This is her first.”
Long, like . . . was she saying the woman had started having a baby already, and might still be in the process of having a baby tomorrow? That sounded like a nightmare.
“Not to worry,” Davin promised. “We’ll put a note up if we have to leave for some reason, but family is always more important than work.”
She beamed at him and did in fact reach over to pat his cheek. “That’s why this is the perfect job. You both know what matters in life.”
That was kinda nice. I liked to think I did know what mattered in life, but that was also the reason it had taken me forever to start the business. Having sensible priorities and having a successful business didn’t always go together, in my experience.
So we helped Olive clean up and then locked up as we left for the day, and Davin walked Olive to her car while I accepted the delivery of a rib roast for Twist from my mother.
She was never going to stop spoiling my kitten, and given how much meat cost these days, I wasn’t going to complain about the lack of that expense.
Then, we all walked over to Arthur and Amelia Agincourt’s tea shop, Teas(e), together. Like a family, in a weird sort of way.
The feeling was expanded when Grady joined us at the door, and Amelia beamed and waved at us as we entered then motioned to the biggest table, set waiting for us all. “Arthur is just finishing up, so he should be out shortly.”
Then she turned and continued setting plates in front of a few customers. The shop was open for another half hour or so, but they usually quieted this late in the day, and the employees they’d hired took over when we all sat down together.
Because yeah, Teas(e) was doing well enough that Arthur and Amelia had been forced to hire no less than four employees to cover the front while they worked in the kitchen to produce the foods that were making the shop an instant hit in town.
They had actually been mentioned in the Avalon Advocate early on, a glowing review, and people had been pouring in since the week the shop had opened.
The percentage they paid me was nothing like the amount I might have gotten from some enormously expensive luxury shop, but I couldn’t have cared any less if I had tried.
I got to feel good about the shop next door, and Amelia and Arthur got the ability they deserved to start their place with the best chance to succeed. Plus there was the food they were constantly shoving at me. Everyone I cared about won, even me.
Arthur poked his head out of the kitchen a moment later, beaming at us—okay, mostly at Grady, whom I was pretty sure he was dating because of their expressions every time they were within twenty yards of each other.
It made sense. They were both big into physical activities, both ridiculously attractive, and frankly, Grady chilled Arthur out a little, which he dearly needed.
“Dinner in a moment!” he called, before letting the kitchen door drop closed once more.
I took the opportunity to set up the end of the table for Twist, settling her onto the cloth-covered surface and opening up the package with her dinner in it.
Even though she wasn’t technically a familiar, she could easily pass as one, and they were allowed in restaurants as though they were patrons.
Come to think of it, I wondered how that worked for people with allergies. Hmm. Something to look into, maybe.
Either way, no one at the tea shop was going to begrudge Twist her dinner, even if we still didn’t entirely understand the pocket dimension she kept it all in.
Amelia only insisted she ate off a plate, and that suited my kitten just fine.
She was a lady, after all, and always ate as daintily as a kitten possibly could.
It was a weird dichotomy with the fact that a two-pound kitten was eating a ten-pound roast.
Grady went over to greet Suzy, who had a tree in the corner of the shop where she spent most of her time these days. I suspected the love of her had initially drawn him and Arthur together, since they had both, at different times, been registered as her mage.
And I’d been right, of course. No one had so much as blinked when Arthur had gone to register her. Not even when he used the same name as the only other sloth on record as a familiar in all California. The government just wanted their cut; they didn’t care about the particulars.
I was just finishing setting Twist’s enormous slab of meat on the serving platter Amelia left out for her when Arthur came out with a matching serving plate, covered with a similarly sized slab of beef. His, however, was surrounded by carrots and potatoes, and looked like heaven.
Yeah, yeah, I was the same kind of obligate carnivore as Twist. But I’d grown up eating and loving human food. I loved a damn potato, and I didn’t mean Davin.
Although . . .
Nope, thought for another time.
Davin jumped to helping Arthur bring out the food, and soon the table was covered with fresh dinner rolls and those weird smashed peas British people liked, and roast, and Yorkshire pudding, which seemed like overkill to go with the bread, but I also wasn’t going to turn down extra bread.
I wasn’t a heathen.
Bread was life.
Amelia turned the reins over to their employees then, and came to lean against the chair where Arthur had seated himself. “I’ll come sit down when we close, but you all go ahead and eat now. I’m just going to get a head start on cleaning up.”
She said that half the time we had dinners like this, because she didn’t like to actually leave the work of the tea shop to anyone else. Also, their employees had joined us for dinner more than once, just because . . . well, because that was how family was supposed to work, and this family did.
The table was plenty big for everyone who was hungry, and as long as no one touched Twist’s food, no one had to die.
It was about three minutes till six—which was the hour the shop closed—when the front door behind me opened with the tinkle of a bell.
I could almost feel the shop employees slump, clearly assuming they were about to have to stop their cleaning and start prepping food again.
Heck, Amelia had already gone into the kitchen to take care of the hand-washed dishes.
But the change in Arthur’s demeanor was the one that sent the hairs on the back of my neck straight up.
Well, that and the fact that the fur on Twist’s back was sticking up as well.
She looked like one of those Halloween decoration cats, arched up in an upside-down almost U shape and her eyes narrowed, like she was about to turn into her much larger form and jump on some unsuspecting jerk who just hadn’t checked the time and still wanted his tea and cakes.
Twist wasn’t usually the friendliest to strangers, but she’d never had that reaction to one of them before.
Arthur . . . actually looked a little like Twist, but in an Arthur-ish way. He’d frozen in place, the same smile on his lips, but now devoid of anything resembling emotion. His jaw was clenched so hard that I was shocked when he managed to speak. “Mr. Fearson. How unexpected.”
First of all, I knew very well that “how unexpected” was British—and Southern—for “what are you doing here, because we sure as hell didn’t invite you.”
But Fearson . . . Where did I know that name from?