Chapter 13
Skipping Scones
Tessa
After locking up the bike, I slipped in through the back door, hoping Skip wouldn't notice that I'd been gone forty minutes instead of thirty.
No such luck.
He was right there in the back room, standing in front of the pastry rack with a pair of tongs in one hand and his cellphone in the other. He looked frazzled and frantic, like the pastries were ticking.
When he spotted me, he brandished the metal tong like an accusation. "Where have you been?"
Before I could even think to reply, a male voice from out front – obviously a customer – called out, "Hey! Is this self-serve or what?"
Skip turned and hollered through the closed door. "I said I'd be right back!"
"Yeah? Well that was an hour ago! What are ya? Baking the scones now?"
It couldn't have been a full hour. I knew this, because for one thing, I'd been gone for only two-thirds of that time.
Skip turned angry eyes on me. "See what you did?"
"Me?" I sputtered. "I had nothing to do with this."
Skip straightened. "Exactly!"
I did a double-take. "Wait, what?"
"If you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened. What am I paying you for, anyway?"
Oh, please. "You're not paying me. Remember?"
"Yeah, and you're earning every penny," he said grudgingly as he flung the tongs onto the prep table and sighed like a martyr. "I guess that's what I get for giving you a chance."
I bit back a sharp reply. He was a tool, but not completely wrong.
Two weeks ago, I had practically begged him for this job. I'd had no experience, no resume, and no desire for any kind of background check, especially one that would set tongues wagging back in Chicago. But I had wanted to work here. And why?
The biggest reason? My sister was a total caffeine addict. If Delaney ever showed up on the island, she'd be hitting the first coffee shop off the ferry.
This coffee shop.
Skip had been mere days away from opening for the season when I'd spotted the "help wanted" sign taped to the front window. That big handwritten poster had sparked my glorious plan to go undercover as a barista.
Like a total idiot, I'd thought, "Hey, how hard could it be?"
As for Skip, he'd been seeking "a real pro" who was willing to work for minimum wage.
I was no pro. But I was cheap, available, and desperate for grocery money.
Smart, right?
Since then, Skip had made noises about hiring somebody else to help carry the load, but so far, this hadn't happened, leaving me to handle the bulk of it alone.
I mean, it's not like he did anything useful.
As if to prove the point, he turned and stalked toward his recliner. With a groan, he plopped onto it and said, "You wanna grab that guy's scones?" And with that, he began scrolling through his cellphone.
I stared in disbelief. "Why me? He's your customer."
Skip didn't even look up. "Not anymore."
"But he's already angry."
"So give him the scones," Skip said, like this should be obvious. "That'll calm him down."
In that moment, I was sorely tempted to tell him exactly where he could shove those scones and his cellphone, too. But that wouldn't accomplish anything, so I asked, "What kind of scones?" We had chocolate chip, blueberry, and lemon poppyseed – none of which we baked here.
Skip was still scrolling. "He didn't say."
"Seriously? Did you even ask?"
His half-hearted shrug told me everything I needed to know.
But I refused to let it drop. "And why didn't you grab some from the case out front? It's right there near the register."
He was still lost in his phone. "I dunno…why didn't you?"
"Me? What do you mean?"
"Before your break," he said. "You got pastries from back here. Why shouldn't I?"
Damn it. And now, I didn't know what to say. I had dashed into the back room to flee Ryder Vaughn – for all the good it did.
Every time I turned around, there he was – in the shop, on the road, and where next?
I shuddered to think. The man was everywhere.
Of course, the main problem was myself. For someone trying to lay low, I was making myself way too visible – first messing with his pastries and then nearly flattening him with my bike.
Correction – Maisie's bike, the one I'd swiped by mistake.
What if I had damaged it?
I would definitely need to do better.
But right now, a man was yelling for scones. With a silent curse, I turned and hustled toward the swinging door.
The moment I pushed through, I wanted to turn right back around. The angry customer – a hefty fifty-something man in a bright blue shirt – was looming over the counter, red-faced and scowling, with his arms folded like a bouncer at a bake sale.
Still, I rushed forward, trying to look on the bright side. At least the woman next to him was smiling. She was rounded and sun-kissed, with curly red hair, laugh lines around her eyes, and a souvenir tote bag slung over one shoulder.
Happily, there were no other customers waiting. Then again, all of that yelling might've cleared the place out.
The man glared past me toward the back room. "Where's the other guy? The one with the phone. He said he'd be right back, and that was a million years ago."
I plastered on my best customer-service smile. "Sorry. He's, uh…currently indisposed."
"Indisposed?" he snorted. "What's that supposed to mean? He fell in the oven?"
I wish. But I didn't say it, because there was no need to encourage the guy. "He's just, um…" I hesitated, searching for a nicer word than useless. Finally, I settled on, "…busy."
"Busy, my ass," the guy said. "He's probably surfing girlie stuff in the back."
The woman next to him gasped. "Bob!"
He turned to look at her. "What? It's not like I called it porn."
"Yeah, but it was implied."
"Not 'til you said it out loud." He jabbed a finger toward the back room. "And you saw the guy. He never put down his phone. What do you think he's lookin' at?"
The woman hesitated. "Well…"
"Exactly! He's probably got one hand on his phone and the other on his—"
"Don't you dare say it." But then, her mouth twitched like she was holding back a smile.
And now, the guy looked ready to smile, too. "Relax. I wasn't gonna."
"Yes, you were." She gave him a playful swat to the arm. "And you're just mad you lost the bet."
"Not yet, I haven't." He turned toward the counter and bellowed past me, "Hey, buddy! Why don't you put down the phone and come out here!"
"Bob!" the woman said with another swat. "That's cheating!"
I looked from her to him and back again. "Cheating?"
"Yeah," the woman said. "When the guy ran off, I said he wouldn't be back. But Bob said he would."
"Yeah," Bob grumbled. "And loser buys the coffee."
"It doesn't matter who buys it," she told him with a laugh. "It all comes out of the same pot."
"It matters to me," Bob said. "You won the last three in a row."
"Four if you count that thing with your bag. I told you they'd deliver it."
"Don't remind me," the guy grumbled before turning to me with a grimace. "Do you know, some guy tried to steal my duffel?"
The woman laughed. "No, he didn't. Your duffel was in the room, just like I said it would be."
"Yeah, but I didn't know that, did I?"
Her voice turned triumphant. "You would've, if you'd listened to me from the start."
In the middle of their debate, I somehow managed to learn that they wanted two blueberry scones plus a couple of caramel lattes.
Probably, it was the lattes that sent Skip running.
And he never did emerge from the back.
I swear, it's like he wanted the business to fail.
If so, he was off to a spectacular start.
And me? I was caught somewhere in the middle – too afraid to look for another job and too desperate to quit.
Yeah, things were definitely getting complicated.