Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
WELLS
Now
“This is a bloodbath.”
Nash flipped through diner receipts with a worried look as Wells tossed another spoiled bag of vegetables into the diner’s trash.
Nash was one of Wells’s oldest friends, and the smartest numbers guy Wells had ever met. He was also one of the few people who knew Wells owned the diner, and loved Pop enough to make sure Wells’s financing went through.
“That your professional opinion?”
Nash wiped his eyes, looking tired. “Yes.”
Wells had been taking stock of the diner since 5 a.m., figuring out how badly the last team had screwed up.
He’d started down the long road to figuring out how to fix this mess.
He’d given notice at the law firm, and Ben had been happy to take on transferred clients.
He was officially off duty as a divorce lawyer for the first time in fifteen years and was throwing everything he had at figuring out how the fuck to run a small-town diner, which seemed to be beyond his abilities.
He’d been the head of his law review, had bartended through law school, and had worked hundred-hour weeks to make partner before 35 at one of the most prestigious firms in Philly.
And ordering the proper ratio of hamburgers to buns seemed beyond his abilities.
“Jesus Christ on the Ohio, is this a pack of cigarettes?” Wells said as he tossed more of the freezer’s contents. “This is a disaster.”
“I'm just saying, why don’t they send the same number of buns and burgers if you’re ordering from the same place?” Nash scratched his head, flipping through the order history.
“Age-old conspiracy.” Wells hefted a forty-pound bag of ruined potatoes into the garbage.
“Do they think people are going to drop the buns on the floor? Play hockey with them?”
Wells’s stomach grumbled, and he grabbed a pack of bacon that was nearly not expired. “You hungry?”
“Got any vegan eggs?”
Wells tossed the bacon in the garbage. “Right. Forgot you turned your back on bacon for the wife,” Wells said, loving giving him shit for falling so hard.
Nash shook his head and smiled. “There are a lot of great benefits. Environmental, moral, endurance…” Nash raised his eyebrow with meaning.
“Well, shit.” Wells laughed as he stretched his back. “Maybe I should toss all the bacon.”
Not that he’d had much sex lately.
Wells stared into the disaster that was his upright freezer, but all he saw was Allison’s quirked eyebrow and an adorable toddler loudly calling him a whore.
He chuckled to himself, despite hating the fact that he kept thinking about her.
It’s because she irritates me. Butting in where nobody had asked her to. Like when she’d brought donuts for everybody and she’d preened when they’d thanked her for it. Like she’d earned a gold fucking star that made her better than everyone else.
Better than him.
His mother wouldn’t stop talking about how thoughtful Allison had been at the hospital.
He could rationalize that she was beautiful, objectively gorgeous even, when her brows weren’t pinched together problem solving for people.
But she’d had that delighted smile being silly with Frank, looking happy as a clam.
Like she’d won the lottery where the prize was changing the diaper of a kid she was babysitting.
She looked fucking sparkly when she did what she wanted, rather than having that expectant, smug look when she was waiting to be praised for doing something no one had asked for.
Why doesn’t she sparkle more?
Nash’s whistle caught his attention. “You hear me?”
“Sorry,” he said, shutting the freezer, having left it no better than he’d found it. “Hit me.”
“You are losing money hand over fist. The old heater is costing you a fortune, and you’re not selling enough before the food goes bad. It’s not dire,” Nash said, scratching his jaw as he flipped through the papers, “but you gotta turn it around in two months, or you gotta sell the building.”
Wells nodded. “Well…fuck.”
Nash pushed back from the counter. “I gotta go, but”—he clapped Wells on the shoulder, a serious look on his face—“get your shit figured out, man.”
Wells enveloped him in a tight hug and slapped him on the back, then playfully on his face. “Call me if you ever regain your senses and want some steak.”
Nash laughed, dodging the second face tap. “Not a chance. The benefits of a happy wife”—Nash pulled on his coat, giving Wells a pointed look—“are way too good.”
“Gross. Lily’s practically family,” Wells said, shuddering.
He waved to Nash as he slid out the back door.
It was 7:30 on a Wednesday morning, and the diner should have been buzzing. Jessica, the lone waitress, sat in the front reading a book.
There might as well have been fucking tumbleweeds blowing around the tables.
What am I gonna do?
He’d grown up here, running around with Nash and the Parker sisters. All their parents had been friends when they were kids.
He’d learned everything here at the grill with Pop, first starting as a dishwasher, then line cook, until he eventually ran the kitchen during summer breaks in college.
He loved the urgency of it, the satisfaction, the multitasking during a lunch rush. And for some reason, even though they were just his neighbors, it felt like it was life or death to get them food on time, cooked exactly the way they wanted.
He’d have to work eighteen hours a day to sort it all out from now until he could find a staff, train them properly, and then, eventually…what?
Go back to Philly?
The idea turned his stomach sour.
No, he wanted to stay. He’d hold off on his plans to find a surrogate, given that his life was taking a hard left turn. He’d need his nest egg if things got worse with the diner.
But… He thought of Pop gingerly walking to his childhood home last night from the hospital, bruised but okay. It’s worth it.
As long as his mom and Pop were here, he’d stay. He’d make things right and make sure they were taken care of.
“Hey, got a minute?” Jessica peeked around the corner.
“Yep. Doing okay with the rush out there?”
She didn’t even have the heart for a courtesy laugh as he went back to organizing the freezer.
Jessica grimaced at the empty diner. “So…I need to quit.”
Shit. He should have known this was coming.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’d been here through everything. She hadn’t asked for much and had helped keep an eye on things while he wasn’t here.
“Look, I’m gonna stay and figure things out.
I need you to stay for one more month. Please.
I’ll cook. I’ll say it’s under new management again, sort of.
” He still hadn’t told Pop he’d fucked everything up.
He needed to fix it first, and then he’d come clean.
“Just don’t tell anybody that I’m the cook back here. ”
“Uh.” She quirked her eyebrow, looking him up and down. “You’re hard to hide, Wells. Won’t people see you running around?”
“I’ll put in one of those swinging doors.” No one would be able to see in.
She grimaced. “I don’t know. People have been burned a couple times now with ‘new management.’”
“I know.” He scratched his head, at a loss for what to do. He could hire another waitress, but Jessica knew this place as well as he did.
“I think they miss the way it was, you know?”
Wells spied a pile of apples in the fridge. Pop had always kept them on hand for his famous apple-pie pancakes.
How do I make people see I’m turning it around for good?
“Hey.” He slapped his hands, an idea forming in his head. “I know what we can do. Start a huge pot of coffee—”
She grimaced. “The last dishwasher cooked beef ramen in it.”
Fuuuucking hell. Wells took a big breath so he didn’t scream and pulled out his wallet.
He handed her a twenty. “Fine, go get extra large lattes from Fox and Forrest, and then you and I are making ‘’sorry we fucked up’ pancakes for all the local businesses.
Tell them the new management is here and to come back for the grand reopening in a week. ”
“How about three days?” Her look said “I might not be here in a week.”
He nodded. “Three days.”
She snatched the bill and grabbed her coat. “On it, boss.”
Wells felt the hum of urgency that he’d missed in his veins. The urgency that only came when you had food about to go bad, people waiting on you for something wonderful, and the hope that you could pull it off.
As he lost himself in chopping apple slices and preparing the caramel glaze, he only thought about Allison’s sparkly, beaming face three times.