Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
HER SHIFT IS OVER
Beth
Barry stood in the doorway to the store cupboard, his expression flat and the bubbly persona he usually wore absent. At his shoulder loomed a man in a shiny suit. Two other staff, Gareth and Meg, the couple who’d recently been caught screwing, stared from the back.
Well, this was embarrassing.
Being a true gentleman, James rotated us so he stood half in front of me, and I huffed a laugh and slipped under his arm. “Hi, Barry. Hey.” I waved at the other guy. “We were just leaving.”
Neither smiled. I wasn’t certain of the penalty for sneaking off for a quickie in the cinema, but they’d laugh this off. Surely.
The man’s lips compressed, and he peered past me to James. “Do you have your ticket, sir?”
“For the cupboard?” I snorted a laugh.
“Your friend was in two showings today,” Barry replied, and in his eyes, I saw guilt and an apology. What…? Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. They were taking this seriously?
James extracted the ticket I’d collected for him when we’d arrived. My head had been full of worry for Belle, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that my suggestion of him waiting around for me while watching movies wouldn’t work.
Because the guest passes were for single showings only.
And the cinema had a one-and-done approach to handling screen-hoppers.
“What’s this about?” James scanned the two managers, his face stern.
“I forgot about the screen-hopping thing. My friend was just waiting me to come off shift. I’m sorry.” I flapped an arm.
“And what time is this staff member working until?” The man directed his question to Barry.
“Beth is booked to work through until we close.”
“I’ll pay for the showing.” I stared at Barry, pleading with my gaze.
“What? If the cost of the ticket is a problem, I’ll pay,” James insisted.
The man in the shiny suit returned his attention to Barry, his irritation apparent.
“Yet another example of poor people management, Mr Collins. I understand that you’ve only been working in this branch for a few months, but this is unacceptable.
Staff,” he paused and threw a dirty look at James, “and guests, up to no good in dark corners, as well as flagrantly disregarding ticketing rules. At HQ, we consider the latter as stealing from the company.”
Barry cringed, and I saw the axe fall. This new guy was a head office manager. No sense of humour. Not like when Barry and I had laughed off the same thing not so long ago.
The man turned back to me. “You leave me no option but to advise you that your contract will be terminated, Miss…?”
“Beth Grace,” Barry added helpfully.
I threw him a withering look, though inside I was dying. I couldn’t lose this job. My hours at The Corkscrew were shaky enough, and I needed the money.
“I apologise.” I forced a smile. “It was an oversight on my behalf—”
“I’ve made my position clear. There really is nothing else to be said,” the head office man interrupted. “We have these rules for good reasons.”
“This is ridiculous. The ticket issue is my fault—” James began at the same time Barry asked the man to reconsider.
I knew it was done. The man was making an example of me. A few steps away, Gareth appeared stricken and Meg terrified. But I wasn’t about to throw them under a bus.
“I need this job.” I stared Mr HQ directly in the eye, appealing to whatever last modicum of decency the man had. “I need the money.”
“Then you should have thought of that before breaking countless rules. Barry, see that Miss Grace clears her locker. Her shift is over.”
And with that, I lost half of my income in one afternoon.
James drove me to The Corkscrew, and I jiggled my legs the whole way. If I could pick up more hours there, I might just be able to ride this out. Kendra had confirmed I could return to work now my sickness had gone, but I’d still missed shifts, and I wasn’t exactly her favourite person.
Then again, she’d previously asked me to cover more shifts, so the need was there. Asking her face to face was the best option. I engaged my most confident expression and directed James to pull up at the side of the road, right outside the restaurant.
“Hey.” He took my hand before I popped the door open. “This will all be okay. It was my fault, and I’ll—”
“You’ll nothing.” I hushed his lips with a quick kiss. “If I choose to get down and dirty with my…whatever you are, in my workplace, that’s on me.”
His ears turned red, and I couldn’t fight my grin.
“Come on, James. All that dirty talk and you’re still blushing?”
He sat back in his seat, the smile on his face a mixture of bashful and downright filthy. So infectious I wanted to kiss him silly. Being with him made me high, a natural buzz that suspended the impact of me being fired, and all the problems it would bring.
I still needed the money. I still had to find replacement hours. But while this high lasted, it dampened my fear. Instead, I was filled with a happiness I’d never before known.
I entered The Corkscrew with a bounce in my step from knowing the most handsome guy in the world waited for me outside. A few tables were occupied, it now being after the lunch rush, and I waved at Steph, one of the other waiters. “Kendra here?”
“Uh, yeah. In her office.” Steph gestured at the back then darted off, her eyes down.
Huh, weird. Continuing through the tables, strewn with dishes that desperately needed clearing, I found my way to the staff-only corridor. At the manager’s office, the door swung open ahead of me, and the new barman emerged, laughing as he came.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, the tables aren’t going anywhere,” Kendra’s voice followed him. “Why don’t you take a break.”
“You’re too good to me.” The barman glanced over his shoulder and gave her a wink.
She giggled, like a real human, as the door closed, and I stared. What had he done to Kendra to make her happy? I shuddered to guess, but whatever, it was in my favour.
The man peered at me, flexing his narrow jaw. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to Kendra.”
“She won’t change it. It isn’t my fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
He blinked. “You haven’t seen the rota?”
Right! The weekly rota would’ve been published. I should be back on my usual shifts, and there was always the opportunity to swap a few. On the purple-painted wall behind me was a notice board, and I spun around to check the print out.
Oh no. I rubbed my eyes.
This wasn’t happening. Not again. Stan, that was the barman’s name, had my shifts. With increasing franticness, I scanned for my own name.
Fuck.
FUCK.
I had one three-hour shift tomorrow. That was all. This couldn’t be happening. My stomach roiling, I whipped back around and hammered on Kendra’s door. The barman had fled.
The door swung open, and the manager appeared. Her expression dropped to a flat regard. “Beth. You’re not due in today.”
My hands shook and I tried to compose myself. “My three days, you changed them.”
“I had to. You were becoming unreliable, and then you were absent.”
“I had one sick day, and then I was ready to come straight back. I waited it out like you said, but now I’m here. Nothing has changed. I need my hours.”
She folded her arms and fixed her gaze over my shoulder. “And I need someone I can trust. Maybe in a few weeks there will be more shifts available.”
“You can trust me. I won’t miss a shift again.”
“Good to know. See you tomorrow. You’re due in at twelve.”
The board behind me rattled as she slammed the door in my face.
I trudged out of the corridor and entered the back of the restaurant. Steph and the barman—now a waiter, having been promoted into my job—whispered in the corner, and a surge of frustration and unhappiness welled in me.
I hadn’t technically been fired, but in the world of zero-hour contracts, they had let me go, the three-hour shift being a crumb to stop me having any cause for complaint. Well, fuck them. I hated the smell of frying steak on my clothes every night anyway.
Holding my head high, I marched out, but in the street, with the warm spring breeze on my face, my demeanour dropped. My happy little buzz wavered.
A hand landed on my shoulder, stopping me. “Beth.”
I turned around, dislodging the person’s grip. It was the asshole barman.
“I didn’t ask her to do that. I just wanted you to know.” His hand came up, and he caressed my arm, lingering, despite my flinch. “Listen, if you’re upset about it, I can still take you for that drink.”
“Are you serious?” I glared.
“Everything okay?” James appeared at my shoulder.
I felt rather than saw the way he watched the barman. The guy dropped his arm, and I scrubbed over the spot he’d touched.
“No. Everything is not okay,” I replied but kept my eyes on Stan. “You took my shifts and now you want to take me for a consolation drink? Lucky me. Shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, jerk. I hope Kendra makes you work for those hours. You’d better get practising with your tongue.”
Then I grabbed James’s hand and marched over to the car. Inside, I settled into my seat and stared into the bright day outside.
“I’m unemployed,” I uttered, then recounted what had happened.
At the end of my tale, James’s jaw had hardened, and his knuckles paled where he held the steering wheel tight. “What can I do?”
“Not a thing. Apart from drive me away from here.”
James gave a frustrated exhale and pulled out into the traffic.
He started when I gave a sudden laugh. Because what the hell was going on?
My orderly, if kind of crappy, life had turned upside down.
I’d been fully employed a week ago, and happily single.
Now a prince of a man had travelled hundreds of miles to see me, and I’d lost both of my jobs.
I snickered again, slightly hysterical, right as James took the turn for my street.
“Guess I can go home with you after all.”
His mouth dropped open and he reversed into a narrow parking space against the pavement. “Are you serious?”
“I literally having nothing else to do.” I let the maniacal laughter bubbling in me subside before speaking again. “I want to. I want to forget the past hour ever happened. Take me to your beautiful home and help me block this all out while I work on what to do.”
James killed the engine and exited the car. He came around to my side and opened my door. I twisted around and let him collect me from the seat like a child. My limbs were suddenly heavy, and I drooped against him, my feet off the ground.
“We’ll work it out. I’ll help. I’m responsible for all of this.”
“Not,” I mumbled into his shirt. He really wasn’t. This was all on me.
“But there’s a small matter we need to handle first.” At my questioning look, he laid a soft kiss on my cheek. “My sister sent me a message asking if I could see her. Her college is on the way home. Do you mind if we go there first?”
“I get to meet Ella? I’d love to.”
James’s blue-green gaze warmed, the concern he carried for me soothing my damaged edges “I told you her name. I forget how much I said in that fever. How much you know about me.”
Too much, probably, but I only smiled and got my backside into the house to pack a bag. Because if I was going to James’s home, I needed my fanciest clothes.