Chapter 16
Jackson
Wednesday afternoon, the bar stayed empty.
I cut limes and restocked beer for the evening shift while Haley put away clean glasses at the other end.
Lauren still slipped up now and then, but not as much. She was faster this week, and she’d already figured out which regulars wanted chatter and which ones wanted their drink and to be left alone.
My phone rang.
I wiped the lime juice off my hands. Local number I didn’t recognize.
“Jackson Taylor.”
“Hi, Mr. Taylor, this is Monica from Fairview Insurance.” Bright voice, friendly. “I’m calling about the background check for your new hire.”
Shit.
She kept going in that bright office voice. Fight. DUI. My bar. By the time she finished, I already knew where this was headed.
“She didn’t start the fight. Some asshole bothered her, and another guy stepped in. She got caught in it.”
The woman kept her pleasant tone. “The report lists her as involved. The DUI creates liability for us.”
I cut into the next lime. The knife hit the board.
Haley stopped what she was doing. She didn’t turn, but she listened.
I asked what kind of liability.
She said it usually meant a premium increase. They had an appeal process. Lauren could write a letter explaining the circumstances. If the underwriters accepted it, the rate stayed the same.
I almost had it.
Then she said my father’s name.
Since my father owned the building, he would need to co-sign the appeal. Bill Taylor. He’d called them that morning about the new hire.
The knife went straight through the lime and into the wood. The board split. Juice sprayed up my arm.
My dad already knew.
He called them.
He’d already made the call, before me, before Lauren even got a shot.
He owned the building, signed the insurance, and still thought that gave him a vote on who got to stay in my bar.
Haley moved closer. Ten feet away now, wiping down a table that was already clean.
She’d heard enough to know I wasn’t neutral.
I asked what happened if we skipped the appeal.
Eighteen percent increase on the annual premium. The one I already struggled to pay.
Eighteen percent was keg money, payroll money, lights-on money.
Lauren worked hard. She tried harder than most people I hired.
Fire her and she lost the job, Kevin’s basement, and the first solid week she’d had in a while.
This wasn’t just about payroll or insurance. It was about whether I let my father decide who got to keep a job in my bar.
I could see her anyway. Black tee, hair up, moving on that ankle and acting fine. I could already picture her back here every night, and that was the problem.
My dad knew before I did, already made up his mind, and still had to sign off on the only other way this went.
I didn’t reach for another lime. I just stood there with juice on my arm and the knife buried in the board.
Kevin would be pissed. I’d be an asshole. None of that changed it.
Hold the line and I chose Lauren. Back down and I chose my father.
“Everything good?” Haley asked.
I looked up. She was standing there.
“Yeah. Fine.”
She gave me that flat stare that called bullshit without saying it, but she went back to her tables.
Kevin first. He deserved it from me, not from Bill. Then my father.
I set the knife down and washed the lime juice off my hands.
Kevin was going to ask why I didn’t just let her go, and I was going to have to stand there and answer that question without saying what was actually true.
Lauren had gotten under my skin. Kevin had never left.
And I couldn’t tell if that was a problem I was solving or one I was making worse.