Chapter 17
Lauren
Monday lunch shift, week two of trying not to get fired.
My ankle had stopped fighting me every time I stood. The brace Kevin put on last week worked. I made it through full shifts without the pain cutting in.
I still messed things up. Nine shifts in, and I was still the one people watched a little harder.
I grabbed three plates from the kitchen and turned for table six. The top one started to slide. I caught it with my other hand before it hit the floor and brought the whole room to a stop.
Haley made a sound behind me. We both knew what it meant.
She brushed past me and checked table six before I got there. She did it without a word, which got the point across just fine.
I delivered the plates and headed back to the bar. Haley finished a check at the register. I waited until she was done.
“Can you walk me through splitting checks again?” I asked. “My brain will not hold the order.”
She leaned over and tapped through the screen without speaking. Her fingers knew exactly where to go. She’d done this for three years. I’d been here a week and a half.
“Got it. Thanks.”
She walked off.
The first week, she showed me everything with patience. This week, she fixed what I screwed up and moved on.
I needed this to work. Kevin and Jackson had stuck their necks out. I refused to make them regret it.
The lunch crowd thinned around one. I was wiping down a table when Kevin walked in with a deli bag.
“Hey.”
“Figured you’d be hungry.” He set the bag on the bar.
“You didn’t have to bring lunch.”
“I know.”
Jackson came out from the back. “You know you have patients and an actual job, right?”
“Lunch break.” Kevin pulled out a sandwich and handed it to me. “Turkey club. Extra pickles.”
I unwrapped the sandwich just to do something with my hands. He knew my order.
“Wait, you remembered that?”
“You mentioned it three separate times.”
I laughed. He had me there.
Haley carried dirty glasses through. She saw Kevin sitting there and her face went blank. Then she kept moving toward the sink.
Kevin noticed. “Everything good here, or do I need to worry?”
“Yeah, totally fine. Still learning.”
“Haley’s helping out?”
“She’s been really helpful.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, held them there for a second, then let it go.
I bit into the sandwich.
“You here till close?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll grab you after.”
“You really do not need to.”
“Your car still makes that dying animal sound, right?”
“Pretty sure the alternator is done.”
He knew too much for someone who wasn’t supposed to be paying attention. My order, my ankle, my hours, even my car. Haley was standing right there.
Jackson restocked beer and acted like he didn’t hear everything. He kept restocking, but the same six-pack stayed in his hand too long.
Kevin stayed maybe fifteen minutes. When he stood to leave, his hand landed on my shoulder. Warm and solid. His fingers pressed in right above my collarbone, steady like he meant it.
“You’re doing really good,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He squeezed once and let go.
I had to set the sandwich down before I dropped it.
A bottle knocked hard against the shelf in the back.
Jackson swore under his breath, set the case down, and grabbed another one too fast.
After Kevin left, I looked over at the beer fridge where Haley was restocking. She’d watched the entire exchange. She turned away the second I looked at her.
I walked over.
“Hey, thanks for being patient with me,” I said. “I know I keep messing stuff up.”
Haley grabbed another six-pack and shoved it onto the shelf. She didn’t look at me. “Jackson doesn’t keep people on the floor out of pity.”
Three years behind this bar, and she didn’t need to say anything else. I had nine shifts and a brace under my jeans.
Maybe I’d taken somebody else’s place without looking hard enough to see whose it was.
She moved to the far end of the fridge.
Jackson stood behind the bar and watched both of us.
Haley kept stocking beer onto the shelf. I might not have known the rules yet, but I knew damn well I’d already stepped on one.
***
I came upstairs expecting Kevin to ask about my shift, maybe what I wanted on the pizza.
Instead, they were both at the kitchen table with nothing in front of them, just looking at me. I slowed before I reached the counter.
“What’s wrong?”
Jackson looked at Kevin. Kevin kept his eyes on the papers in front of him.
“Just tell me,” I said.
“Background check came back,” Jackson said. “They found the police report.”
Police report. DUI. The cold hit so fast my hand slipped on the chair.
“From the bar fight?”
“And the DUI.”
Fuck.
“Okay, but Tommy started that whole mess. I didn’t do anything.”
“I know that. Insurance company doesn’t care.”
I sat down fast so my legs wouldn’t give out. “So what does that mean?”
“Insurance flagged the report. Premium goes up unless we appeal,” Jackson said. “My dad has to sign off.”
Kevin leaned forward. “The letter needs the medical piece clear. You were treated after the fight. You were not the one who started it. I can co-sign it. That helps.”
Jackson kept looking between me, the phone, and the table.
“And my dad’s looking at cost,” he said. “Premium goes up, he sees you as a problem I brought through the door.”
“Bill has to approve me staying employed. The guy who already thinks I’m a disaster.”
They already knew about the report, the premium, the appeal, all of it. They’d already run the numbers before I sat down.
“We can explain the circumstances,” Kevin said. “I’ll talk to him. Make sure he understands Tommy was the one who—”
“It needs to cover the medical side,” Jackson said. “Show she was the victim, not the aggressor.”
“I’m literally sitting right here,” I said.
They both stopped talking.
“And I wasn’t that drunk. I was just a little buzzed.”
They both looked at me.
“Okay, that sounds really bad.”
Kevin’s voice was gentle. “It doesn’t matter how it sounds to us. It matters what’s on paper.”
Jackson’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and stopped moving.
“It’s him.”
He answered and hit speaker.
“Jackson.” Bill’s voice came through rough and pissed off. “Talked to Monica at the insurance company today.”
“Yeah. She called me too.”
“So you know your new hire’s got a record.”
A record. A DUI and a fight report, and now I sounded like the kind of problem you never stopped paying for.
“It’s a police report,” Jackson said. “Not a record.”
“Insurance company doesn’t give a shit about the difference.” Bill sounded bored, already sure he was right. “You hired a girl with a DUI, now your premium’s going up. I told you she was trouble.”
Kevin tensed beside me.
“She got caught in the middle of a fight she didn’t start,” Jackson said. “And she works for me. I’m not throwing her out because you want the easy version.”
“I don’t care who swung first. She costs money. That’s what matters. I care that you’re costing me money because you’re thinking with your dick instead of your brain.”
“She stays,” Kevin said. “We handle the paperwork. Then you can argue numbers.”
Kevin took his hand off the papers. Jackson pressed his mouth flat. I stared at the table. I couldn’t look at either of them.
He turned me into a cost in one sentence.
I tried to laugh. “I mean, at least he’s honest?”
Nobody else laughed. Kevin didn’t look at Jackson. Jackson didn’t look at me. Neither of them rushed in to save me from it.
“You want to keep this girl,” Bill said, “you write up your appeal and send it to me. But I’m telling you right now, she’s costing you more than she’s worth. Should’ve cut her loose the second Monica called.”
“I’ll have the appeal to you by Friday.”
“We’ll see.”
Bill hung up.
Kevin lined the papers up edge to edge with both thumbs.
“He’s not wrong,” I said.
“Yes, he is.”
“I mean, what, I’m hot enough to jack up your insurance now?” The second I heard it out loud, I knew I’d fucked up. “Maybe your dad’s got me clocked. Maybe I’m only worth it when I’m entertaining.”
“Lauren—”
“I mean, technically, I am causing problems. Police report, insurance going up. Haley already treats me like I’m the problem shift. One more mess and she gets to say it out loud.”
“You didn’t ask for any of this,” Kevin said.
“Doesn’t really matter, does it? It still happened. It’s still me.” I looked at Jackson. “Your dad has to sign off on this, and he already decided I’m not worth the hassle. So basically, you’re asking him to go against what he thinks is best for the bar. For someone you’ve known two weeks.”
Jackson didn’t answer.
“And you.” I turned to Kevin. “You’re offering to put your name on this thing. If I screw up again, you look bad.”
“Lauren, don’t—”
“Fine for a minute, then suddenly I’m expensive, and everybody starts counting what I cost.”
Neither of them said shit.
“I moved out of my ex’s apartment while he was at the gym. I drove drunk into a town I didn’t know and got into a fight my first night here. Tell me you’d hire that girl.”
“Maybe I should just quit. Save everyone the trouble.”
I said quit, and they shut it down so fast it stopped being mine.
“No.” Kevin said it before I even finished. “We are not having that conversation.”
Jackson shook his head. “No. Not happening.”
“What?”
“Stop,” Kevin said. “You are not making this easier by offering to disappear.”
“You’re staying,” Jackson said. “We’re done with that part. You don’t get to take the hit for this and call it helping.”
I just stared at them. They were both still looking at me like I’d said something stupid.
“You’re risking actual things for me,” I said. “Insurance money. Your relationship with your dad. What people in this town think about you. All of that. For me.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said.
“But why?”
“Because you do not get written off over this,” Kevin said.
“I’ve had chances. I keep blowing them.”
“Then this is the one that sticks.” Jackson stood up. “Week three is probation. You show up early, keep it clean, and do not give Haley anything to use. Give my dad one clean week and I can work with that.”
“And if I mess up again?”
“You won’t,” Kevin said.
I looked at both of them. Kevin looked calm in that annoying way where you knew he’d already made up his mind. Jackson looked tired and dead set.
They’d shut down every version of me trying to make this easier by leaving.
“Okay.” My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. “I’m not quitting. I’ll figure this out.”
“You will,” Kevin said.
Jackson grabbed his keys. When he stopped beside my chair, his fingers brushed the back of it, one inch from my shoulder, and kept going.
“I’m heading out. Gonna talk to my dad again tomorrow.”
He looked at me once before he turned for the door. I took that look downstairs with me anyway.
After he left, I went downstairs. I sat on the bed and opened my laptop.
I’d written apology letters before, to my landlord when rent was three months late, to my last boss after the fifth time I showed up late, and to my ex’s best friend after everything got messy.
None of them had worked. This one had to.
I was good at writing the version that made everybody else feel better. I’d basically built my life on that.
Two men just stood there and told me no, you stay, and I was down here trying to make myself easier to keep.
I stared at the blank screen.
To Whom It May Concern.
Bill had called me a cost. Kevin and Jackson had both answered him right there.
Tell it straight and I get fired. Clean it up and I have to live with myself.