Chapter 18
Jackson
Friday morning I was counting bottles with a stack of numbers already pissing me off when somebody started hammering on the front door.
The bar didn’t open for another hour, and I was already behind.
My dad stood outside with two bags from the diner.
Shit.
I unlocked the door.
“Brought you breakfast.” He held up the bags. “Egg sandwich. Extra bacon.”
Same sandwich he’d been buying me since I was sixteen and working construction for him. Back when he still thought I’d take over his contracting business instead of buying a bar he said would bankrupt me.
We sat at the bar. He unwrapped the sandwiches and pushed one over. Then he spotted the invoice in front of me and tipped his chin at it.
“Your profit margin on domestic bottles is down to twelve percent. Used to be fifteen.”
He looked at one invoice and already knew where my month was getting its ass kicked.
He took a bite of his sandwich. Chewed. Swallowed. Then he went calm on purpose, the way he did right before he started cutting.
“Monica called me again.”
I already knew where this was headed. “What did she say?”
“Until that appeal clears, you’re looking at an eighteen percent hike on a payment you’re already two weeks late on. Three hundred forty bucks a month you don’t have.”
“I’m handling the appeal.”
“Fire her. Today.”
Hearing him talk about Lauren like she was a bad line item lit up the mean part of me fast. I shoved it down and kept my eyes on the numbers before he could catch it.
Just like that. No question, no discussion. Fire her.
“Tommy started that fight,” I said. “She didn’t do anything.”
“Insurance sees her name on that report and stops seeing bad luck. They see a reason to charge you more and watch this place harder.” He wiped his hands on a napkin. “You’re barely keeping this place afloat, Jackson. You can’t afford to be sentimental.”
“I’m not being sentimental.”
“If you want to save her, do it out of your own pocket. Not out of the bar.”
I opened my mouth to say Lauren deserved a shot, that Kevin was counting on me, that she was busting her ass. What came up first was I care about her, and I swallowed it before it made me sound like an idiot.
What I couldn’t say in front of him was the truth.
I took a bite so I’d have something else in my mouth. Didn’t taste a damn thing.
“She’s working hard,” I said. “She had one bad night and now everybody wants her gone.”
“You talking about payroll, or her?”
“I’m talking about whether she can do the job.”
My dad stared at me.
“You remember what you told me three years ago? When you wanted to buy this place?”
I knew where he was headed.
“You said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna make the smart business decisions you never made.’ You stood right here and promised me that.” He pushed his wrapper aside. “So make one. Fire her.”
Straight for the throat with my own fucking words. He’d been holding that for three years.
The back door opened. Haley came in carrying napkins.
My dad stood and grabbed the paper bags.
“Think about it.” He nodded at Haley on his way out.
I stood there staring at the invoice after the door shut behind him. He was good at turning my own mess into proof he’d warned me first.
Haley set the napkins down in a neat stack and looked from me to the invoice.
“Need me to start training somebody else?”
My stomach dropped.
The answer came out too fast. “No.”
I kept looking at the invoice so she wouldn’t see how hard I was digging my heels in on Lauren.
Haley started lining up clean glasses without another word, smooth and steady. She’d been here three years and never had to fight for her place in it.