Chapter 2
chapter two
Price had his head in his hands, Crew looked really annoyed, Liam looked bored, and Isaac had his arms crossed over his chest—which wasn’t unusual—but Jesse was still smiling. Like the freak he was.
Staff meetings were never without chaos.
I placed my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Okay, so what if we opened up another restaurant?”
Crew laughed. “This is rhetorical, Callum, but are you stupid? We’d have to hire an entire new staff, not including the fact that we’d have to buy a building and all that shit.”
“Well, no one else has any ideas. Either we stop trying to accommodate expansion completely, we add a longer waitlist, or we open up a new building.”
Price sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I just feel like everyone is getting overworked again. We had that massive influx after the viral TikTok video, and it took us forever to bounce back.”
“We stayed steady after that. We adapted, but to get hit with it again at quadruple the size?” Isaac chimed in. “I hate to ever admit this, but Callum may be right. Expand the building, expand our waitlist, expand our staff, or open a new building and get even more revenue.”
I scowled at him. “Thanks for the backhanded compliment, bud.”
He only gave me a head nod and a smirk. It seemed he’d run out of words already.
“Okay, I see what you mean with the revenue.” Crew pulled open a big folder of expense reports or something super boring like that.
“We make enough to get quite a good profit as it is. We’re in the positive.
I can only assume we’d continue that track with another location.
Unless it flops entirely and we get put into the negative for the first time since our first year open. ”
I nodded. “Exactly. With how many people want to dine here, I think they’d jump at the opportunity to go to the new location instead of waiting on our current waitlist, so I don’t think it’ll flop. You’re just preparing for the worst for no reason again.”
Crew rubbed his temples. “Sorry for calling you stupid, Callum. You may be onto something with this, but it’s a bigger discussion we’ll have to have. Price and I will keep looking it over. This would never have happened if Kyra wasn’t so good at her job.”
“I say we blame Willow. She’s the one who referred Kyra for the marketing position.”
Jesse pushed his chair back, sliding down in the seat.
“I think this will be a great chance to expand even more. Fire and Ice is a well-renowned restaurant, guys. I mean, shit, after Price went on Gordon Ramsay’s show for the first time, we fucking exploded.
It hasn’t been the same since then, either.
All we’ve done so far is adapt. I know we can do it for this. Even Gordon has multiple locations.”
“Yeah, but he’s Gordon Ramsay. We are just Price and Crew Iverson. Sorry to burst your bubble,” Price quipped.
I groaned and laid my forehead on the table. “Can this meeting be over yet? Look into buying a new location. I’ll keep managing and training the staff we have now, and I’m more than willing to train new ones. Sound cool? Cool. Because I have to go meet someone.”
“Ooh, is it a date?” Crew asked.
“No, it’s a friend.”
“Well, Price was a friend at first.”
“No, he was your manager, actually.”
He glared at me. “I don’t like it when you’re right.”
Shrugging, I went to stand from my chair. “It’s a shame I usually am, huh?”
“Don’t get too cocky, now. Oh, also,” he raised a finger and looked across the table. “Are y’all three coming to our house for Christmas? I want to get a final head count before we go shopping next week. Willow is bringing David and their new puppy.”
Jesse glanced at Liam and Isaac. “We should be there, yeah. Hey, this’ll be David’s first time coming to one of our get-togethers, isn’t it?”
Price nodded. “Yeah, I think they’re a bit nervous. So, Callum, you need to be on your best behavior so you don’t scare them away.”
I put a hand over my heart, gasping for dramatics. “Me? Scare someone away? Pfft, never!”
“Yeah, okay. I’ve known you a long time, and the one thing that has never changed about you is the fact that you’re pure chaos in human form.”
He was bluffing. Fibbing. Practically lying to my face. “I’m a fucking delight, and you know it, Price.”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” Crew picked up the folder and pulled Price up by the arm. “Thank y’all for staying for the meeting. I’ll get my husband home so he can shower and stop being a prick.”
I nodded with a very serious, no-smile expression on my face. I was sure I almost looked scary. “Thanks, disco buddy. See you all tomorrow!”
Christmas was right around the corner, and the sidewalks were covered in snow.
All the stores and small shops had their decorations out, lighting up a festive path as I’d driven down the roads.
Shifting my car into park, I turned the engine off and hopped out, trudging through the snow that’d kept falling.
There weren’t very many people inside, most of them probably deciding to stay home and keep warm instead of being out in the freezing elements.
I walked up to the bar, plopping onto one of the stools.
Jack turned his head, spotting me from the side, his lips curling into a big grin.
I waved to him and waited until he finished serving someone a drink before he slid down to me.
“Hey, Cal! I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I started to think I wouldn’t either. We had to have a meeting at work, so we all stayed late.”
Jack frowned, accentuating the honestly criminal mustache on his upper lip. It really didn’t suit his face, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that. “Well, that sucks. But hey, I’m glad you’re here. I never see you anymore.”
“I know. Tell me when you’re off next, and maybe we can work something out. Price and Crew owe me, so I’m sure they’d give me an extra day off.”
“Oh, man. They owe you?”
“Sure as fuck do. You know that fartface asshole Brandt I told you about?”
“The miserable bastard who always picked a fight and had a major power trip kink?”
“Yeah, that one.” I nodded and leaned my elbows on the bar counter. “He fucking showed up at work the other day.”
Jack’s jaw dropped as he gasped. “No fucking way.”
“Way. He was being a huge asshole to one of my servers. She came running to me with tears down her face!”
He turned his nose up, scoffing.
“Right? Anyway, I looked out on the floor to the table she was talking about, saw who it was, and immediately told Crew, who told Price. They were both too busy to do anything. Crew pleaded with me to go deal with him, as if it was my restaurant we were standing in.” I sighed, shaking my head. “I was so fucking anxious, dude.”
“Per usual.”
I glanced up at him, hopefully glaring into his soul. “Okay, rude. I pushed through the anxiety, pretended like I didn’t even know what anxiety was, and told the dude off. Sad sack of shit didn’t even have the money to pay for his course. He looked like he’d really gone downhill over the years.”
Jack clapped his hands together, laughing. “Good! All that fucking karma from years of being an asshole served him right. Kinda sucks you guys lost out on money because of him, though.”
“Eh.” He reached down below the bar and pulled out a club soda for me. I grabbed it from him and popped the tab. “I told them they owed me for it. I don’t know how seriously they took that, but I meant it. I thought we were done with him for good.”
“I’ll look at the schedule and see when my off days are. Let me check on some stuff, and then I’ll switch with Mav so we can take a smoke break. God knows I need one.”
I wouldn’t have minded one either. I let him go, sipping on the club soda as I scanned the rest of the bar.
It was always ironic to me how often I ended up in here, despite refusing to ever drink.
From what Papa always said, drinking was what made my parents unfit to take care of me. I’d never been one to tempt fate.
Most of the tables were still empty, aside from just a couple.
I glanced over to the far right, about to turn my attention back behind the bar where a TV was streaming a hockey game.
My gaze never made it there, though, because one specific head of hair and a side profile I swore I’d never be able to forget caught my attention.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes boring into his skin.
No, it couldn’t be. Could it? There was no way. Not after so long. Not after I’d spent so many nights worried fucking sick, blowing his phone up like a desperate ex—which, I guess, I was. I guess I was a desperate ex, though in the beginning, I hadn’t even known I was an ex.
But that jawline. The subtle shape of his ears and the unfamiliar beard I’d never seen him with… Either that was Tobias Weaver, or it was his identical fucking twin who didn’t exist.
Instead of racing, my heart started to slow. Each beat grew heavier with each second that passed, physically weighing my lungs down in my chest. It was like my ribs were going to crack under the pressure, impatiently waiting for the moment when it all got to be too much.
Chaos in my mind and body, silent and calm on the outside. A full-on silent disco was unfolding.
A decade’s worth of cold air spread through my bones, forcing my fingertips to turn numb and tingly.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I couldn’t stay sitting on the barstool, but I couldn’t make myself move.
The part of my brain that sent signals from it to my body wasn’t working.
It wasn’t making sense. Nothing was making sense except the fact that who I was staring at was one hundred percent Tobi, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about that.
He looked the same, yet so different, even from the side.
He looked older. He’d grown into his tall, lanky frame I’d grown to love when we were younger.
His hair was shorter. He’d grown out his beard.
There were lines on the sides of his eyes, indentations of a life lived without me seeping deep into his skin.
He looked cold. He looked jaded. He looked…
Fuck, he still looked like mine. My Tobi.
My heart. The love of my life I never got to grow old with.
I didn’t get to earn my smile lines with him. I didn’t get to watch as we both started to grow gray hairs on our heads and in our beards. I didn’t get to watch him grow into the man he looked like today, and he didn’t get to watch me grow into mine.
Through the chaotic disco running rampant in my mind, I calmly stood from the barstool and started to walk toward his table.
I made each step with intention, hoping and willing that whatever guardian angel was assigned to me was watching my back as I got closer and closer and closer.
Closer to the past I’d lost and the future I’d never gotten to see.
I slid into the seat in front of him. “So,” my fucking voice cracked as tears threatened to fall. I cleared my throat and tried again, refusing to look into his eyes as I spoke to him for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “You come here often?”