“Hear that?” the guy says. “Let’s get going.”
“Thank you for the excellent coffee,” Saroya says with a flirty smile.
“Anytime.” I give her a panty-dropping smile in return, just to watch her preppy partner scowl. He’s eight or nine years older than she is, or I’m the mayor of New York.
As they leave, I glance at my watch. Could this shift last any longer? I clean off the frothing arm one more time.
This job is repetitive as hell. I’d better find that murderer quick.
* * *
The day is finally drawing to a close by the time Posy finally emerges from the back. And I do a little double take when I notice her red eyes and new makeup job. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I echo, rinsing out the milk jug. “It’s closing time, right?” The last customer left a few minutes ago.
“Right.” She clears her throat. “Thank you, Gunn. For …” she makes a vague gesture with her hands toward the door. “If Spalding shows his face again, I’m generally not available.”
“Got it,” I agree. “Spalding. I’d forgotten your ex-boyfriend’s name.”
“Ex-husband,” she says ruefully.
“Oh. Sorry.” Yikes. “Was it, uh, a recent breakup?”
“Almost a year now,” she says, lifting her chin. “And I’m fine with it. But I don’t know why they have to keep coming in here.”
“Well, Posy. The coffee is top notch. And it just got a little better.” I pat myself on the chest.
She rolls her eyes. “I guess your ego hasn’t faded in the last fifteen years.”
“Nah. If anything, it’s gotten bigger. I mean—if you were me, wouldn’t you have a big ego?” I wave in the direction of my tight Posy’s Pie Shop T-shirt and give her a cheesy grin. It’s supposed to be a joke. After all, Posy thinks I’m a barely employed thirty-five year-old barista.
“Maybe I would,” she says, blushing.
Huh. I think Posy remembers our big kiss, too.
“Anyway, feel free to let the quality slip if he asks you for coffee. I don’t want him in my life.”
“It would be against the barista oath to pour an inferior shot,” I say sanctimoniously. “But I could be hopelessly rude. That’s not against code. And I could definitely spell his name wrong on the cup. I think Smallthing has a nice ring to it.”
“Omigod.” Posy lets out a bark of laughter. “I dare you.”
“Consider it done.” We’re smiling at each other, and I’m startled to realize that I’m flirting with Posy Paxton again. I guess old habits are hard to break. “I’m happy to offend the man with the shiniest penny loafers in Manhattan. Although we might lose his wife’s business. She’s worth a few hundred bucks of peppermint syrup alone.”
“I wish they’d both lose my address.” Posy’s smile fades. “You know who misses Spalding, though?”
“The Gucci store?” I try.
“My father,” Posy grumbles. “He’s a big fan. He says that losing Spalding was my greatest failure. As if there’s a long string of those to choose from. I graduated magna cum laude from Columbia, but all my father sees is a failed marriage.”
“Ouch.” Posy’s dad is a giant tool, and I could never understand why she worked so hard to please him. Still, I can’t resist teasing her. “Magna cum laude, huh? I graduated summa.”
“You did?” she scowls. “Of course you did.”
“Nah, I’m just fucking with you.” I snap the towel close to her hip and then laugh. “But you totally believed me. And it bothered you, didn’t it? Admit it.”
“It did.” She puts her hands up to her face and shakes her head. “Just ignore me. This is what a midlife crisis looks like—a divorce, a career change, and a kitschy pie shop.”
Her vulnerability surprises me. And I glance around the pie shop, looking at it with fresh eyes. It’s a beautiful space, with golden lighting, warm wood floors, and creamy white wainscoting that gives off farmhouse vibes. There’s a shelf that runs all the way across the far wall, and it’s decorated with a collection of pristine ceramic farm animals. And each wooden table has a pair of chairs in matching colors.
It’s like I’m standing inside Posy’s chipper, ambitious mind. “I like it,” I say slowly. “And as for midlife crises, I’ve seen worse. My uncle Pat bought a vintage Camaro and grew some scary sideburns and an unfortunate mustache.”
“Thank God it hasn’t come to that.” Posy turns toward the kitchen door. “Hey Jerry! It’s time for your big moment.”
“Awesome!” comes a shout from the back. A moment later, the special needs kid who washes dishes comes flying out. He rushes over to the door and flips the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. “Done!”
“Good work,” she says. “You can take off your apron and go home, okay?”
“Okay Posy.” He reaches back and fumbles with the strings.
“Hey, Jerry?” I say, reaching for the tip jar. “There was a lady in here who left a tip for you.”
His mouth opens in surprise. “The tips in the jar aren’t for me.”
“I know,” I say, because I realize I can’t make a habit of this, or the other baristas will have to pony up as well. “But she did it especially for you. Just this once.” I offer him both of the ten dollar bills I received today.
He takes the money with wide eyes. “Thanks, mister.”
“Oh, I thanked the lady for you. Don’t worry.”
“Wow, maybe she’ll come back tomorrow!”
“You never know,” I say with a shrug. “Could happen.”
“Bye, Posy!” he says, marching toward the back.
“See you tomorrow,” she calls after him. A minute later we hear a bang as the back door is slammed shut. Then she turns to me with narrowed eyes. “I don’t know what’s more surprising. The fact that you gave Jerry your money, or the fact that two women left you ten-dollar tips.”
“How do you know they were women?” I ask. “Plenty of men appreciate this face, too.”
She rolls her eyes as she lifts the tip jar, testing its weight. “Good. Lord. It’s just like the old days, Gunnar. Your tip jar was always bulging at the seams.”
“I can’t believe the boss is checking out my bulge,” I say before I think better of it. Oops.
“Gunnar!” she squeaks. “Do you have to make everything into a sex joke?”
“Sorry,” I flinch. “Old habits die hard. Hey—am I supposed to count the drawer?” I ask, pointing at the cash register.
“It depends on who’s working and how big a hurry I’m in. I think I’ll count it and then make the deposit while you finish cleaning up.”
“No problem.”
She takes the register drawer to the end of the counter and stands there to count up the cash, while I wipe down each of the cafe tables for a final time and invert the chairs on them.
With the broom and the mop that I spotted in back, I clean all the pie crumbs and an errant paper napkin off the floor.
It’s funny how natural this feels. I haven’t worked a food service job in ages. But there’s a comfortable rhythm to it that’s familiar. My work in security is very exciting, but no job is ever really finished. Closing up for the night feels like an accomplishment.
“All right,” Posy says into our companionable silence. “I need to run over to the bank. I can lock up now or leave you here for ten more minutes. Which is it going to be?”
“Go ahead,” I say. “I’ll finish up here, and then sit down to check my email. I’m expecting a message from my father’s doctor.”
Her face creases with concern, and I feel like a jerk. “Of course. Go right ahead. Just don’t leave before I get back.”
“No problem.” I watch her shove the cash pouch into her shoulder bag. “Hey—are you okay to just walk around alone with that?”
She stares at me. “I do this every afternoon. What are you, my self-appointed bodyguard?”
Well, actually … “Never mind,” I force myself to say.
�
�I took a full self-defense course at the Y, I’ll have you know.”
“You go ahead, then. Sorry to interfere.”
She walks out the door, and I count to ten. Then I get up and walk over to the window, pressing my temple against the glass so I can see her pass down the street. The moment she’s disappeared, I grab my jacket off the hook and pull a pouch out of the pocket. There’s a small camera inside, the size of a woman’s lipstick case.
I carry it over to the wall opposite the coffee bar and start looking for the best place to conceal it. Posy’s decor makes my deception pretty easy—the shelf with all the animal statuettes is perfect for this. If I’m careful, I can position it to show me the computer screen of anyone who’s sitting at the big table in front.
I flip a small switch on the camera housing and then tuck the device between the legs of a ceramic cow. I use a short stack of pennies to lever the thing into an angle that makes sense to me. And then I sit in the chair.
Tapping the face of my watch a couple of times, I call Max.
“Yo!” my partner in crime says. “What have you got for me?”
“I’ve got fifteen bucks an hour and some tips,” I say drily. “I just activated a remote camera. What can you see?”
“A table, your hands, and a napkin dispenser.”
“Fair enough.” I get out of the chair and head for the door to the back. A glance at the street tells me Posy isn’t back yet. I have no idea how long it takes to make a bank deposit. “Any action on the boards today?”
“There was, but I don’t have a report on the locations yet,” he says. “Pieter is working on it.”
“Please, baby Jesus, let there be a reason I made eight million lattes today.”
“Your body cam is still broadcasting,” Max says. “If you’re on the way to the john, you should shut that off.”
I reach up and click off the pen-shaped camera in my shirt pocket. “I’m about to download the log files from Posy’s computer onto a thumb drive.” Between the front of the house and the kitchen, there’s a doorway to the world’s smallest office. It’s basically a closet with a desk wedged into it. I sit down in Posy’s office chair and give the computer mouse a shake.
“This is an ancient PC,” I grumble. “We were using machines like this back when Call of Duty 2 was cool.”
“It should be easy to crack, then.”
“Yeah.” In fact, I don’t even reach for the password cracking device in my pocket. First, I’ll try my hunch. Humans—ninety seven percent of the time—choose predictable passwords. And the logo image for Posy’s Pie Shop is as good a place as any to begin. I type L-e-m-o-n into the password window, and then hesitate. “Max, how do you spell meringue?
“M-E-R”
“I got that part. But then … I?”
“No, E-N-G-U-E?”
Password failed. “Nope.”
“Isn’t E the way you get a long A in Spanish?”
“Shouldn’t this be French?”
“Well, do you mean the Latin dance? Or the white stuff on pie?”
“It’s a fucking pie shop, Max.” I quickly try it the other way.
“Don’t get testy with me, cowboy.”
“Kind of in a hurry here,” I grumble. But the computer blinks to life. “Jesus, the security here is terrible.”
“That makes our job easier. Get the modem log.”
“Duh.” I pull up a command prompt and type like my ass is on fire. I pop a thumb drive into the machine and start the download I need. “Hopefully we can match up some of your message board action with the time stamp on this thing. I hope it goes back a few weeks.”
“Same dude, same. Did you check out the employees’ devices?”
“Posy has an iPhone. The kid who washes dishes has a battered iPad. The customers all have laptops, though. Some of them camp out for hours.”
“Roger.”
I glance at the command window and then curse. Transfer failed. “Max, gotta jump. I'm having some trouble here.”
“What? Dude, we need that—”
“I know. Later.” I tap my watch, hanging up on him. Then I start tapping on Posy's keyboard like crazy.
Shit.
8
Posy
When I push open the door to the bakery, Gunnar is nowhere in sight. Damn him! If he left my shop empty and split, I will kill him with my bare hands.
But then I hear his voice coming from somewhere in back. “Okay. Yes. That works. Got it.”
I’m not sure why I tiptoe through my own cafe like some kind of ninja. But what is he doing back there? I ease toward the doorway until I can catch an oblique glimpse of Gunnar. He’s sitting in my office chair, leaning back like a king in his throne. “Thank you, sir. Until next week. Goodbye.” He leans down and hangs up my phone. Then he glances up, catches me watching him, and his eyes widen. “Hey, sorry. My phone died. I didn't think you'd mind if I used the landline.”
“Not at all,” I hear myself say. But my heart is thumping. “Make yourself right at home.”
His grin tells me that it came out sounding snippy. “Thanks.”
My twinge of discomfort is ridiculous, right? Using my phone is no big deal. I’ve always wanted my employees to feel at home. Gunnar should be no different.
Let's face it, there's not much trouble he could get into in my office anyway. Lord knows there’s nothing to steal, except for some pie shop T-shirts and my cache of dreadfully expensive vanilla.
The real risk of dishonest employees is that they'll steal from the till. It happens. I wasn't born yesterday. I’m sure it will happen to me someday. The only way to prevent that is to run every single transaction yourself.
I can’t do that, of course. Unless I want to operate a one-woman show and work myself into an early grave. Trust is what makes the world go around. If you don't have any, then you can’t ever build something larger than yourself.
The truth is that I choose to trust Gunnar, and all my other employees. It’s not because I’m stupid—my own father lies with every breath he takes. I choose it because I want to live in a world where trust is the rule, not the exception.
So I smile at Gunnar and try again. “Did you get that email you were hoping for?”
“Yup,” he says easily. “My dad’s therapy is going to be covered under his Medicare. That's why I had to make a call and confirm his appointment for next week.” He stands up and stretches, and I'm hit with the view of his T-shirt riding up, exposing a set of rippling abs, and the narrow trail of hair that descends from his tight stomach toward ...
I jerk my eyes away.
“Something wrong?” he asks, and I swear there's a twinkle in his eye.
“Nope. No. Nothing,” I babble. “I could order you an extra-large. T-shirt, I mean! The large is a little snug. I'll do that tonight.” I turn around quickly, trying to stem the flow of words from my mouth. “Time to go, trainee. I have to lock up.”
“Yes ma'am.” He chuckles. Then I hear the wheels of my desk chair squeak as he pushes it in, flips off the lights and follows me out.
“Is he going to be okay?” I ask, regaining my composure.
“Who?” He follows me into the dining room.
“Your father.”
“Oh,” he says quickly. “Yeah. Just, uh, a bump in the road.”
“Is that why you’re back in New York?” I press.
“Exactly. I really can’t stand New York, but duty calls.”
“I’m sorry that my benefits package kind of sucks.” Gunnar wouldn’t qualify for health insurance until he’d worked full time for six months.
“It’s really okay,” he says smoothly. “Dad is covered by Medicare. And I realize you’re running a really small business.”
“Not like Paxton’s,” I say with a sigh. Gunnar makes me think about that place more than I’d like to.
“You know …” He removes the half apron from around his waist and hangs it on one of the hooks on the wall. “I thought you’d be running
that place by now.”
“You and me both. The whole reason I went to business school is so that my dad would feel good about passing it on to me someday.”
“So what happened?” His big shoulders give a shrug.
“My father happened.”
“Oh.” Those cool green eyes blink. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Eh, everybody knows. He sold it out from under me to a private equity firm. I was literally the last to know. My grandfather had been dead barely a year when he took the first offer and cashed out.” I swallow hard.
“I’m sorry, Posy,” Gunnar says quietly. “I know you had strong feelings about the place.”
“I really did.” Paxton’s was everything to me. I loved the shiny mahogany bar, the chandeliers in the dining room, and the leaded glass windows. I would have done whatever it took to step into my great grandfather’s shoes and run the place someday. Paxton’s was founded in 1927, on Madison and Seventy-ninth. It was an Upper East Side fixture, where starlets and politicians gathered to dine and meet and rule the world.
“It’s a franchise now,” I say in a voice that only quavers slightly. “East Hampton. Las Vegas. Palm Springs. Singapore. Anywhere people are willing to pay twenty-two bucks for a martini. Anywhere you can staple up some mahogany paneling. It’s just a name now.”
“Ouch. That sucks.” Gunnar shoves his hands in his pockets. He’s sorry he asked. “What time do you want me tomorrow?”
“Same time. Employees who clock in before seven can help themselves to a slice of pie or a pastry.”
“Mmm,” he says, his rich voice making that half word sound dirty. “I can't wait.”
My hormones rejoice. We can’t wait, either!
That's when it really hits me. Gunnar is a good barista, and he did well today. That means I need him behind that counter tomorrow. And the day after that. And every hour that he’s willing to work for me.
Loverboy Page 7