Tom shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I could find him something at Pippa’s?”
The fact that Cass even thought to offer made Tom’s chest warm. Cass was his fallen angel come good, and Tom was so proud of him it hurt. “He’s not much of a waiter, and I don’t think his TS could stand the heat of your kitchen.”
Cass narrowed his eyes, but took Tom’s point with good grace. He ran Pippa’s back of house team with a volatile iron fist. Probably not the best place for a vulnerable young man. “Maybe something in admin then. You need a new PA.”
“I don’t need a PA. Besides, with the new site I won’t have time to supervise him.”
“Then get him to help you with it. Jesus, Tom. You can’t do everything yourself, especially now you’ve bought the Camden place.”
“We’ve bought the Camden place. You signed your name this morning too, remember?” Tom reluctantly pulled away. The Tube ride into central London wasn’t particularly long, but he’d need to change lines. “I better go. I’m meeting Jake at the office.”
“I know. I heard.”
Tom saw a flash of something in Cass. “Come with me?”
Cass hesitated. “No, not yet. I show up now, he might end up agreeing to something he’s not cool with because he’s down on his luck. Help him get straightened out first, if he’ll let you, then let him decide what he wants.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Yeah?” Cass grinned, and whatever Tom thought he’d seen faded. “I’ll be missing you too when I can’t sit down all day.”
“How many restaurants?”
Tom grinned and clicked through the company website. He turned the screen around so Jake could see it. “Five. Not so many when you consider the company who just fired you has more than a hundred.”
Jake peered at the screen. “Yeah, but you’re way too young to own so much shit.”
“I don’t own anything.” Tom pointed to a logo in the top left corner of the screen. “The company owns them.”
“The parent company is Urban Soul?”
“That’s right.”
Jake whistled. “And you own Urban Soul?”
“Not on my own.”
Jake shot Tom an inscrutable glance. “With your boyfriend?”
“Cass, yes. He’s my partner.”
It was the first time either of them had mentioned Cass. Tom let the silence hang a moment, then he clicked on the Bites logo. “We own this business too. Have you seen the posters on the underground?”
Jake peered at the screen. “Maybe. Is it the snacks you can get by post?”
Maybe it’s time to increase the ad budget for the Tube stations. Jake was far from their target audience. It was good news if he’d absorbed enough of their campaign to tell Tom how they worked. “Yeah. Organic snacks. Healthy and cheap. I just came from our production kitchen, actually. It’s in Shoreditch, not too far from you.”
Jake scowled, like he’d forgotten the purpose of their meeting was to find him a job. “What would I do there?”
Tom shrugged. He hadn’t thought the idea through, and now that he had Jake in front of him, he found himself struggling to picture him in any role he had to offer, though a vision of the maternal gang at Bites taking Jake under their wing made him smile.
“What’s this?”
“Hmm?” Tom focused on the enigmatic question mark posted at the bottom of the company home page. “Oh, that’s our new venture. We just bought a place in Camden. Not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, though.”
“Another restaurant?”
“That’s the idea.”
Jake straightened up, ticked a few times, and walked to the small office window. He stared out over the heated decking where the Stew Shack’s patrons sat, enjoying their lunch. “You said this one was your favourite. Why not open another one in Camden?”
“We never open the same restaurant twice. It’s not what we do.”
Jake looked over his shoulder, perhaps remembering the long night they’d spent huddled in the corner of that Camden bar, talking Tom’s company ethos to death. Did Jake feel betrayed now he knew it was something Tom shared with Cass? Tom couldn’t tell. Behind the vulnerable belligerence, Jake had put up a wall that hadn’t been there the first time they’d met.
“Um, besides,” Tom went on when Jake didn’t speak, “the location wouldn’t suit an alehouse. The venue is pretty vintage, but . . .”
“But what?” Jake finally turned and gave Tom his full attention.
Tom sighed. “That’s the problem. We haven’t got that far. We probably should’ve had a plan before we bought the place, but we didn’t.”
“You don’t seem the type to make mistakes like that.”
Don’t I? “Yeah well. I don’t know what came over me. I think I figured it would work itself out, but Cass has been busy at Pippa’s, and we haven’t had much time to brainstorm.”
Jake took the second mention of Cass in stride. He took another look at the Stew Shack’s outdoor seating area. “What do you like best about this place?”
“The simplicity, I guess.” Tom resisted the urge to join Jake at the window, but the simmering current between them was as strong as ever. “We serve just three daily stews and casseroles here, a few simple sides, and four guest ales that change every week. No fuss, no gimmicks. Just a bowl of hot food and some beer.”
“So what’s stopping you from taking that theory and applying it elsewhere? A bowl of stew could be anything, right?”
“Right.” Tom let the idea seep into him and take hold. “We developed the stew and ale concept because it suited Greenwich. We launched it during British food week last year. Camden’s different.”
Jake frowned. Tom could almost see the cogs spinning in what he was fast learning was a sharp, intelligent mind. “There’s nowhere like Camden.”
Tom remembered the words that had come to mind when he’d wandered down Camden High Street the day he’d met Jake. Colourful. Vibrant. On impulse, he shut down his computer and felt in his pocket for the keys he and Cass had picked up on their way to Shoreditch. “Want to go see?”
It felt good to be back in Camden with Jake. Tom had visited the new site several times since he and Cass had put their offer in, but passing under the iconic bridge with Jake by his side seemed to make it better.
He unlocked the arcade doors and waved Jake in. “This place used to be a fire station. We’re trying to track down some of the old equipment, but we’re not having much luck.”
Jake drifted to the centre of the main ground floor space much like Tom had when he’d first entered the old building. He gazed around, ticking a few times for good measure, glanced up at the high ceilings, and then at the ornate windows. “There’s a vintage fire engine in the library, one of those motor car ones from the twenties. Maybe it came from here.”
Camden Town Library was just down the road. Tom made a mental note to check it out. “So what do you think? If we put your theory to the test, how would we do it?”
“My theory? You mean copying the Stew Shack? ’S’not my idea, mate. You came up with it in the first place.”
“Semantics.” Tom beckoned Jake to the staircase. “You’ve planted a seed.”
He showed Jake upstairs. Jake wrinkled his nose at the office space. “They’ve fucked this right up, haven’t they?”
Tom grinned. Cass had said the very same thing. “We’re going to clear it out. Put a massive long table in for big parties. Maybe a private bar.”
“You need lights.” Jake stared up at the ceiling. “Hanging lights.”
“Modern or vintage?”
“Modern.”
Tom thought of his aversion to fusion food. “Modern lights in a vintage building. Would that work?”
“How would I know?” Jake treated Tom to one of his trademark scowls. “I’m a working-class northerner. You’re a pair of posh boys.”
“Not Cass,” Tom corrected. “He’s an East End boy. Grew up
on pie and mash.”
Jake seemed surprised. Perhaps he hadn’t heard Cass speak when they’d encountered each other at the flat. “You could do that? Pie and mash is simple enough.”
Tom wandered to one of the beautiful old windows and drummed his fingers on the sill. It was a good idea, but it wasn’t quite right. Tom studied Jake’s back. He felt like his grip on a brilliant concept was just out of reach, and Jake had all the answers. “What do you eat in restaurants?”
“I’m unemployed, remember? I don’t go out.”
“Humour me?”
“You’re not funny.”
“Jake.”
Jake turned around. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
A heavy silence coated the air. Tom felt it touch every part of him. He swallowed hard. Words failed him, but Jake broke the pregnant pause with a sigh.
“Burgers,” he said. “Real ones, not that McDonald’s crap.”
“Burgers?”
“Yep. Told you I wasn’t posh.”
Tom grinned. “Trust me, burgers can be poncey.”
“Not the good ones.”
Jake had a point. Tom mulled it over. He liked the idea of a hipster burger bar, but there had to be more to the concept than that. A hook.
Jake appeared like a clicking ghost at his side. “You look pissed off.”
“Hmm? Oh, I’m not pissed off. I’m frustrated. This place has many faces, and I can’t quite envisage them all.” Tom spoke mostly to himself, so he was surprised when Jake touched his arm.
“Okay, so you’re posh and I’m not. So, if I eat burgers, what do you drink?”
“Beer? No, that’s not it. ”
Jake nodded. “Exactly. What do you drink when you’re being a toff?”
“I’m not a toff.”
“Whatever. Even if you’re not a toff, you must know some.”
Tom thought of the corporate functions he sometimes cajoled and blackmailed Cass into attending. Tom despised them as much as Cass, but they were a necessary evil from time to time. The last one had been a dinner put on for the city’s youngest entrepreneurs. They’d both hated every minute. They’d stuck around for the canapés, then swiped a bottle of high-priced fizz and snuck off home to fuck all night.
Burgers and . . . “Champagne—fuck, that’s it. Burgers and champagne. Nothing else. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Jake raised a dark eyebrow, clearly bemused. “You think that would work?”
Tom didn’t answer, his mind whirring too fast to articulate what he was thinking. He opened a drawer of an abandoned desk, found a pen and paper, and sketched out a convoluted mind map. Branding, construction, logistics—
Jake cleared his throat. “You look like someone else.”
“Yeah?” He made a note to contact local organic meat suppliers, then Jake touched Tom’s face and the gesture hit him like a sledgehammer. He stilled his manic scribbling and covered Jake’s hand with his own. “Who do I look like?”
Jake opened his mouth, but a tic got there first. His free arm lashed out and smacked a nearby filing cabinet. “Bollocks!”
Tom winced. The few times they’d met, he’d noticed Jake’s arms and hands were often littered with bruises. Now he knew why. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
The heavy air between them faded. Tom went back to his planning, and Jake wandered across the room. Tom let him be. He had plenty to do, and Jake seemed like he needed some time to calm down.
A little while later, his phone rang. Cass. That was unusual. Cass rarely called when he was at work.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just wondered how your, uh, meeting went.”
Ah. Tom glanced at Jake. He was out of earshot and appeared to be cleaning something off the wall with his sleeve. “Still going on. I couldn’t find anything that felt right for him, so I brought him to Camden to see the new site.”
“And? Does he like it?”
“Hard to tell. He did devise a concept for me, though, and I bloody love it.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
Tom took Cass through the fledgling model for their new venture. Cass listened, then he fell quiet while Tom waited with baited breath. If Cass didn’t like the idea, the whole thing was toast. Despite his disinterest in corporate duties, he was always right when it came to their business.
“I like it.”
Tom leaned back on a dusty filing cabinet. “You do? Thank God for that, because I bloody love it.”
“Yeah, you said.” Cass chuckled. “So what are we going to do? A streamlined core menu with some trendy specials?”
“Probably, but that’s up to you, isn’t it? I’ve done my bit.”
Cass snorted. “Hardly. I’m not getting involved with poncey champagne. You’re on your own there, and you’ve got to turn that bomb site into a restaurant.”
“You’re all heart.”
“I know—shit—hang on a sec.” Cass muffled the phone and snapped at someone. Tom wondered where he was. He didn’t allow mobile phones in Pippa’s kitchen, so he must’ve been in the bin yard or the office. He sounded rattled when he came back on the line. “Bell end. How hard is it to put rubbish in the right bin?”
“You’ve got bins on the brain today.”
Cass growled and there was the distinctive clang of him kicking something—always quick to break something, anything, even himself, to vent his frustrations. “Don’t be fucking cute. If we can’t get it right in the businesses we have, what’s the point in opening more?”
“Why are you having a pop at me?”
“I’m not. You know stupid shit like that winds me up.”
Tom did know it. Of course he knew it, but he wasn’t in the mood to be on the receiving end of Cass’s temper today. “Okay, I need to get going.”
Silence, then Cass sighed. “Don’t go. I’m just pissed off because of the mess I came into here. It’s no wonder I’m always bloody working.” Cass sounded like the spirited grin he’d had when he left Tom had never been there at all. How quickly things could change in a few hours. “Okay, back to the Camden thing . . . What are you going to do with the place? We might be selling burgers, but I don’t want any cheesy diner crap.”
Tom absorbed the abrupt shift in Cass’s mood. He loved Cass to death, but his temper gave him whiplash. When would Cass learn that anger broke the stuff he wanted to fix? Anger is just a hole where your life could be . . .
“Tom?”
“Hmm? Oh, the Camden thing? I’m still working on that. Jake thinks some of the stuff from the old fire station might be at the library. I’m hoping they might let us take it back if we can convince them it belongs here.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you. What about the layout issues downstairs?”
“I haven’t got that far yet. Bloody hell. What’s with you today? Did you eat a bag of Skittles before you woke me up?”
Cass chuckled. “All right, all right. I’ll leave you to it. Just keep me posted. Oh and I’m going to come home tonight. Meet me at base camp.”
He hung up, leaving Tom to ponder the sudden rush of communication. It felt a little odd. Good, but odd.
Tom glanced around. He’d lost track of Jake while he’d been on the phone, and now he was nowhere to be seen. He gathered his stuff and made his way downstairs. He found Jake by the defunct back area, staring at the mess of dust and poky rooms.
“Is this the kitchen?”
“That’s the plan.”
“And the restaurant’s over there?” Jake jerked his head to the main space in the building.
“Yep.”
“Then you need to take this wall down. The building is listed, but this isn’t original. It’s plasterboard. Listen.”
Jake knocked on the wall, and sure enough, it produced the telltale hollow tap that came from cheap, bodged construction.
Tom looked out over the ground floor space and pictured what Ja
ke had in mind. It made sense. “What if we took all the walls down and had an open kitchen?”
“Like the chicken shop down the road?”
“Cleaner, I hope.”
“That could work.” Jake walked a few paces and pointed to the floor. “It would have to be somewhere around here, though. This is where the water pipes are, and you’re not allowed to dig around too much.”
Suddenly, Tom could see it: an open kitchen, alive with flame grills, lively chefs, and eclectic waiting staff . . . young waiting staff, with punky hair and tattoos. “How do you know so much about building regulations?”
“My dad’s a builder.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. It was the first time Jake had ever mentioned his family. “Did you grow up watching him work?”
“Watching?” Jake buzzed out a tic. “No, I was free labour until my TS made me too embarrassing.”
Tom had clearly touched a nerve. “Still, seems like you know more about this than I do. Want to sit down and sketch out some ideas?”
The speculative look on Jake’s face faded. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Rat-faced wankers. Sorry.”
That appeared to be Jake’s only answer. Tom took advantage of his silence. “I could use the help.”
“I’m supposed to be looking for a job.”
“This could be your job.” Tom trod carefully. Jake had let slip on the Tube ride over here that he’d blown a few interviews because of his TS. His explosions of tics had taken prospective employers by surprise when he’d failed to disclose his condition. “Work for me. Help me develop this place. I’ll pay you what I’d be paying the PA I’d have to hire.”
“PA? As in, like your fucking secretary? Following you round like a dog, photocopying and making your tea? No thanks.”
“There’s more to it than that. And I’ve got all the other sites to manage. You’d be on your own most of the time. You’ll probably hardly see me.”
Jake thought on it a moment, like Tom’s presence, or lack of it, was the deal-breaker, then he narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need your charity.”
“No, but I need yours.”
“Liar.”
Tom said no more. He leaned against the offending plasterboard wall and waited for Jake to think it over. Part of him knew he was offering Jake the job because he felt sorry for him, and because he still felt insanely attracted to him, but beneath all that, common sense won out. Tom needed help, and Jake had already proved his knowledge and vision.
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