Beefcakes

by Katana Collins

  Liam sighed and glanced down at the resumes spread out in front of us in the waiting room of the hospital. “We’ve narrowed it down to three—but I think we can eliminate the kid from Boston from consideration—yes, he’s planning to move here, but it will take him a while to get settled. And you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  I rubbed my eyes and looked down at the three resumes on the table. Across from me, Liam drained the last of his watered-down hospital coffee, tipping his head back to drink the remaining liquid, while Addy and Finn paced in the waiting room. How Liam was able to focus on anything except our mother’s surgery was beyond me.

  Since I’d be heading to Budapest after Mom’s surgery, Liam and I had decided to hire an employee to help out with the bakery. Someone who could help us run the front of the store who wasn’t our own brother. A person we could depend on to be there and give us each more than one day off a week. And maybe, eventually we could teach them to bake as well.

  The bakery had been flush with orders. Frankly, if we wanted to close down the shop and only do special orders? We probably could. But neither of us wanted that. This shop was Mom’s legacy. And the storefront was still quite an attraction—our little town was booming with triple the number of tourists we usually had.

  I tapped the pen against the cheap, plastic tabletop, my eyes glazing over as I stared at the resume in my hand. One year working at FroYo Heaven. I smiled, my mind wandering to Elaina and her strange love of yogurt—in any and all forms.

  Shockingly, when we put the ad out that we were looking for a Beefcakes employee, we had twenty applicants the first day. I wasn’t sure if that was an indicator of our shop’s success, the show’s success… or just the unemployment rate of our town.

  I stood from the chair and crossed to the vending machine, staring inside at the rows of junk food. Cheetos. Milk Duds. They even had a strawberry PopTart in there. Amazing that in the oncology unit of a hospital, where only a few months ago, the doctors were warning us about the dangers of feeding cancer cells with sugar, the only options in the machine were processed foods, crammed with sugar. It made me think of Elaina’s outreach center and her father’s mention that we should offer grain-free and sugar-free cupcakes in a vending machine there.

  The lump lodged back in my throat, as though it had never left. Two weeks, and I still couldn’t get Elaina off my damn mind. Had I been too harsh? Too rash? Was she right… had I been rushing things?

  “Well?” Liam prodded. “What do you think?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. I needed to focus. I had a million things going on, and even though I missed Elaina desperately, Liam and I had to choose this employee before I left for Budapest. As much as I wanted to spend my time dwelling on Elaina… I couldn’t. “Honestly, the new hire is your call. You’ll be the one working with them the most when I’m out of the country.”

  Liam sighed and held up the two remaining resumes. “I wish we could afford to hire both of these guys.”

  I shrugged. “Crazy how, after bills and taxes, five hundred thousand dollars only goes so far.”

  With a grunt, Liam dropped the papers on the table and ran a hand through his messy hair. “Amen to that. But it put a solid dent in our debt. If not for this surgery, we might have even had some left over.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said. And I meant it, too. Business was good. I think with some clever planning, even with Mom’s surgery, we could be debt free in a few years.

  Addy plopped down in the chair beside Liam. “It’s been four hours… didn’t they say it was a three-hour surgery?”

  Liam shrugged and reached an arm around her, squeezing her shoulders in for a hug. “With the breast reconstruction, it might be longer.”

  We were all relieved that Mom was able to get the surgery she truly wanted. Winning the reality show had helped convince her to get the reconstructive surgery as well.

  My phone buzzed, face down on the table. I turned it halfway over, glanced at the name and number illuminating the screen, and sighed.

  Liam’s brows shot up. “Elaina?”

  Finn leaned down, peeking over my shoulder. “Nah,” he said. “It’s just Jude.”

  “Do you mind?” I snapped.

  To be honest, I was also sort of hoping to see Elaina’s name when I turned my phone over.

  I know today’s a busy one for you, but the plans for the new facility are ready, whenever you’re ready to submit them for your town’s approval.

  I gulped. After the fight with Elaina, I had a realization… I loved stunt work, but I didn’t love the nonstop travel, the life of constantly bouncing from hotel to hotel and never being home. I did want a family someday. A dog. A house. And that sort of heavy travel schedule wouldn’t be conducive to that life. So, Jude and I came up with a business plan—a stunt training center. Right here in Maple Grove—in the empty warehouse behind Beefcakes, to be exact. The tax breaks NH offered were significant, and I could consult on films and teach new prospective stunt workers right here from home. All while maintaining the other work I loved—baking at Beefcakes.

  But step one was getting it approved by Elaina.

  I gulped and punched in a text, responding to Jude.

  I’ll take care of it.

  Liam cleared his throat, and I shot a look to him, sitting there staring at me with brows raised. “What?” I asked.

  Beside him, Addy sighed. “When are you two going to make up?”

  My brows lifted. “Excuse me?”

  “You and Elaina,” she said. “It’s been two weeks… are you both so stubborn that you’re not willing to kiss and make up?”

  Just as Addy asked that, Chloe… Elaina’s sister… entered from the cafeteria, holding a tray of coffee. She handed one to Addy, then one to Liam.

  I nearly groaned but swallowed the urge. It was awkward enough sharing a town with my ex—but watching her little sister become friends with my little brother? It was almost too much to bear. God, what if they started dating? What if we became in-laws?

  “Can we talk about this later?” I glared at Addy, and she immediately rolled her eyes in response.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” Chloe said, her voice cheery in a way that countered my dark, raspy voice. She lowered to a seat beside Liam.

  “Besides, when are we going to talk about this? At your party tonight?”

  This time, I did groan. I had really hoped this ‘party’ my family was throwing for me was just a joke. “Our mother just had surgery, and I have a six o’clock flight to Budapest in the morning. I doubt any of us will feel like partying.”

  Liam glanced at me from over his coffee. “Mom is the one who insisted on it. What Mom wants, Mom gets.”

  “Great. We can have some sparkling grape juice and cupcakes in her room, then leave her to rest. We don’t have to do an official party.”

  Addy shook her head. “Too late. There are already a few people driving down from Maple Grove to say goodbye to you: Rita, Carlie, Yvonne, and Steve. Plus, they wanted to see Mom, too.” Addy ignored my gruff snort and continued talking. “So… anyway. About Elaina—”

  “What about Elaina? I proposed… she said no.”

  “Yeah… she said no to marriage. But she didn’t want to break up,” Addy said.

  “How do you know that?” I pushed.

  Addy crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “Because she told me. We had a coffee meeting last week about my bar.”

  I felt sucker-punched by my own damn sister. “Well, that’s news to me.”

  “That she didn’t want to break up?” Finn asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, that Addy and Elaina are having coffee dates. But it doesn’t change the fact that I asked her to marry me, and she said no. How does a couple come back from that?”

  “Didn’t she, like, just get cheated on by her boyfriend of five years or something?” Finn asked.

  “Nine years,” Chloe said.

  “Huh,” Addy laughed. “Nine years wi
th her ex and no proposal. Nine weeks with you… and a proposal.”

  I swallowed, feeling my throat get drier by the moment. “That breakup was months ago.”

  Liam’s brows rose, but he said nothing.

  “Exactly,” Addy said. “Months. You don’t get over someone cheating on you in months. But she loves you.”

  “She didn’t want things to end with you. She just wanted them to go slower,” Chloe said, blowing on the steam billowing over the top of her coffee.

  Heat flushed the apples of my cheeks as I stared at my sister. I was speechless. “I expect this sort of advocacy from Chloe. But I thought you of all people would be on my side with this, Addy.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Elaina hasn’t been my favorite person for years. So, if I’m not even on your side… maybe you’re in the wrong, bro.”

  I turned to my brothers, both of whom had their lips pursed together and were avoiding eye contact. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, the doctors came out from behind the double doors.

  “The Evans family?” One of them asked.

  We all jumped to our feet, nearly charging the poor surgeons.

  “Is she out?”

  “Is she awake?”

  “Is she okay?”

  We all asked at once. The doctor smiled. “She’s out—and awake—and yes, okay. The surgery was a success, and we believe we got it all, but the scans in a couple weeks will tell us more.”

  “Can we see her?” I asked, my heart pounding.

  He nodded, smiling. “Yes. In a few minutes.”

  My siblings cheered, and we all hugged, squeezing each other. Tears fell from Addy’s cheeks, which she quickly swiped away as they bounded down the hall toward Mom’s recovery room. I hung back until they were out of earshot and looked at the doctor.

  “You have a question?” he asked.

  “Any chance the bill for this can be sent directly to me rather than my mom?”

  He opened her chart, talking as he flipped through the pages. “Well, usually it needs to process through the insurance first, and then—Oh. Wait a minute…”

  “Neil,” Chloe popped her head out from behind the doors, smiling. “They’re waiting on you—”

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” I said. But Chloe didn’t return to where the others were.

  “It looks like your mother’s surgery has been paid for,” Dr. Levinston said.

  I jolted back, staring at him incredulously. “Paid for? That’s… that’s impossible.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll have to take it up with billing, but it says here that you had an anonymous angel donor take care of it in full. The donor will be reimbursed for fifty percent of the cost from the insurance company directly.”

  He tilted the receipt for me to see. The air punched out of my lungs—I was both breathless and speechless. “How… who…”

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Guess it’s your lucky day.” And with that, he crossed out of waiting room.

  I blinked and caught Chloe standing there with her arms crossed, brows raised. “What?” I asked.

  “An anonymous donor… with expendable six figures… who paid for the surgery in full?” she pushed. “I only know of one person in town who recently came into that kind of money.”

  My heart raced in my chest, and I could hear the blood pulsing in my brain, rushing like a river. “Elaina?” I whispered. “She couldn’t have…”

  Chloe tilted her head, giving me an incredulous look. “She could have. And she would have.”

  “But… but she needed every penny of that money for the mill. And if she used some of it for this, then she couldn’t have afforded the building.”

  Chloe shrugged and crossed her arms. “I guess you’ll need to ask her then.”

  My feet were cemented to the ground. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t even formulate a coherent sentence. I needed to ask her… thank her. But when? When would I have time to see her before I left? Could I even bear the thought of seeing her, knowing I was leaving in a few hours? Did she even want to see me? It was an anonymous donor… meaning, she hadn’t intended on me discovering her charity. Or at least, not this soon after the surgery. She probably thought I’d be long gone in Budapest before I discovered her incredible sacrifice for my family. For me.

  “Hey,” Chloe said, gingerly elbowing my ribs. “I didn’t mean right this second… go give your mother a kiss, Neil. There’s still time to figure out what to do about Lainey.”

  Was there, though? Maybe I could do something for her in return… give her a gift just as meaningful as her incredibly generous, thoughtful gift to me, my mother, and my family. But… what?

  My mind raced as Chloe guided me down the hall toward my mom’s room.

  For a split second, learning what Elaina had done, I thought maybe she wanted me back, but the more I thought about it… perhaps it was just Elaina’s heart. Kind. Generous. Even in the face of our dissolving relationship… she always made the selfless choice.

  Even if I never could call her mine again, I needed to do something for her in return.

  Beneath the boardroom table, my knee bounced, and no matter how hard I tried to focus, my eyes inevitably slid to the clock on the wall. It was nearly 2:00 p.m. … which meant Neil’s mom should have been out of surgery hours ago.

  I glanced at my phone, double-tapping the screen to bring it to life, my brows furrowing as there were no notifications from Chloe. She had promised me that she’d text with an update as soon as she could.

  I sighed, staring at my phone’s wallpaper… a picture that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to change. Neil and I were covered in flour and blue frosting, cheek to cheek, grinning like idiots at the camera. We had snapped it after that first challenge. I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked back the spike of moisture in my eyes.

  No. I’ve already cried too much over him. I didn’t even cry this much when Brad and I broke up… and we had been together for years, not weeks. I loved Neil and I was incredibly sorry for how things ended, but I wasn’t in the wrong. He proposed, and I wasn’t ready to say yes… what was I supposed to do in that moment? Lie? Enter an engagement out of guilt or simply because I didn’t want to lose him? No. That was crazy. I loved him and desperately missed him… but he was overreacting by ending things.

  Chloe’s name popped up on my phone, covering the smiling faces on the screen.

  Sorry. Been crazy here. Linda got out of surgery a couple hours ago and is doing great! You sure you don’t want to come to the party tonight?

  I did want to go. Desperately. I wanted to see Neil and hold him and kiss him goodbye and tell him I’d still be here waiting when he got back. But he had made his choice. He had decided that me not being ready for marriage was a deal-breaker.

  “Is that true, Elaina?”

  I blinked and looked up at the entire table of city council members staring at me. Matteo winced, knowing me well enough to sense that I had no idea where we were in our meeting or what they had just asked me.

  I pressed my lips together and glanced down at my laptop, the cursor blinking on an otherwise blank page where I should have been taking notes. Feeling helpless, I turned to my dad, but he showed no emotion with his stony expression. Damn… no help there. “Uh…”

  Matteo jumped in, clearing his throat. “Elaina was telling me earlier how the loan we were approved for wasn’t enough to cover the cost of the mill, unfortunately.”

  We had jumped to discussing the mill already? Crap, how long had I zoned out for? My heart raced, battering my ribcage. It was the discussion I’d been dreading since I made the decision last week to use my money for Neil’s mother instead. “That’s correct,” I said, and there was a collective groan around the room.

  “What happened?” Councilwoman Jenkins cried.

  “I thought that was all squared away after you won the show!”

  “Well…” my voice trailed off. What could I possib
ly say? Only my father and Matteo knew the truth. When faced with the decision, I couldn’t let Linda not receive the reconstruction she wanted. And after everything she’d done for us… for this town… it was cruel for them to win half a million dollars, only to be hit with another massive medical bill.

  Unfortunately, after taxes and the six-figure anonymous angel donation, I didn’t have enough left over to buy the mill for the town. So instead, I donated another hundred thousand to the hospital, and I still had enough left over to buy myself a small house.

  However, I had a strong suspicion that none of this would be an acceptable explanation to the city council.

  I glanced at my dad, whose scowl, for the first time all morning, softened. “Prior to the land purchase,” Dad said, “I had Elaina meet with my lawyer. He cautioned her that the conflict of interest with a town manager purchasing and donating a building—when her own father was mayor—might have negative ramifications.”

  I rolled my shoulders back and gave a nod to the people around the table. That wasn’t a lie—the lawyer had cautioned us of that very thing. But it wasn’t enough of a threat to stop me. “However,” I said, passing around a packet of property print-outs, “Here are some other properties within town limits that are within the town’s budget for the healthcare outreach center. The project isn’t dead… it just won’t be in the historic mill.”

  Pam, one of our city council members, scowled. “But none of these are large enough for the events center, too, are they?”

  I shook my head. “No, they’re not. That idea was specialized for the mill. However, these properties are significantly cheaper. We wouldn’t need to stretch our budget and a couple of them we could buy cash or simply utilize the loan we’ve been pre-approved for. So, it’s far less of a risk in that regard. I talked with our hospitals and they are all still on board, despite the location shift.” I left out the fact that they, too, were disappointed in the events center idea disappearing.

  Matteo gave me a reassuring smile from across the table. “I think these are some great Plan Bs,” he said.

  I smiled back at him. As my friend, I guess he had to say that. But I appreciated it regardless.