Down to Business (Business Series)

by Alexander, J. C.

  He shot me a playful glare. “Gee thanks.”

  I laughed as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot and headed for Malones.

  Malones was located in a prime piece of real estate right in the center of town in the shopping district. My father’s best friend, Chuck, was the previous owner. It was called Chuckie’s Bar when my parents bought it. Dad’s friend Chuck decided he wanted to marry and start a family, so he sold it to my parents for half price. Dad decided he wanted to bring in the family crowd, so he made it Malones Bar and Grill. Dad put most of his and my mother’s life savings into Malones, and for a while, we were known for having the best cheeseburger in town. Then, after my parent’s marriage started falling apart, so did Malones.

  By the time the divorce was settled, we owed more into the restaurant than we made. Mom had not paid herself in years. Everything we made went right back into Malones. We tried everything to up the revenue. We changed the menu, changed the décor with a sports bar feel to match our college customer’s tastes, and Mom even bought a pool table. None of it brought us right side up.

  I swore that when I took it over, I’d bring the old Malones back, the family friendly one I remembered as a child with fresh french fries and the best burgers.

  Vinny parked on the main street in front of the restaurant. I stepped out of the car and glanced up at the dark green overhang that read Malones Bar and Grill in a Gaelic font. It was situated on the bottom floor of a three-story brick building. The second floor was occupied by a real estate business and the top floor was an apartment.

  I yanked open the beaten swinging door to find Malones practically empty besides a few guys drinking beer at the bar.

  Malones was split down the middle. The main room was the bar and an arched doorway on the right led to the dining area. The restaurant side consisted of the sixteen tables where I spent half of my high school year’s waitressing.

  Our bartender, Jesse, came out of the backroom and looked up at me. His eyes went wide in surprise. “Holy shit, look whose back in town.”

  “Hey Jesse!”

  He marched over and picked me up, giving me a bear hug. Jesse was twenty-seven and worked at Malones since he turned twenty-one. He bartended for us while he finished his music degree at Colgate and after he graduated he never left.

  He wore a black t-shirt that read Malones in white Gaelic print. His wavy black hair was in need of a cut and looked completely rock star. It suited him, since Jesse played in a rock band on the weekends and he carried himself like a musician, complete with sleeve tattoos on both arms. Some weekends he and his band would play at Malones and bring in some extra patronage.

  “Did you drop out already?” he teased.

  “No, not yet.” I laughed. “I’m here for a family emergency.”

  “Oh, yeah… I’m so sorry about your gram.” He frowned.

  “It’s okay. She should make a full recovery.”

  “How’s your Mom holding up?”

  “She’s okay. She is at the hospital now. I came to relieve Josh and I brought some extra help…” I glanced over at Vinny. “Jesse this is Vinny, he drove me all the way from Adelphi and he’s gonna help us out today.”

  “Hey man,” Jesse said, shaking hands with Vinny.

  “Nice to meet you.” Vinny replied.

  “The evening crowd will be here before I know it. I need to get the bar stocked up.” Jesse said.

  “I’m going to take Vinny back and let him get acquainted with the kitchen. See you, Jesse.” I took Vinny’s hand and led him through the dining room to the kitchen. I stepped through the swinging door to see my brother standing over one of the stainless steel stoves, stirring a pot and talking on his cell phone. He didn’t notice me until I reached out and snatched the phone from his hand.

  “Hey! What the fuck?” He shouted and glared at me. His pissed expression quickly changed to surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Does Grandma having surgery this morning ring any bells?”

  He sighed. “Gimme back my phone.”

  I passed it back to him. He said goodbye to his friend and shoved it into his pocket. Afterwards, he glanced over at Vinny then me.

  “This is Vinny. He drove me up. Vinny this is my little brother, Josh.”

  “Is this the same guy Mom said you’re trying to impress?” Josh smirked at me and stirred the gravy.

  I paused as my cheeks flared up. “What? No. I’m not trying to impress anyone.”

  “Really? Why did you cut your hair then?”

  “Because I needed to get it cut!” I frowned and combed my hand through my hair.

  “I’m pretty sure Mom said the guy’s name was Vinny.”

  “Just get out of here, Josh. Go see Grandma.” I snatched the spoon from his hand.

  He snorted. “Yeah right. Everyone knows that you can’t cook for shit.”

  “Vinny is going to cook. I’m waiting tables.”

  “Vinny doesn’t work here.”

  “He does today.” I turned my back to him and stirred the gravy.

  “Fine, whatever. See ya.” He tossed his cooking apron off to the side and marched out of the kitchen.

  I rolled my eyes and looked at Vinny. “Sorry. He’s an idiot.”

  “Looks like you and your brother get along as well as I do with mine.”

  “Yeah, he can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”

  I carried the finished pot of gravy over to the prep line and poured it into its compartment.

  I took note that we were already running low on cut veggies. “Ugh, he didn’t even cut fresh lettuce or tomatoes yet.”

  “I’ll handle it. I can run the kitchen, you just bring the orders.” Vinny said.

  I smiled at him. “I’m going to go change into one of the Malones t-shirts. You can too if you want. We have all sizes.”

  “Sure.”

  I took him to the back room where the lockers, aprons, and extra shirts were located. We had tons of Malones shirts, so I changed into one and Vinny did the same. His looked just like the one Jesse had on, only he looked better in it.

  I grabbed a pad of paper and pen and walked off to check on the only server on duty. Her name was Danielle, and she was a girl I went to high school with. Her brother Andy also worked for us and I told him to help Vinny in the kitchen instead of waiting tables.

  As the afternoon carried on, the dinner crowd started to show up. By 7PM we had eight out of sixteen tables seated and the bar area was filling up. Music hummed from the bar side, keeping the mood upbeat. I made sure to keep checking on the guys in the back, but every time I tried to help, they’d point me back out the door.

  Vinny seemed to function amazingly well for not knowing the kitchen lay out. At one point I came into the kitchen to find him singing to whatever song was playing. When he caught me watching him he looked guilty and started blushing. I just laughed it off and took my order out, thinking he was the cutest guy ever.

  We closed the kitchen at ten, and for the next two hours, I cleaned the dining room, vacuumed, filled condiments, did the closing paperwork, and made sure everything was set up for the next day. Last call was at midnight and by that time, the crowd at the bar area was filtering out. Vinny finished cleaning up the kitchen as I was finishing the last of the closing paper work.

  He stepped into the office door way and looked at me. “You need any help?”

  I shook my head with a sigh, entering some numbers into the calculator. “No, I just need to throw the money in the safe and lock up. I’ll meet you out by the bar?”

  He smiled at me. “Sure.”

  I finished up, locked all the doors, and made sure everything was in order before I finally made it out to the empty bar to find him sitting at the counter waiting for me.

  “Jesse just left. Are you all set?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a soft sigh, pulling my hoodie down over my Malones t-shirt.

  “I had fun today, thanks for letting me help. You have a cool p
lace here. I like the laid back atmosphere.”

  “Yeah it’s pretty fun…”

  I took one last walk around the bar area to make sure everything was in its place. I noticed the pool cues lying on the table, so I put them back in their holder.

  “You wanna have a beer before we go?” he asked.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him and half smiled. A cold beer did sound pretty good. “Sure.”

  “What’s your favorite kind?”

  “Whatever amber ale we have.”

  He got up and moved behind the bar, pulling an amber ale and a beer out of the cooler. “How much do I owe you?”

  “It’s on the house.”

  He shook his head and dropped a ten in the tip jar. “Don’t do me any favors.”

  He twisted the caps off our bottles, slid mine over, and took a seat on one of the bar stools.

  I took a long swig from my beer before I set it on the bar.

  “Have a seat.” he pet the stool next to him. “You worked your ass off tonight. Relax a second.”

  I made sure the front door was locked before I sat down beside him.

  “How did you do on tips?”

  “I made forty-five.”

  “Not bad.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll just give it to my mother, she needs it more than I do.” I sipped my beer again and looked around. “It’s so weird. I actually miss working here. I never thought I would.”

  He smiled and took a swig of his beer. “It’s going to be your baby some day, right? You better learn to love it.”

  I chewed my lower lip and looked over at him. “You know about our financial situation?”

  “You mentioned it before.”

  I drew a breath and tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “It’s pretty bad, we should have closed it a long time ago. My mother hasn’t paid herself in years.”

  He winced. “Damn. How are you guys staying open?”

  I laughed some and sipped my beer. “I have no idea. I’m not inheriting a great restaurant like you are, Vinny, I’m investing a debt.”

  “If you want I could give you pointers.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think anything can get me out of this sink hole, but you can try.”

  “Well, first off, you guys buy way to much frozen food. You can make your own french fries for half the price of frozen ones. We only buy fresh ingredients at Mazzolas. It tastes better and it cuts costs over half.”

  “My Dad used to do a lot of fresh cooking when he owned it. He always made his own fries and fresh hamburgers. Infact, we were known for the best burgers in town. But ever since the divorce and Mom took it over, she just wanted to make things easier, because life was hard enough as it was, so we went frozen.”

  He nodded. “I can understand that.”

  I sipped my beer again, washing the lump of misery from my throat.

  He nudged his knee against mine. “You’ll turn it around, I know it.”

  I shrugged, watching the suds settle in my bottle. “Who knows.”

  “You know, we almost lost Mazzolas when my dad went to prison.”

  I glanced over at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah, but my mom took care of it, fixed the shit storm my father made…” he said, slowly turning the bottle of beer on the bar. “It’s still not over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced over at me, his gaze serious. “If I tell you, it stays between us.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

  He glanced down at his beer. “We don’t own Mazzolas.”

  I blinked in surprise. “What?”

  He shook his head and looked at me with a smirk. “Shocking right? Well, after my father got arrested and thrown in prison, the Feds came for us. I still remember the day they came to our house in the Hamptons. Mom was at work in downtown Manhattan, she was an attorney back then. I was home alone and they shouted it was the FBI and I needed to open the door. When I finally opened the door they shoved a badge in my face, pushed me up against the wall, and rambled some shit about rights and how they had a search warrant,” he explained with spite in his voice.

  “They made me stay near the door while they fucking ransacked our whole house. They dumped drawers, trashed our closets, took our computers and I couldn’t do shit about it. I knew it was all his fault for being a greedy bastard.”

  I frowned and reached out, resting my hand on his thigh.

  He began tearing the label off his beer bottle. “Anyway, they wanted to take Mazzolas, because it was owned by my father, so instead of giving it up, he sold it to my mother and after they started getting suspicious of her involvement with my father’s embezzlement case, she sold it to someone else.”

  I blinked. “Who’d she sell it to?”

  He took a swig of his beer before answering. “She sold it to Viv’s father.”

  I furrowed my brows. “Does that make Vivian a partial owner?”

  “No, but Italian families take care of one another. We scratch eachother’s back. Loyalty is important to us…well most of us. That’s why Vivian is still working at Mazzolas. She’s looking out for her father’s investment.”

  “So, what does your father say about all this?”

  “He has no idea Viv’s father owns it. We have kept it a secret, but now that he’s getting off on parole soon…he will probably find out and things could get ugly.”

  I blew out a breath and shook my head. “That’s not good…”

  “I know. So, our plan for me to take Mazzolas over before he got out, just got screwed up. We don’t know if Viv’s father will give it to me.”

  “I thought I had a lot of problems.”

  He half smiled. “Now do you see why I‘m still hanging out with Vivian? It’s not because I want her back. It’s because she’s tied into this deal.”

  “Has it always been about Mazzolas, or did you really have feelings for her at one time?” I asked, holding my beer between my palms, intrigued.

  “We were serious, but it slowly unraveled. I just got tired of her shit. She went from someone I loved being around to the last person I wanted to see.”

  “So you don’t think you’ll get back together?”

  “I don’t plan on it.”

  “Why don’t you just tell her that, instead of leading her on?”

  “Because it doesn’t work that way. If I piss her off, her father might decide not to sign over Mazzolas to me. So, I have to keep playing along.” I watched him finish off his beer and slide the bottle aside.

  “How long do you have to keep playing this game with her?”

  “As long as it takes to get my restaurant, which I hope to be sooner than later.”

  I finished off my beer and set the empty bottle beside his.

  “Do you think I’m playing games with you, too?” he asked.

  My cheeks burned and I shrugged. ”I hope not. Are you?”

  “No.” He watched me, his gaze soft. “You’re about the only honest thing I have left, Autumn.”

  I stared at him and smiled a little, my heart flip-flopping. “Why do you keep pushing me away then?”

  He looked down at the bar top. “Because I’m afraid of what might happen if I don’t.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head with a short laugh, rubbing his hand over the back of his head. “You deserve better than me. I don’t want to end up hurting you.”

  I watched him and laughed. “You’re kidding right? I deserve better? I’m thankful you even cared to look at me in the first place. I’m nothing compared to you and everyone you know.”

  “Why do you think that?” he asked, scowling. “Just because you aren’t rich? Material possessions don’t mean shit when it comes to a person’s quality. What everyone thinks they know about you doesn’t mean shit to me. I know the truth.”

  I frowned at him. “Actually what everyone else thinks does matter, Vinny. Honestly, Vivian is right about me. I h
ave nothing to offer you. I’m a poor, small town girl, with a failing bar.”

  He grabbed my shoulders and turned me so I was facing him. “Look, you might come from a small town and not a lot to get by on, but Vivian has nothing on you as far as everything else goes.”

  “She’s prettier.”

  “Not to me.”

  I drew a breath and looked down, rubbing my burning cheek. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  “I’m not. The truth is…” he brought my chin up so he could look into my eyes, “I’ve never met a more down-to-earth, honest, fun, sweet, smart girl like you, Autumn. All those qualities make you beautiful to me. There are hundreds of Vivian’s in the world, but you’re one of a kind. I realized it the day we met, and the only thing that is holding me back from being with you is that I don’t want to get you into this mess I call my life. I know what happened last night in my dorm room was wrong, and I feel like a complete dick for doing it. I led you on, but I couldn’t help it. Do I stop trying to fight what’s happening between us, or do I just say fuck it and let the chips fall where they may?”

  “I think you know what my answer is, Vinny.” I said, staring into his eyes.

  “I need you to understand that if we take this to the next level, I need to keep Vivian around until Mazzolas is mine. That means we can’t be official until it’s all over. Can you handle that?”

  His intense gaze laced with concern burned into mine as he waited for my answer.

  I gave a simple nod, afraid to speak, in fear that whatever came out of my mouth would ruin everything.

  Sighing in relief, he offered me a genuine smile. He pulled me into him and pressed his warm lips against my ear. “After last night, I only want to be the reason you’re smiling, not the reason you’re crying.”

  I closed my eyes as chills ran down my spine and his warm lips traveled over my neck. He looked into my eyes with a smirk on his face. “Would you kiss me already?”

  I leaned in and pressed my lips against his in a deep lingering kiss that sent my heart soaring. I lost track of time as we kissed and caressed one another until we were both breathing unsteadily.

  “You wanna play some pool?” he asked all of a sudden.