What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 5)

by Cathryn Fox

  Amy considered herself lucky to not only be part of the restaurant, but lucky that Uncle Tom was willing to listen to her ideas and give her some free reign about the place. He was avoiding retirement because he said it was the fastest way to the grave. He didn’t care about the money. The sad truth was that the restaurant was all Uncle Tom had. His wife, Bernadette, died long before Amy was even born. They had been high school sweethearts, who married a week after graduating high school, and, side by side, built the restaurant. She died of a brain tumor in her early twenties. Uncle Tom never remarried nor had a girlfriend. It also meant he never had any children, thus the reason all his love and focus went to his niece, Amy.

  After looking at the clock on the office wall, Amy looked to the kitchen. Everything was a well oiled machine, although it had taken a couple years to get it to this point. There was a lot hiring and firing that Amy had done. There were tense moments and plenty of tears as she had made tough decisions to let some people go that she wished she could help. Some people were best off finding a way to help themselves.

  “Amy? Amy, I need you.”

  Amy stepped from the office and saw one of her sous chefs, Madison Norvak. Madison was young, beautiful, a hell of a chef, but so nervous and on edge all the time. It bothered Amy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re out of tails,” Madison said.

  “Out of tails? As in lobster tails?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We can’t be,” Amy said.

  “There’s none in the kitchen.”

  “Did you check the basement?”

  Madison’s jaw dropped. “Oh… yeah…”

  Amy smiled and touched Madison’s shoulders. “We have beautiful storage in the basement. It cost tens of thousands of dollars to build. I could be driving a fancy sports car right now, but instead my car is in the shop getting fixed. Do you know why?”

  “So we can have storage in the basement,” Madison said.

  “That’s right. Calm down and take a breath. I know we’re busy, Madison, but it’s all under control.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  Madison hurried away and smashed her hip off a counter as she cut a corner too tight. She let out a cry and grabbed her hip but didn’t stop moving. Amy laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t remember if she was ever that excited in her early twenties like Madison. That felt like a lifetime ago. A lifetime when she had a lot of fun, a little romance, and not much responsibility. Now she had to deal with the break-in on her car that occurred two nights ago. Someone had smashed the driver’s window and trashed her car. Nothing was stolen and it seemed like a random break-in more than anything else. Her car was getting repaired and while she knew she could ask to borrow one of Uncle Tom’s cars, she had been walking to and from work the past couple days and nights. It didn’t bother her, she enjoyed walking. The walk through town gave her human interaction. Stuck in a kitchen all day, everyday, sometimes made Amy wonder what she was actually doing with her life. She created menus and cooked food that people wanted, but she never got to see the absolute best part, which was to see a customer eat her food. Hear their reaction. Know if they spoke about the meal after they left the restaurant.

  Lately, Amy had grown a small obsession with baking. She had always handled the dessert menu for Tommy Two’s. That was her first big time job when she turned eighteen. Uncle Tom had been ordering in frozen desserts that were simply terrible. Amy’s first attempts at desserts weren’t much better but they were at least fresh. She had perfected a few recipes that satisfied people, but now she had been adding more and more. Just for fun. Because she had nothing else to really do.

  Amy didn’t want to think about it. She walked through the kitchen and kept a close eye on her team as they worked fast and efficient. She took her spot behind the grill and studied the tickets, then the grill, making sure everything was cooking properly and on time. She trusted everyone around her and that was the most important thing.

  The murmur of conversation continued with everyone discussing orders, timing, what needed to be done, what was coming up next. It was like music to her ears.

  She saw Uncle Tom walking through the restaurant, always available for customers needs. If someone needed a refill or had a question, Uncle Tom was there to answer and help. He never made a table wait for their server, he took care of it. He didn’t just have the appearance of the owner, he had the appearance of a guy who loved the restaurant.

  Uncle Tom walked toward the kitchen and came in. He looked at Amy with his big, brown eyes and then motioned for the office.

  “Just two,” he called out.

  That was his famous line – just two. It meant he wanted two minutes of your time. It was how the restaurant got its name – Tommy Two’s. When Uncle Tom started his stand, everyone knew him as the guy shouting just two! from behind the grill. Everything in his life was based around two minutes.

  Amy looked to one of her chefs, Jeff, and said, “I’ll be back in a few. You know his two minutes.”

  Jeff laughed. “I know.”

  “Make sure that scampi is ready when the filet is. Don’t forget the order of extra shrimp, too.”

  “Got it. I can read the tickets.” Jeff winked. A subtle way of telling Amy to calm down and walk away. For every ounce of Uncle Tom that didn’t want to control the entire restaurant as his own, Amy had the exact opposite. Thanks to the years of turnover and untrustworthy employees, she had developed sometimes thicker than needed skin. But her team now understood it and knew how to deal with her.

  “Thanks, Jeff,” Amy said.

  She walked to the office and leaned against the doorframe.

  “You called for me?”

  Uncle Tom put up two fingers. “Just two, okay?”

  “I’m right here. What’s going on?”

  “Come in. Sit down.”

  Amy stepped into the office and shut the door. “This is serious. You’re either firing me or giving me the restaurant.”

  Uncle Tom chuckled. “Nah. If I was going to fire you, I would have when you threw that burger at the one waitress years ago.”

  Amy blushed. Uncle Tom always brought that up. It had been a bad day and night, and the waitress in question had come forward to say she had been sleeping with Amy’s boyfriend at the time. Amy was barely twenty-two and she lost her cool for a second. Since she couldn’t get to the waitress’s hair through the food window, she improvised. She threw a partially cooked burger at the waitress.

  Whoops.

  “And I’m not giving you the restaurant either,” Uncle Tom said. “Hell, I’d sell it before I gave it away.”

  “You know I couldn’t afford to buy this place.”

  “Perfect,” Uncle Tom said and smiled.

  “Maybe I need a raise,” Amy teased.

  Uncle Tom scoffed. He put his hand on a bunch of paperwork on the desk. This would be the time when he’d begin to lecture Amy on the costs of running a restaurant. How a three hundred dollar check didn’t mean he put three hundred dollars in his pocket. Amy had been listening to the same speech since she was twenty.

  “I’m playing around,” Amy said. “What do you need from me?”

  “Hope you don’t get mad at me…”

  Amy opened her mouth to ask what her Uncle Tom could have possibly done to make her mad when he stood and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a dark purple cell phone and tossed it to the desk. Amy’s eyes widened as she casually touched her pockets and found that her pockets were empty. She had left her cell phone out front, again. Uncle Tom had a few pet peeves, Amy leaving her cell phone around the restaurant being one of them.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said. “I was in a hurry.”

  She reached for her phone and Uncle Tom put his hand on hers. “I don’t care about that. Well, actually, I do. But that’s not what I’m worried about right now.”

  “You’re worried? About what?”

  “I didn’t mean to look,” Uncle Tom said
, “but when the damn thing kept going off, I wasn’t sure if someone was hurt or what.”

  “It kept going off?” Amy asked.

  “Someone named Denny,” Uncle Tom.

  His eyes squinted and his lips puckered. She swallowed and looked down to her uncle’s aging hand. He still had all his strength.

  “Denny,” Amy said.

  “Yeah, Denny. Is that…”

  “Yeah,” Amy whispered. “That’s the one.”

  Or who Amy thought was the one for a little while. The relationship wasn’t built on love or even lust. It was built on Denny being a bad boy and Amy being a good girl. They balanced each other out until they didn’t. Denny couldn’t keep his hands off other women and Amy couldn’t imagine her life without Denny. Things had ended a couple months ago when Uncle Tom had to physically throw a drunk Denny out of the restaurant. Since then, Amy received a random text here and there. Nothing threatening, just typical Denny stuff, written with dark context.

  “Let me ask you something,” Uncle Tom said, “are you sure your car wasn’t broken into by someone you know?”

  The question caught Amy off guard. “Let me see my phone.”

  Uncle Tom moved his hand and Amy looked down at it. She pressed a button and then opened her messages. There were five in total from Denny.

  Need a ride, baby?

  Don’t forget what’s broken can be replaced… and broken again…

  Those were the two that scared Amy the most. She tried to smile through it, but her pale face said otherwise.

  “I should have knocked the guy out,” Uncle Tom said.

  “It’s okay,” Amy said. “He’s all talk. Just ignore him.”

  “And you expect to walk home tonight from here?”

  Amy touched her uncle’s shoulder.

  “I’ll be fine,” Amy said. “I can take care of myself.”

  However, the fear that raced through her body said… no, I can’t.

  Chapter Three

  Luke sat on the sidewalk shielding himself with the tour bus while every passing car slowed down to see what had happened and who would be in such a large bus like that. Plenty of people honked their horns when they saw one of the guys from Falling Tuesday pacing around or near the bus.

  “Wild ride, huh?” Mack approached Luke and then sat next to him.

  “That was a little scary,” Luke said. “I never had a tire blow out like that…”

  “It’s a big tire, man,” Mack said.

  “I don’t know how we didn’t end up flipping.”

  “Luck,” Mack said. “That’s what life is made up of. Good luck. Bad luck. Dumb luck. Shit luck. It’s always luck.”

  “Yeah, well, what are we going to do about that radio thing?” Luke asked. “Seems like bad luck for those involved there.”

  “Did you talk to Frank yet?”

  Luke nodded. “I called. He panicked. He’s working on something for us.”

  “Well, boys, looks like we’re in a little bit of trouble,” Gray said as he came walking from the front of the bus.

  “What kind of trouble?” Luke asked.

  “Don’t think it’s just a simple tire change,” Gray said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. The bus driver is up there complaining. The tow truck guy is looking at things and doesn’t seem too positive about it. Looks like this bad boy is getting hauled out of here.”

  “Oh, shit,” Luke said.

  “I guess we’re hitchhiking,” Mack laughed. “Just like the old days.”

  “I better call Frank again,” Luke said.

  “You sit, relax,” Mack said. “I’ll call him.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…” Mack looked up at Gray, then back down to Luke. “Your voice sounds scratchy right now. I think you did something to it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Luke snapped.

  He heard it then. His voice growled for a second. It hurt, too, but he hid it.

  “It’s cool,” Gray said. “You were starting to sing when the tire blew out. Probably just scared yourself for a second. You need water and you’ll be fine.”

  “That’s right,” Luke said.

  Mack slowly stood and reached for his phone. Luke felt bad for snapping at his bandmates but he didn’t anything about it. Gray stood for a few seconds and then casually started to step back and slip away. Luke put his elbows on his knees and stared at the tour bus. What the hell were the odds of blowing a tire like that? How dangerous was it? Luke exhaled a deep breath and watched his breath dance in front of him. It was cold outside. Each breath he took in reminded him of how raw his throat felt. Swallowing the cold air didn’t help much either. The first few minutes after the bus came to a skidding stop, Luke ran on adrenaline. He made sure everyone was okay on the bus and then got everyone off. The located the busted tire and by then the driver had already been on the phone for help.

  Luke cupped his hands and blew warm air into his palms. There was nothing he could do now except wait. Each second that went by was a second his body could stop and rest. The show the night before had been absolutely crazy. The fans were like nothing he’d ever seen in his life. Each show grew bigger and wilder than the show before. Thanks to cell phones, fans were able to see pictures and videos of Fallen Tuesday. They knew what to expect and knew how to react when Luke would appear on stage, or in the middle of the crowd, walking through the fans, singing and having fun. In the heat of the moment during a show, there was nothing Luke could do to control himself. That was the passion for music that continuously burned inside his body since he was a little kid.

  Just thinking about the show had Luke’s heart racing. He loved the energy of the fans. The power of the music. The reality that they were the headlining band. They were the band right then thanks to Chasing Cross stepping away from the tour and disappearing into their own lives. Everything was centered around Fallen Tuesday. Luke couldn’t be the one to stop that.

  “Okay, good news and bad news,” Mack called out as he walked toward Luke.

  He had the rest of the band with him. They stood around Luke, forcing Luke to look up at them. For a second, Luke thought he was in the middle of an intervention.

  “What’s the good news?” Jake asked.

  “Good news is that we get to shack up in a hotel about ten minutes from here,” Mack said. “Top floor. Couple rooms. Awesome.”

  “Bad news?” Luke asked.

  “We’re not going to make the live interview and gig,” Mack said. “There’s no way they’d get all the equipment out there on time.”

  “Where the hell are we?” Trent asked.

  “Ten minutes outside Syracuse,” Mack said.

  “Where’s the radio station?”

  Mack looked at Trent, shaking his head. “I just said there’s no way they’d get the equipment there on time. We were in a tour bus accident, okay? Frank already talked to whoever he had to talk to. Frank’s going to call us when we’re settled in the hotel and we’ll do the interview from there.”

  “From a hotel, huh?” Gray asked with a big smile on his face.

  “It’s been a while since we stayed in a hotel,” Luke said.

  “It’s only one night,” Mack said. “By the time we play our Syracuse show, the tour bus will be fixed and we’ll back on the road. That’s not my problem though.”

  “That’s Frank’s problem,” Luke said.

  “It better be for what he collects off us,” Jake scoffed.

  The band laughed and Mack put a hand out for Luke. Luke took it and stood up.

  “It’s damn cold out here,” Gray said.

  “We’ll be warm soon enough,” Luke said. “In the comfort of a hotel.”

  “I can’t wait,” Mack said. “Too bad we won’t have instruments, you know? We could sit around and keep working on that song.”

  Luke looked at the tour bus. Yeah… too bad…

  “We could call someone, can’t we?” Gray asked. He looke
d over his shoulder. “Or better yet…”

  Gary ran at the bus.

  “Whoa!” Jake yelled.

  The rest of the band tried to protest but Gray was already inside the bus. Luke knew the move couldn’t have been smart or safe, but he wasn’t in any position to scream, or tell someone about smart or safe actions. If Luke was smart and safe, he’d be resting somewhere letting his throat heal.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Trent asked.

  Luke looked at the bassist. “What do you think? Taking a piss?”

  Mack busted out laughing. “I like this side of Luke. Throat scratchy. Attitude on edge. Maybe this is a new look for the band. We can be grungy.”

  “Shut up, Mack,” Luke said. “I hope Gray doesn’t hurt someone in there.”

  “He’s fine,” Mack said.

  Gray appeared a few seconds later with two guitar cases in his hands. He put them down, gave a thumbs up, and then went back into the bus.

  “Hope he grabs the booze,” Mack said. “Or else the charge on the hotel room is going to be killer.”

  “That’s all you think about,” Luke said. “Drinking and writing music.”

  “Just until we’re done with the tour and I get to my bike,” Mack said. He slapped Luke on the back and smiled. “Let me go get those guitars out of the way.”

  Mack got two guitars as Gray came out with three more guitars. They weren’t in cases, but Gray managed to carry two in one hand by their necks.