Not anymore.
I was past the point of holding on to the anger – most of it, anyway. I realized now that surrounding myself with my friends and family, cherishing their love and support was so much more important than being pissed. But, I was also past the point of being a marionette. If my father didn’t like my decisions… I’d find a way to be okay with that.
“Well,” I said, when we finally let each other go. “I really do need to check in with Quinn, so I’m gonna head out.”
“What are you doing for dinner tonight baby?” My mother asked, stepping into place beside my father. “I got fresh tomatoes and greens from the garden this morning…”
I twisted my mouth to the side. “Mama, stop, you know where I’ll be,” I laughed.
She pulled me into another hug before I turned to leave, and just before I stepped out the door, my father spoke up again. “When do you start your job at Pot Liquor?”
“They have a re-opening planned for about three months from now, but I start in two. They want me to come in for training on their recipes and everything.”
He nodded. “Okay. Well… if you aren’t doing anything between now and then… we sure could use some managerial help around here.”
Tightness swept across my chest, and my hands balled into involuntary fists at my sides. Still, I tried to keep my face neutral. “Oh. Is Harlan not working out?”
His eyebrows went up. “What? Oh, no, Harlan is an excellent manager. Your mother has just been bugging me about cutting back on my hours spent around here, but I can’t heap all of that extra work on Harlan.”
I swallowed hard. “Of course not.”
“So can you do it?” he asked, smiling as if he was handing me a winning lottery ticket. “Help your old man out a little until you start your new job? It won’t be too much on you, not more than you can handle. And I’ll still be around to answer your questions. And of course, you’ll have Harlan.”
I suppressed a strong urge to roll my eyes, wishing he would quit saying “Harlan”. That name wasn’t an incentive to me. But… “Sure, daddy,” I said, forcing a grin. “If you need me, of course I’ll help out.”
Two.
“I need you to keep a look out for my baby girl.”
I was sitting right across from Stacks, so I kept my face neutral, but those words made my heart flip over in my chest.
“I’m not gonna be around forever,” he continued, picking up a carafe of warm bourbon cream to drizzle over the tall stack of pancakes piled on his plate. “It’s been what, eight years? I’ve grown to think of you as a son in that time, and well… I want you to understand that means I expect you to treat Sydnee as if she’s your little sister.”
Immediately, I choked on the swig of orange juice I was taking, because… what? Stacks as a father figure? Absolutely. Without question. But I’d never, ever, ever looked at Sydnee as a sister.
Ever.
I was twenty years old when I first walked into Stacks looking for Sidney Scott. For as long as I could remember, my own father had entertained me with stories about the things he got into with his old army buddy. Their careers had taken different paths and life happened, so they lost touch, but my father talked about him so often that I grew up feeling like I knew him too. Every few months, my father swore that as soon as he had a chance, he was going to look Sidney up and reach out, but… that chance never came.
Chronic liver disease took his life before he got around to reaching out to his old friend. So, I looked him up, and as soon as I found him, I got on a plane. I don’t know what I was expecting. I was just a twenty-year-old kid grieving the loss of his father and looking for something to connect me to him. I didn’t call ahead, email, nothing. I walked into Stacks on a random Tuesday morning, and when Sidney Scott looked up from his place at the grill and spotted me standing in the door, his mouth dropped open like he’d seen a ghost.
“You look just like your father.”
He said that, then stopped what he was doing to embrace me like he’d always known who I was. He got emotional when he sat me down in his office to ask why I was there, and I had to inform him that his old friend was no longer alive. And then… he asked me what I was doing, where I was staying, if I needed a job.
Well… I was in school, and working, until my dad got so sick that he needed more care. School got dropped in favor of working more, to pay a nurse that the insurance didn’t cover. I’d had my own place since I was seventeen, and ready to get away from my mother and her fourth husband since my parents divorced when I was six. But I moved in with my dad to save money and to be closer, but now that he was gone, and had left it to me, I’d put it up for sale. And I was at Stacks, on a Tuesday, thousands of miles north of where both of my jobs were located, so I was pretty sure I was going to miss both of those shifts.
Yeah.
Definitely needed a job.
So I stayed.
I worked, and learned the business of Stacks, the restaurant, under his tutelage, while he embraced me like the son he told me he’d always wanted, but never had. Like my parents, he and his Mrs. Natalie – his wife— had a child late in life, and ended up with just one – a girl.
Sydnee.
He’d even named her after himself, jokingly referred to her as a “junior” when he wasn’t calling her Short Stack. She was away from home when I started at Stacks, off at her first year of college. It was easily apparent that though he wanted a son, but got a daughter, Stacks never made her feel less than. I hadn’t met her in person, but the pictures I saw of the pretty brown-skinned girl oozed privilege. Sydnee at piano recitals, horseback riding classes, ballet, vacationing in Paris… the Scotts spared no expense when it came to their only child. Anybody with eyes could see that Sydnee was another beautiful, spoiled girl, who would make an excellent trophy wife for some equally spoiled rich dude.
For a long while, I never saw her in person. She was traveling, and Stacks and Mrs. Natalie went to see her where she was. But that wasn’t really my concern, so whatever. Sydnee was just my boss’ daughter, which equaled automatic disinterest to me.
She breezed into Stacks one day after I’d been there for almost two years, home from college for the summer. Some of the regular customers and employees gathered around her like she was a celebrity before I could get a good look, so I just kept on cooking. If I had to guess, her interest level in the hired help had to be less than zero, and I already knew she was cute. I had work to do.
But then…
I looked up just as she was separating herself from the crowd, on Stacks’ arm. He was beaming like I’d never seen him smile before, and she was… damn.
“Pretty” wasn’t a good word for Sydnee. That smooth, glowing brown skin, and big brown eyes, lips that made me want to grab her by the face and kiss her… fucking gorgeous was more like it.
She smiled right at me – and damn, that smile – then walked up, and I stopped breathing. “You must be Harlan. Daddy cannot stop talking about you,” she said, extending her hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, wiping my hand on my apron before I returned the gesture. “Yeah, nice to meet you too.”
Stacks grinned proudly as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. With the other arm, he embraced me. “I feel good y’all,” he said, to the customers at the counter. “These two young people make an old man feel like he’s done something right.”
“These your kids?” one person asked, and Stacks grinned.
“You know… yes. Yes, they are.”
He squeezed my arm when he said it, and met my eyes with a look that to me, communicated a whole lot. “Yes, I mean that. I consider you my own son.” – But also –“Yes, I know she’s beautiful. Now don’t cross that line.”
So I didn’t. She was off at college most of the time anyway, plus a simultaneous stint at culinary school. We kind of tiptoed around each other when we were in the same vicinity – quiet admiration, mixed with the knowl
edge that her father wouldn’t have been pleased about a romantic pairing between us. Girlfriends and boyfriends came and went for both of us, but we formed something of a platonic friendship.
From a distance, Sydnee was relatively easy not to think about as anything other than the boss’ daughter. All I had to do was convince myself she wasn’t as attractive, wasn’t as smart, wasn’t as funny as I remembered. And somehow, it worked.
Until she came home to stay.
Then, her magnetism was impossible to ignore. Little by little, over those two years between when she came home, and then left again, I gave in to it. Before I realized what was happening, I’d developed a legitimate crush on her. I was looking forward to being at Stacks with her at the same time, making excuses to be around her, all of that. And she didn’t seem to mind. Lingering looks turned to subtle flirtation. Passing conversations turned to endless texts and long, late night phone calls. Carefully chosen words turned into moments of vulnerability that we didn’t have with anybody else.
Neither of us made the move to take things further. Not that I didn’t want to, but a sense of uncertainty made me hold back. This was still Short Stack, after all. Daughter of the man who’d taken me under his wing, treated me like family, changed my future. I didn’t take that lightly, and I didn’t take her lightly.
I didn’t really give a damn that my boys would look at me like I was crazy because my single ass wasn’t out plowing through women – not that I’d ever been into that anyway. Before Syd and I got close, of course I dated and had my fun, once my feelings shifted toward romantic, I cut that out. The city was big, yeah, but it still seemed like everybody knew everybody, and I didn’t want anything stupid getting back to Sydnee. I didn’t want her thinking I was that kind of guy, sleeping around while she and I were… connecting. Corny? Yeah, maybe so. But I liked her. I wasn’t dumb enough to mess it up with someone else.
We skirted around it though, and kept it like it was. Not exactly platonic, but not physical either. Not exactly “just” friends, but not dating either. And I was cool with that, because that’s how much she’d grown to mean to me in the last few months before she left – a lot.
As soon a Sydnee walked up and saw that I was sharing the table with her father, she rolled her eyes. Still, she grabbed a plate and silverware from behind the counter and joined us, sliding Stacks’ plate away from him to fill her own after she greeted him. I was surprised I got even the subtle head nod she tossed my way.
“Short Stack, if you’re hungry why don’t you have Jamar fix you something? Or I’m sure Harlan wouldn’t mind,” Stacks said, a concerned scowl on his face as he watched Sydnee take half his remaining pancakes, and most of the bacon piled on his plate.
She shrugged, then slid the significantly emptier plate back to him. “Because you have more than enough, and you know you’re not supposed to be overdoing it with this kind of food anyway. Did you get that email I sent you?”
His scowl deepened. “That healthier choices crap? Nope. Never saw it.”
Sydnee paused, with her pancake-laden fork in mid-air to frown at Stacks. “Daddy, really? You know the subject line, but never saw it? Right.”
She pushed the food into her mouth, and I tried not to watch her too close.
“Just because I read the subject doesn’t mean I saw the content. And I don’t plan to see the content, because I’ve been eating pancakes and bacon for sixty-some odd years, and I’m still here. I don’t have any intention of changing that now.”
He reached for Sydnee’s plate, but she was too quick, sliding it out of his reach. “If you’d make some lifestyle changes, maybe you can be here for sixty more. Did you ever go see a doctor about the –”
“Young lady, I think you need to remember who the parent is here, and who the child is. Mind your business.”
“Daddy.”
“Don’t you daddy me,” Stacks said, shaking his head. “I hope you’re ready to report to work today, because I have a task for you and Harlan.”
Both mine and Sydnee’s eyes went wide, but she spoke up first. “As in… working together?”
“Yes, and I expect it to not be a problem.” Stacks’ expression was stern as he looked between us. “This goes back to the conversation we were having before Short Stack interrupted,” he said to me. “We’re a family—” – I caught the not-so-subtle eye roll from Sydnee – “here, and whatever little issue you two have with each other doesn’t need to interfere with family business. I need you to step up here.”
I nodded, so he’d keep talking, and Sydnee rolled her eyes a little harder.
“We’re gonna try something new,” he said, lifting the carafe of cream sauce. “This was a hit, but I don’t want it to be the only one.” He turned to Sydnee. “Harlan had an idea of doing a seasonal promotion featuring different flavored syrups.”
Sydnee’s nostrils flared, and she shot a look at me that would have left me bleeding on the floor if looks could do that. “Harlan had that idea, did he?”
“Yes indeed,” he said, with a big grin. “And I think it’s a winner.”
Come the fuck on.
I held up my hands. “Wait now, you do remember me being clear that the syrup thing was actually Sydnee’s idea, from a while back, right?”
Stacks shrugged. “What does it matter? The point is that I want to move forward with it. I want you two to bring me five flavors to test. You have a week.”
“But Dadd—”
“But nothing.” Stacks shook his head, then around a mouth full of bacon, said “get it done,” effectively dismissing us.
Sydnee scoffed, then stood from the table to walk off. She got about two steps away before she turned back, snatching up the plate Stacks was already reaching for, and walking away without another word.
Stacks chuckled, then tucked into his breakfast. “That girl is gonna drive some man crazy one day.” He looked at me expectantly, and I forced a grin to my mouth.
“Yeah,” I said, watching her as she dumped the plate behind the counter, then took it to deposit with the other dishes waiting to be washed. “Some man.”
Sydnee looked up as she left the kitchen, catching my gaze before I could look away. The look she gave me was full of contempt, and a similar hurt to one I remembered when she first stopped speaking to me. And just like before, I hadn’t even done anything, but the anger always got somehow directed at me.
She rolled her eyes before she walked out, and all I could do was shake my head.
This was definitely gonna be an interesting week.
Three.
“And now… savasana.”
I inhaled deep, then slowly expelled the air from my lungs as I relaxed onto my yoga mat. Little by little, fingers and toes, then hands and legs, all the way from my hips to my head, I released the tension in my body, letting go of the stress of the day. I closed my eyes, breathing nothing in and everything out, giving in to the mood of the calming music in the background.
I don’t know how long I laid there in the bliss of thinking about nothing, but eventually the music stopped, and I felt gentle hands on my bare shoulders. When I opened my eyes, Astrid and Quinn were hovering over me, both looking amused.
“Hard day?” Astrid asked, lifting an eyebrow.
I pushed out another breath, then closed my eyes again. “You have no idea.”
After my dad’s “big reveal” that morning, that I would have work with Harlan of all people, on my idea, I’d had to step out and take a breather. If I had to work with him, so be it. I would do it to the best of my abilities, accomplish the goal, and keep it moving.
So I made a promise to myself: act just as unaffected as Harlan did. He wanted to act like nothing had ever happened between us, like everything was cool? Fine. I could too. Instead of hot anger, I’d dealt him cold indifference all day while we brainstormed flavor profiles and ideas. I didn’t laugh at a single joke. Didn’t crack even a hint of a smile at that easy charm. And I held my breath anytime he
got close to me, for fear my body would betray me with a sigh or shiver. I gave him nothing but icy professionalism, and it had been exhausting.
I’d never been happier to step into a yoga class.
It helped that it was Astrid’s class, so she’d let me savasana as long as I needed to bring some semblance of relaxation. Now that class was over, I felt somewhat better, but still… there was Harlan, back on my mind.
I pushed his face to the recesses of my brain as I rolled up my mat and packed up, then listened to Quinn and Astrid chat as she turned off the lights and locked up the studio. They’d made friends fast, but that’s just how both of them were. Warm, sweet spirits that drew people closer.
The difference though, was in strength of personality, and confidence. Astrid walked with her head high, like she was the queen of everything. She was outgoing, and no-nonsense, and Quinn was… not. She was quieter, over-accommodating. The kind of woman some men chose as targets, who would overlook their bullshit and abuse. My earnest hope was that between me and Astrid, Quinn would gain some newfound confidence.
With my bag and yoga mat secured to my cross-body strap, I looped an arm through each of theirs, and we headed down the street, talking and laughing as we rounded the corner. A smile died on my lips as we approached Fresh Cuts, the door opened, and Harlan, Jamar, and Cason stepped out.
I said a quick, silent prayer that they would just keep walking, but of course, they didn’t. They stood on the sidewalk continuing their conversation, directly in our path.
“What’s wrong with you?” Quinn asked, elbowing me in the side. “You’re squeezing my arm like you’re trying to break it.”
On the other side of me, Astrid giggled. “It’s because of Harlan,” she said, peeking around my back to make eye contact with Quinn. “His energy is arousing her.”
“It is no—”
“Ohhh,” Quinn said, like I hadn’t even been talking. “Which one is he?”
“The one in the blue, with his arms crossed.”
Love You Forever (Serendipitous Love Book 5) Page 2
