99 Problems

by Black, Becky;

  “On the house.”

  “You’ve got great wrist action,” Rob said, admiring the spiral.

  Chez looked down, lashes sweeping his cheeks, a blush and a smile on his face.

  “Been practicing since I was twelve.”

  “I’ll bet.” Rob pulled the Flake out and bit the ice cream—covered end. Bits of flaky chocolate went up his sleeve.

  “I’m sorry about not calling you back,” Chez said. “I promise I am still thinking about it. It’s just…you know how my family is.”

  “I know.” Rob dipped the Flake in the ice cream again and ate it in a couple more bites. “But I can’t understand why you don’t come out to them now. It’s the perfect time.”

  “How the hell do you make that out? The perfect time to tell them will be when Satan is ice skating to work.”

  Rob chuckled but went serious again and shook his head. “Think about it, Chez. What can they do to you? Be angry, curse you and stuff, yeah. But they can’t throw you out, can they? Who else is going to run the business? Your dad can’t. Teo’s gone. You’re the family’s only chance.”

  “So?”

  “So haven’t you realised what a position of power that puts you in?”

  Clearly he hadn’t. Chez stared at Rob like the man was speaking Greek, but understanding and then deep thought chased the bafflement from his face. He didn’t speak for a long time. Rob gave him the moment, finishing the ice cream in a few licks. When he crunched into the wafer cone, the sound snapped Chez out of his trance.

  “I never thought of it that way,” Chez said.

  “Well, you go on thinking about it,” Rob said. “Don’t rush into anything. I don’t say it will be easy. Just that you’ll never have a better time to do it.” He finished up the rest of the cone in a few bites and licked ice cream and chocolate off his fingers. “But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I was going to do this more formally, if you’d answered my calls and let me take you to lunch or something, but needs must. Here goes.”

  “You sound like you’re going to propose to me.”

  “Hah! Not to you. To Bianchi’s. I want us to look at a merger.”

  “A merger? Bianchi’s and Catteneo’s? Are you mad?”

  “You’re not going to survive much longer. You said it yourself.”

  Chez scowled at him. “You shouldn’t…use anything I said to you that night.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not taking advantage of that. This has been on my mind for months.”

  “And is that why you’ve been…courting me?”

  “No. I promise you that is entirely down to how incredibly hot you are.” Rob hoped for a reaction to that, but Chez just stared stonily at him, arms folded, body tense. “Talk to me, Chez.”

  “Do you mean a merger or a takeover?”

  “A merger. I promise. Your company might be…weaker, but you have expertise we don’t have.”

  “Nana’s ices.”

  “They deserve a wider distribution. Catteneo’s can make that happen. Anyway, even if it was a takeover, that’s better than oblivion, right?” When Chez didn’t answer, Rob pressed on with an argument he hoped might, if not clinch it, at least give Chez food for thought. “You’d be able to go back and do what you’re best at. Though maybe with a better job title. Head of Research and Development, eh?”

  Chez half smiled at that, but then shook his head. “My family would never go for it.”

  “We just got through explaining the position of power you’re in, right?”

  “Not powerful enough to make them buy this.”

  “At least let me draw up a proposal and make it a formal offer. Come on, Chez. You know it’s the right thing. You told me yourself that you’re not cut out for running a business. I agree with you.”

  Chez pushed away from the fridge he leaned against, his arms no longer folded and defensive, his fists clenched at his sides, glaring. Any hope Rob had that he might get a good-bye kiss before he left disappeared.

  “I told you that in confidence.” Chez ground the words out. “In a private moment. I don’t appreciate you using it against me.”

  “That’s not my intention,” Rob said. “I swear. But Chez, you’re unhappy and you don’t have to be. I can make it change.”

  “Why do you care about whether or not I’m happy?”

  “Because I like you. I want to be with you.”

  The words were out before he could stop them. Chez took a step back, staring. Rob flushed, heat prickling up his back, sweeping up his neck. His face grew hot.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’d better go.” He turned for the door. “Are you going to be at the motor show at the weekend?”

  “Yes. I—I mean, we’ll be there.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you then.” The wind snatched away the last of his words. He could only wish it had done the same to those earlier ones.

  * * * *

  The motor show, on August Bank Holiday weekend, had grown from just a gathering of vintage car enthusiasts to a three-day festival, with a show ring for displays, entertainment, fairground rides, sideshows, and music. And, of course, ice cream.

  On Saturday morning, early but with the sun already blazing down in a promising fashion, Rob drove at the head of a convoy of five of Catteneo’s ice cream vans. As they approached the gate into the large open field where the show was held, another convoy approached from the other direction. The Bianchi’s vans. The show was so big and potentially profitable that just one firm having all the pitches was considered unfair, and the council made them split the licence to trade equally. Five vans each. The rest of their vans would all be out, the town and the beach crammed and busy, every van pitched and hopefully making a fortune from people enjoying the last big weekend of the summer.

  The two convoys stopped, the lead vans facing each other at the field entrance. Chez was driving at the head of his convoy. Rob smiled but didn’t know if Chez could see him well enough to see it. He flashed his lights, giving way. Chez raised a hand in acknowledgement and turned in through the gate. Rob followed and the rest of the drivers got it, taking turns, Bianchi’s, Catteneo’s, Bianchi’s, Catteneo’s, until all ten vans were inside, following the direction of an official in a high-vis jacket.

  Rob and Chez both jumped out of their vans and came over to the official. Chez gave Rob a glare that felt appropriate from a Bianchi to a Catteneo. Rob just grinned back.

  “Good weather forecast,” Rob said. “Potentially great weekend.”

  “Here,” the official said before Chez could reply. He handed over maps of the site. “There’s your pitches. Sort out for yourselves who gets which one.”

  That could be a mistake, Rob thought. That had led to actual punch-ups in the old days as their people fought over the best pitches. His dad and uncles still told war stories. They collected the passes the official gave them and walked back towards the vans. Rob marked his map with a pencil and showed it to Chez.

  “Okay with you?”

  Chez looked at it critically. Rob had tried to be equitable, sharing out Cs and Bs on the map fairly among the good and not-so-good pitches for the vans.

  “We’ve always had the pitch by the kids’ paddling pool,” he said.

  “We’ve always” was one of Chez’s problems. But Rob refrained from saying so. “Swap you with this one by the waltzer?” There was always a good queue for the most popular of the fairground rides, and in this weather people would be happy to cool off with an ice while they waited.

  “Agreed,” Chez said.

  He marked up his map and split off from Rob to send his people to their spots. Rob watched him walk away, enjoying the view of tight black jeans and white T-shirt. Only stumbling over a bit of rough ground brought him back to what he was supposed to be doing.

  * * * *

  In what Rob deeply and profoundly hoped was not a coincidence, he and Chez ended up in the vans pitched on either side of the big gate from the car park into the fest
ival. Potentially the best location on the site, ready to grab people before they’d spent all their money on sideshows, rides, and chips. A nearby hot food van gave out a scent of hot dogs and onions that made Rob hungry as he finished setting up in time for the eleven o’clock opening. Now and again he glanced over to see Chez busy, too, setting the cones out. And—ah, interesting—opening a pack of cardboard cups. Plain white, not branded yet. Was he going to serve Liliana’s ices in those?

  The answer was yes, Rob saw, when the hordes descended and, when he had the chance to look up between customers, he saw several people leaving Chez’s van eating from one of the cups with a little plastic spoon. Good, so Chez was trying what Rob had advised. He was open to what Rob had to say. About anything other than ice cream, Rob had to wonder.

  Noon passed and Rob was going great guns. Sweltering people, many of them pink from the sun, flocked around his and Chez’s vans for ice creams and lollies. Rob gave out free cardboard sun hats to any especially pink-looking kids along with their ice creams—branded, of course. Then a sudden rush of customers appearing disgruntled made him look across the way to Chez’s van.

  There was no queue by Chez’s van. The serving window was closed. Rob could see Chez up to something inside the van, looking a bit frantic. What the hell? Rob, with the ease of years of practice, went on serving while calling Chez’s mobile. No answer. Dammit. He had a brainwave and gave a blast of his chime. “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” rang out across the field.

  “We already know you’re here, mister,” a boy said.

  Rob grinned at him and shut off the chime. But it had the right effect. Chez stopped flailing about and looked across at Rob. Rob held up his phone, mouthed “call me.” In a second, holding the phone between shoulder and ear while he made two soft-serves, he was speaking to Chez.

  “What?” Chez practically barked.

  “What’s wrong?” Rob asked.

  “I don’t have time for—”

  “Talk to me, Chez.” Rob handed over the ices and took the money.

  “My electrical system broke down. My freezer is off. The soft-serve machine is dead. I’m screwed!”

  “Calm down,” Rob said, hearing the rising panic in Chez’s voice. “Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll come and see if I can help.”

  He took the next order, extracted a couple of ice lollies from the freezer, and made another call.

  “Hannah,” he said. “I need a spell. Are you free?” He had Hannah as his floating van person today. Instead of working her own van, she would spend the day working short stints in the others to give the rest of the staff time to go for breaks.

  “Yeah. Darren’s just come back off lunch.”

  “Great. Get over here fast, please.”

  “Five minutes, boss.”

  She was there in three. Rob handed over to her, jumped out of the van, and ran over to Chez’s. When he tapped on the door, Chez wrenched it open.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I said I’d come see if I could help,” Rob said. “Can I?”

  Chez nodded and stepped back, letting Rob climb in. He had the full-on deer-in-the-headlights look, eyes wide. Rob quickly got down to business checking out the system. He checked fuses, he isolated different appliances. Nothing. This would take a mechanic to sort out. The electrics for the whole van were down.

  “I can’t even drive it back to the depot,” Chez said. “I’ll have to wait for the end of the day and have one of the others tow it back or pay for a tow. Either way I’ll lose all the stock in the freezer.”

  And the day’s takings. On a day like today, that probably came to a couple of thousand quid. No wonder Chez looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

  “No, you’re not losing anything,” Rob said. “Wait here.”

  He jumped back out and ran to his van. The queue had diminished a little, and the people who’d had to come across from Chez’s van were long gone. He climbed back inside and spoke at the window.

  “Folks, small technical problem means we’re going to have to relocate. Just across the way there. Can I ask you all to step away from the van while I move it, please? Thanks for your cooperation. Everyone still in the queue gets their ice cream half price.” He slid the window closed.

  “What are you doing?” Hannah asked, staring at him like he was mad. “What were you doing in that Bianchi’s van?”

  “He’s got a power failure.” Rob slid into the driver’s seat and put the van in gear.

  “Why is that our problem?”

  “It’s…hard to explain,” Rob admitted. “Hang on back there.”

  The van moved, slow over the bumpy ground. He sounded the chimes to make sure people noticed him and kept out of the way. A few minutes later he manoeuvred to nestle right up close, broadside on with Chez’s van. He got Hannah straight back to work serving the people who’d followed the van in a little parade.

  Rob and Chez opened the sliding windows on the side between the vans at the same time.

  “Why are you over here?” Chez asked.

  “Because I don’t have an extension lead long enough to reach from over there.” He nodded at the empty pitch he’d come from.

  “Extension lead?”

  “You’re going to use my electrical system. I can’t get your van going, but you can at least plug your machines in.” He handed over a socket bar on a long extension lead. “Get plugged in before your Magnums melt.”

  Chez stared at him and at the socket bar for a long moment. Then he shook himself and scrambled around on the floor, plugging things in.

  “Oh thank God!” he cried as the freezer’s motor kicked into life. Lights showing the soft-serve machine was working turned on.

  “Excellent,” Rob said, adding a silent prayer that the extra load wouldn’t make his electrical system follow Chez’s in going kaput. “Okay, Bianchi boy, get back to work. It’s going to be a busy afternoon.”

  * * * *

  It proved a very busy afternoon. The weather stayed blazing hot, and Rob and Chez worked flat out. By the time the last of the punters drifted away when the show closed down for the day, they’d stripped both freezers nearly bare of ice lollies—loaning them to each other as they each ran out of the different types. Rob lost count of how many packs of soft-serve mix he’d gone through.

  He finished bagging up his takings to pay into the night safe and looked up into Chez’s van. Chez was leaning against his almost empty freezer, sucking on one of the few ice lollies that remained unsold. Rob could, frankly, watch that show all day. But Chez had a stormy expression on as he gazed moodily off into the distance.

  “Hey,” Rob said. “Want to come with me for a drink?”

  “I have to get the van back in for the mechanic to have a look at it. Get the electrics sorted. I’ll need it back out tomorrow.” He stopped and looked at Rob. “Maybe a late one?”

  Rob smiled and leaned on the window between the two vans. Chez finished his orange lolly, tossed the stick in the bin, and leaned at his window until they were so close Rob could feel his breath, cooled from the ice lolly.

  “Thank you,” Chez said quietly. “You saved my bacon today. You didn’t have to.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “I suppose I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me any—” Before he could finish Chez leaned in and kissed him. The sweetness of the juice on his lips and tongue took Rob’s breath away, as did the boldness of the gesture. There were still a few people around, voices nearby. After a moment, Chez pulled back and Rob sighed. All too brief a kiss. But if Chez did come for a drink with him later…

  “You were right,” Chez said. “I was right. I’m not cut out to run a business. I panicked today, but you stayed calm, and you came up with a solution.”

  “I had the luxury of not being the one with a freezer full of melting stock.”

  Chez leaned in and kissed him again, quick, soft. Sweet and cool. “I think we should negotiate,” Chez said. “A
bout the merger. Just you and me at first, so you can put together a merger proposal my family will accept. I’d endorse it.”

  “Chez, that’s great. We’ll get together next week, start work on it.”

  “It won’t be easy. You’re going to have to help me talk to them.”

  “I’ll help you. About that and…” He rested one hand on Chez’s shoulder. “And anything else you need me to help you with.”

  Chez tipped his head until his hair brushed Rob’s hand, and Rob shivered with the thrill of the touch. They didn’t have an easy ride ahead. His parents might have accepted him as being gay, but Rob couldn’t pretend they would be thrilled about him seeing a Bianchi. He’d have to convince them about the merger, too. Convince them to make it a merger, not a takeover. Not a final triumph over the old rivals. Remind them of the value of the Bianchi name for quality ices—especially Liliana’s award winning recipes. Rob didn’t want Chez to be the defeated enemy.

  He stood, grabbed a couple of cones, and swirled soft ice cream onto them one after the other. He added Flakes and strawberry sauce and handed one to Chez, who stood up, looking puzzled.

  Rob held his cone out towards Chez, lifting it high, and Chez smiled and tapped his cone against it like they were glasses. Rob gave the toast.

  “To Catteneo and Bianchi, and to their very sweet future together.”

  THE END

  ABOUT BECKY BLACK

  Becky likes nothing more than trapping her characters in tricky no-win situations and watching them figure a way out. When not chasing her characters up trees and throwing rocks at them Becky can be found working in an office—where she’s usually drinking tea and thinking about the next rock to throw. For more information, visit her online at beckyblack.wordpress.com.

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

  JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!