Best Served Cold

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – CHASE

Sam was sitting on the floor, hunched over one of Rae’s cone tables. The sanding machine in his hands made one hell of a noise, and I waited for him to finish sanding the top flat before making myself known.

He tossed sandpaper at me before I could even say a word. “I did the other already. Smooth it all off for me.”

I picked the paper up from the floor and went over to the other table without a word. The sander was already running before I’d even sat on the dirty, dusty ground.

We worked for an hour before either of us spoke again.

“You two back together?” Sam asked, looking over at me.

I nodded once. “Not that she’ll tell you that.”

He barked a laugh. “Why am I not surprised at that at all?”

“Same reason I’m not.” I smirked at him. “She’s a pain in the ass.”

“That she is, son, but so are you. Birds of a feather and all that.”

“I thought I was here to help, not get bullied by an old man.”

Sam laughed again, standing up. “Boy, you’re the one who called me, no matter what you tell that girl. If you call me, you come to help me. Now, what do you want?”

“Can we go sit in the kitchen?”

“No. We got work to do. Spit it out.”

Ornery old man. “I’m closing the store.”

That made him stop. One grey, bushy eyebrow raised in question. “Your store?”

I nodded. “I never opened it to hurt Rae, and now Best Served Cold is almost ready, I don’t see a need to keep the Spoon open any longer. Besides, I don’t really enjoy it that much.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I took a deep breath and met his eyes. “I think we can go into business together.”

Sam folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “You do, do you?”

“Yes,” I said, getting up and putting my hands in my pockets. “You wouldn’t have to do much of anything. You have all this stuff stockpiled here—the birdhouses, the bug hotels—hell, Sam, you even have three sets of end tables over there in the corner taking up the room. You wouldn’t have to show up at the store. We can take all the stuff you make for fun and sell it.”

He tilted his head to the side. “And commission work?”

“Can either be done through you or they can leave requests at the store. We can keep a catalog of your work there.”

“What about the winter?”

“It’s in my tenancy that I don’t have to open November through January. Between the two of us over those months, we could get enough done to last the first few months of the year.”

“And tourists?”

“Make touristy things. Wooden magnets in the shape of the Keys or things that are associated with the island. Cutting boards—people fucking love solid cutting boards. They last for ages.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “Plus, a lot of them drive. They can easily take the bigger things home, or we can arrange to ship at their expense.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a moment. He simply stared at me, then slowly dragged his gaze around the garage. Silence filled the air for a couple of minutes, then he turned his attention back to me. “All right,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff just sitting in this garage that we’ve made, and that isn’t going anywhere. If you think you can shift it from a store, I think it’s worth a try. I’ve meant to do something with all this stuff, so this seems as good a thing as any.”

“Your enthusiasm is infectious,” I said, trying to be flat and sarcastic, but it didn’t work because I knew I was damn well grinning.

I’d had a feeling he’d agree. He was running out of space to put the things he made, and I knew he was spending more money on wood than he was making.

Not that it bothered him. He’d made enough money when he’d earned the ice cream shop, but I knew Nora was getting fed up of not having any garage space at all.

“When are you closing the store?” Sam asked, pushing off the wall and going back to the table.

“Tomorrow.” I wiped my sandpaper over the rounded edge of the top of the table.

“Tomorrow?”

I nodded. “There’s no point keeping it open. I want people to go to Best Served Cold.”

“Damn. Does Rae know yet?”

“No. I wanted to speak to you first.” I looked up. “It might take a few weeks, but we can definitely get it open before the end of the summer.”

“What about the kitchen? That’s a lot of work in a short space of time.”

“I bought all the equipment. I’ll sell it—it shouldn’t be too hard. There are thousands of dollars of freezers and crap back there. I figure it can change into a workshop so I can work on small things during the day.”