“Do not ask Eric. Crap. What the hell’s wrong with Chester, anyway?”
“His girlfriend’s really sick with the flu. He’s taking her to the emergency room.”
Great. Now Jamie couldn’t even be grouchy about it. Well, not publicly. But privately he was going to be grouchy as hell about missing class. And Olivia. She’d gotten all caught up in her work on the brewery expansion, and she seemed to have forgotten the other side of the coin. She was supposed to be having fun. With him.
“All right,” Jamie growled. “I’ll be in before eleven.”
“Okay. Great. Wear the kilt.”
“No. I’m not in the mood.”
“Just wear it. Come on. It’s great for business.”
“I don’t want to wear the damn kilt, okay?” He heard a suspicious clicking sound in the background. “Tessa—”
“Too late. I already tweeted it.”
“Goddamn it! You’d better—” The phone went dead in his ear. Jamie shot it an incredulous glare, then threw it as hard as he could into the mattress. It landed with an unsatisfying, soft plop and barely even bounced.
This damn social networking thing had gone far enough. Jamie stormed to his bathroom and turned on the shower. Not even the sight of the broken towel rack cheered him up today, and he showered as quickly as he could.
He didn’t feel up to the kilt today. Didn’t feel up to the flirtatious comments and outright ogling, but it would be worse if he didn’t wear it after the announcement on Twitter. Fielding disappointment would take twice as much charm, even if most of the women were feigning it.
He pulled on his dark brown kilt, and added a plain black T-shirt as a protest. A damned ineffectual protest, but the black reflected his mood, at least.
Aside from his irritation with Tessa, he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him. He felt restless. Impatient. He wanted to move forward with his plans, but he expected a fight and that weighed heavy on his shoulders. He was off balance. Uncertain. He didn’t know what was coming with his family, his work. And he had no idea what the hell was happening with Olivia.
Jamie grabbed a bagel on the way out the door. He was tired already, and he had a twelve-hour day ahead.
Mist wet his skin as he walked to his truck, but it felt good, cooling him down a little. A little. But his neck was still tight as hell when he walked through the back door of the brewery. Ignoring the sounds of activity coming from the office area, Jamie grabbed an apron and started loading the stacks of dirty glasses into the dishwasher. Thank God the front room didn’t open
for another hour.
Henry came out of the tank room, rolling a bucket and a mop in front of him. “Oh, hey, Jamie. I’ll get those. Next on my list.”
Nodding, Jamie started up the wash he’d loaded, then headed to the front. The doors were still swinging behind him when Tessa pushed through. “Hey, Jamie.”
“Give me the password to the Twitter account.”
“What?” She stopped dead. “Why?”
“Because I’m taking it over.”
“Jamie, no! I’m sorry about the kilt thing, all right? I shouldn’t have done that.”
He shook his head. “I’m done with it. Tomorrow morning I’ll go buy a smartphone. Customer service is part of my job and I need to take care of it. The password, please.”
“You don’t even know how to use Twitter.”
“Give me a little credit, will you? I can figure it out.”
Tessa frowned down at the phone in her hand. “But I like it.”
“Sorry.”
Tessa stomped over and grabbed a slip of paper from under the register. She scrawled out the Twitter account name and the password and handed it over with no grace at all. “Gee, thanks.”
“You have to be entertaining, all right? You can’t just put dry stuff out there. You need to respond to people’s messages and—”