Scratch the Surface

“Jere, you gotta hurry!” Her voice was high, strident, and she was waving at me to move faster. “It’s—Kyle’s gonna set the bar on fire.”

Jesus.

Passing Mackenzie, I heard her deep sigh as she followed after me like a duckling. I smiled at Star when she put a hand on my cheek, her fingers curling into my beard for a second before she spun on her heel and bolted away.

“Thank God you’re back,” Oz growled as I passed him. “Fuck you and your fuckin’ three days off, Jere. You need to quit working at that goddamn clinic and be here full-time.”

But that was not my dream. I wanted to help kids. I wanted to get my master’s and be a licensed, clinical social worker, but in the meantime, being a youth counselor at a wellness center for at-risk youth, those struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues, was my passion. The problem was the counselor job was an unlicensed position and didn’t pay much yet, with me only having my bachelor’s degree. Between going to school for my master’s and working there, I couldn’t put in a five-day work week as an assistant manager.

Before I started as a youth counselor, I’d made a lot more money. Overtime was a certainty, with people calling out, and in the fall, as it was now, the restaurant was always slammed. But now, I was technically part-time, without the usual thirty extra hours of double pay—under the table of course. When my bike, my only form of transportation, started acting up, I needed a quick influx of cash, so I’d driven into Sac to hopefully make some money the night before, and ended up, instead, with a man I’d had a hard time leaving in the early hours of the morning.

The way he’d looked at me, trusted me, wanted me again and again, had gutted me. My first instinct was to stay there and talk to him, but who the hell wanted to wake up to the hustler from the night before? Not that he’d paid me, and not that I’d asked, but still…

“Jere?”

“You need to get used to me not bein’ here,” I warned him. “Pretty soon it’s gonna be just you guys and Cheyenne and…Kent?”

“Brent,” he corrected me, flipping me off for good measure.

He’d started on one of the days I was at The Mission, and I’d only gotten his name in passing the last day I worked, when I saw his new-hire paperwork on the desk. Of course, I had left his folder open in the top desk drawer so Cheyenne could see his hourly rate in comparison to ours, when she got in. Her blistering text messages had made clear how she felt about nepotism. “Why’re you upset? Isn’t Brent a relation? He’s Rita’s nephew, ain’t he?” I asked Oz, laying it on thick. “I’m sure he’ll be great.”

I got the double bird then.

Ignoring him, I ducked into the office I shared with Cheyenne Bryson and the new guy, Brent something—he didn’t have the same last name as the owners—who had just moved back to town after going away to college. Dropping my helmet and keys on the desk, I shrugged out of my denim jacket, hung that on the back of my chair, and then grabbed my half apron from the peg on the wall beside my poster of a sunset on Maui. Like a lot of people who lived in the middle of nowhere, I dreamed of warm, sunny beaches where my only job was watching the waves roll in.

Turning, I almost walked into Mackenzie.

“What’re you doing?” Her question was angry, nearly accusing.

“Getting ready to clock in,” I informed her.

She cleared her throat. “I just want you to fix the kitchen first, then the bar, so I’m making sure you come with me before you go see Kyle.”

“Sweetie, if you guys know what should be happening, why don’t––”

She took a breath. “Because Lance is working, and you’re the only one he listens to.”

Technically, it was his grandmother who had his ear, no one else.

I pulled my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans. “Go back out. I’ll be right behind you, I swear.”

She nodded, pivoted, and flew out of the room.

I got the Bowen house on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Jenny,” I greeted softly, walking down the hall toward the door. “How’re you, dear?”

“Why, Jeremiah Wolfe, I’m good. How’re you, boy?”

“Well, I would be better if I didn’t have to call you to come down and help us make some of your signature dishes for folks.”

“You need me to come cook?” she asked, and I could hear the excitement in her voice.

“If you would,” I told her, trying to sound as pitiful as humanly possible. “Your grandson doesn’t like it when folks wanna change things on his menu, so he’s throwin’ a fit and makin’ some dishes, but not all of them, and not in any order, so we’re gettin’ pretty backed up.”