Second Chance Baby

It wasn’t that I was mad at him. I was aggravated, but I knew it would just get worse if I tried to work through the night while thinking about it. The whole time, I would be looking around, waiting to see which of the men was going to say the next comment, and how Mason was going to react to it.

I didn’t have time for that mess. So, I got ready for work early and headed over to Mason’s house so we could talk. He looked surprised to see me when he opened the door. I noticed he was holding it partially closed, like he didn’t know what to expect from me.

“I called you last night,” he said. “You didn’t answer.”

“I know,” I said. “I needed some time to think. That’s why I’m here. Can I come in?”

He stepped back and let me come inside. We walked into the living room and sat down.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m fine. I just wanted to talk to you about last night. I really didn’t like you lashing out at a customer like that. Especially one of the regulars.”

“I don’t care who he was,” Mason said. “Nobody should talk to you like that.”

“I agree,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you should act all neanderthal toward him. You were no better than he was. Besides, I don’t need you to jump in and handle every situation for me before I even get a chance to respond.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t say anything at all.”

“That’s because you didn’t give me a chance. I was just about to hand him over to Miranda when you freaked out. What he said was inappropriate, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard. And I promise you I will hear worse again. It’s just part of the job. Most of the time, all it takes is ignoring them or shutting the comment down and it’s over,” I said.

“And what if it’s not?” Mason asked.

“Then you figure out how to handle it from there. The thing is, you have to trust me to be able to tell the difference. Let me respond to a situation and get it taken care of before it escalates. And if something else happens and I feel like I need your backup, I’ll let you know. And besides that, you’re really lucky the new bartender was able to make Frank happy again. We really don’t need any one-star reviews because our employees are rude.”

“I’m not just an employee,” Mason said.

“Do you think he realizes that? Or that he even cares? If you keep acting like that toward every guy who makes a comment to me, you’re going to undo all the work I’ve done to build up business. You need to trust me. And sometimes I need you to just deal with drunk guys being jackasses,” I said.

Mason drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry. Again. You’re right. We’ve had this conversation before, and I should have thought about that. It’s just that I love you and can’t stand the thought of any guy treating you like that. But I promise I will back off and let you handle yourself.”

I smiled at him and leaned forward for a kiss. “Thank you.”

“Can I drive you to work today?”

“Absolutely.”

We headed into work and found Jesse making a row of small plates down the middle of the bar.

“What are you doing?” Mason asked, looking at the plates questioningly.

“I need somebody to try my new dishes,” Jesse said, sounding almost frantic.

Mason walked up to the bar and looked down at one of the small white plates. He shrugged. “I mean, they look like they’re pretty sturdy to me. I’m sure they could handle holding food.”

Jesse looked at him like he was on the brink of snapping. I walked up to Mason and put one hand on his back.

“I don’t think he’s in the mood for jokes right now,” I said. I looked over at Jesse. “What do you need us to try?”

He rattled off a list of different recipes he had been working on. Some of them sounded familiar, like options we talked about weeks ago. I realized he had been thinking about them and trying to perfect them all this time. I was proud of him, impressed at how hard he had been working and how much dedication he was putting into the food for the bar.

A few minutes later, he had served up a little bit of each of the things he’d cooked, and Mason, Tyler, Matt, and I were sitting in a row tasting everything. We sampled right up until the last minute before we had to get ready to open. Mason and I were talking about a few of the different offerings when I noticed him look over my shoulder toward the door.