“Thank God. So you don’t mind if I post an ad using the company card? I can post it for free on all the local sites, but the big ones cost to post,” she asks.
“How about we post on the local ones first, and then if we don’t get any bites, you can break out the big guns?” I suggest, not that I can’t afford to buy the ad space, but why spend money when I might not need to? Plus, who goes looking on the big career sites for a wait staff position at a bar and grill? No one stays for a long amount of time anyway. Only Stephanie, who’s been with me for years, starting right out of high school to help pay for college. When she graduated with her business degree, I offered her a much higher position with a salary, and she jumped on it.
“Sounds good, boss. Talk to you later. Give the little man a squeeze for me,” she says, and when I promise I’ll do just that, we end the call.
I look over at Nick, my seven-year-old son, who’s currently gobbling down the omelet I made him for breakfast. I smile as he chugs his orange juice—fresh squeezed, because I’m a snob like that—and then he hops up from his chair, swinging the backpack that’s bigger than him onto his back. He takes his plate and cup, climbs up onto the stepstool in front of the sink, and sets his dishes down inside it. He jumps off the stool, doing some crazy ninja pose when he lands, and then runs at me full speed. I stand from the table just in time to catch him, loving the sound of his laughter.
“You ready to have a good day at school?” I ask him, kissing the side of his head before setting him back down on his feet.
He nods vigorously. “Yeah! Today is PE, and we’re supposed to play Four-Square!”
“I loved Four-Square when I was your age too,” I say, ruffling his short dark hair the same color as mine.
“Can I come back after school, Dad? I wanna stay with you.” He pouts, and it breaks my heart, just like it does every time he asks me this.
“Not today, buddy. But you’ll be back next Monday,” I assure him, hoping like hell Steph finds some more employees so I don’t have to work extra hours to fill in for missing waitresses. I normally work the day shift during the weeks I have him, and the night shift on the weekends. It gives me the most time with my boy. But I work the night shift on the weekdays I don’t have him, because it’s way busier and my staff needs me. It was a pain in the ass working out this schedule with his mom, just like everything else that has to do with Corina. We’ve split the time with our son exactly fifty-fifty, which means I get him every other week. The new week starts on Monday evenings, so his mom will be picking him up from school today, and I won’t see him for the next six and half days.
It fucking sucks. No other way to describe it. What I wouldn’t give to have full custody of my son, but right now, it’s impossible. Just three more years, and I vow to make it happen.
“There’s the bus!” Nick yells, giving me one last squeeze around my legs, and I can’t help but laugh when he runs toward the door, the backpack bouncing and smacking him on his little butt as he goes.
I see the bus come to a stop right at the end of my driveway, and I grip the door as I watch my boy hurry down the pavement.
“Love you, son!” I call to him just as he rounds the front of the bus, and I see him through the windows as he finds his seat.
He tugs down the glass and waves out the opening, yelling “Love you too!” And then he slides the window back up and plops down in his seat.
I close the door and go to the sink, rinsing off Nick’s plate and cup and setting them in the dishwasher. I clean the pan I used to make his omelet and hang it from the rack suspended above my stove that’s built into the island. I have a gourmet kitchen. It’s my favorite part of the house, seeing as I’m a chef and restaurant owner.
After several years in the military as a cook, I used my GI bill to go to culinary school, and by that time, I came into my trust fund and opened Winston’s Bar and Grille. Not very creative of me as far as names go, but hey, it does its job.
When I was thirty-three, I made a dumb mistake. Well, I can’t really say that, because I did get my son out of the deal, but still. I’d been seeing this girl, Corina, mostly casually. I was too busy for a real relationship, my restaurant being number one in my life, but she seemed fine with the booty calls. She’d come eat dinner late in the evening at my grille, and then we’d go back to my apartment at the time and have sex. She’d go home in the morning, and that was that.