Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“None.”
“Sick? Called out for whatever reason? How many times?”
“None.”
“Complained about hours?” He smirked. “Complained about anything?”
I turned to face him again. “So I don’t bitch? So what?”
“You come in here, you do your job, and you do it well, Sean,” he said. “You’re the best damn cook I’ve had in here, and I appreciate the fact that you don’t give me shit or cause drama. You wanna know why I’m giving you a raise? Because you earned it. You’ve also earned a break, so take it. Split up the shifts with J.R. Work together. Let him take some of the load. Just figure it out. I don’t want to see you when I get here and when I’m leaving at night. Take some days off, man. Christ. Nobody needs to be here as much as me.”
I stood there unable to speak, just processing everything Nate just said, which was a fucking lot, more than he’d ever said to me at once before. But mostly, I was focusing on the fact that I was going to be making more money and working less, which meant I would have time to fix up that dump.
I wouldn’t need to be pulling late hours and giving up sleep entirely. Hell, I might even be able to get it ready sooner than I thought.
This was a good thing. I didn’t understand why, but I was getting an opportunity, another break, and there was no fucking way I wasn’t going to take it.
“Are we good?” Nate asked when I still hadn’t said anything back to him. “Or do you want to try and talk me out of this, and maybe still punch me?”
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “I’m not gonna punch you.”
“Do you still have a problem with J.R.?”
“No.”
“Good.” He shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You need to ease up a little, Sean. Give yourself some credit. If you work hard for me, I’m not going to ignore that. Keep it up, all right?”
Nodding, I turned away from Nate and got the hell out of that office, feeling strange as shit.
Good, yeah, I felt good about the changes, now that I knew how this was going to play out for me, but I still didn’t know how to feel when I was handed something. Especially when I knew I didn’t deserve it.
Treat me like garbage. Be a complete dick to me. That I could understand. But Christ, anything else was confusing as hell.
After shrugging off my coat, tying my hair back at the base of my skull, and washing the rest of the compound off my hands, I went to the walk-in and started taking inventory.
Work kept me busy and my mind off shit I still couldn’t wrap my head around, no matter how hard I tried. For an hour, I had silence.
Prep done, I was working on the soup of the day when J.R. came in through the back.
“What’s up, man?” he asked, sounding pleased as fuck to be here and see me, like we were close or something. This kid was weird. “Hey, did Nate talk to you about how we’re gonna split up the shifts?”
I jerked my chin, keeping my eyes on the pot I was stirring.
“’Cause I just wanna let you know, I’m down with whatever,” he continued as he moved around the kitchen. “So if there’s days when you want me to cover early, I got that. Or if you wanna roll out of here before close, cool. My shit is flexible.”
That ache in my neck continued to throb. “Wouldn’t mind getting out of here before too late tonight,” I said, meeting his eyes then. “You sayin’ you got this covered?”
J.R. smiled, tugging off his beanie and running his hand through his blond hair, spiking it up. “Brother, I got you. No problem. Hey, man, this is gonna work out. I know you seemed a little…unsure about me getting hired on, and I got that. I’m young. I got this new style about me. It’s intimidating. I feel you. But you’ll see. We’ll probably be best friends by next month.”
I stared at him. It’s intimidating? Jesus Christ. What the fuck was this kid on? And why the hell was he calling me brother?
His smile grew, stretching his lips wide. “You’re serious as fuck back here, man. You need to lighten up a little.” He laughed at himself, then looked toward the window separating us from the restaurant.
I was just about to get back to what I was doing, considering I had nothing else to fucking say to this kid, when his next words stopped me.
“Morning, ladies! Who else froze their balls off driving over here? Just me?”
I didn’t give a shit what he was talking about. That’s not what had me turning more and looking through that damn window myself.