Page 69 of Best Summer Ever

‘You can come in Monday and Tuesday too.’ Penny smiled. ‘I’m opening from ten until three, just to see if it’s worth my while, so that’ll put you up to four days’ work.’

‘It won’t be worth your while if no one turns up and you have to pay me,’ I pointed out.

‘I won’t pay you then,’ she teased.

‘Hey,’ I pouted. ‘Seriously though, what a mess. I’m officially useless where the world of work is concerned, aren’t I?’

Penny didn’t answer that, but then she didn’t need to. The question was definitely rhetorical.

‘You could always ask Sam—’ she began instead.

‘No,’ I cut in. ‘I couldn’t. He’s got Marguerite now. It’s fine. I’ll think of something else. How about we call it a day and reconvene in the pub around eight? I might have come up with a plan by then.’

Realistically, I knew there was no chance of that.

‘Sounds like a good idea.’ Penny nodded, then groaned as she stood up and stretched out her back. ‘I’ll buy you a pint so you can drown your sorrows.’

‘And I’ll get Nick to fork out for the next one.’

‘I don’t think he’s coming tonight,’ she told me, trying and failing to sound upbeat.

‘Not coming to the pub on a Saturday?’ I gasped.

‘Not this Saturday.’ Penny shrugged. ‘Someone told me he’d got a date.’

I was desperate to delve deeper, but Penny wasn’t the person to ask. When I’d arrived back at Wynbrook, I had been committed to making it my mission to push my two best pals together, but other events had overtaken it and I still hadn’t got my original matchmaking plan out of the blocks. That said though, considering how my plan to save Penny’s summer had just gone, perhaps I would be best leaving her love life well alone…

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Josh frowned into his pint later that evening and after Penny had gone home, ‘you jacked in your job here for another job without asking the person you wanted to take you on if they would?’

We’d already been through it once, but Josh was having trouble processing the details of what I’d misguidedly, but kind-heartedly, done.

‘Yep.’ I nodded. ‘That’s it. I quit the pub for the café, but in the meantime, Penny had already found staff to work for her.’

‘So, now you’re totally out of a job.’

‘I sure am.’

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘No idea.’ I shrugged, then drained my glass.

It was my second strong pint on an almost empty stomach, so I definitely wouldn’t be driving home. I wondered if the alcohol was playing its part in making me feel less stressed than I probably should have been, because I was rather chilled.

‘And what do your parents think about you leaving the pub?’ Josh questioned.

‘They don’t know,’ I grimaced, wishing he hadn’t brought them into the conversation as my former chill started to warm up. ‘I haven’t told them.’

‘Youmight not have told them,’ said Tess, who had overhead the very end of our conversation as she came to clear the table next to ours, ‘but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they don’t know.’

‘What?’ I gulped, feeling my relaxed attitude melt into a soggy puddle.

‘They came in here for lunch,’ Tess told me.

‘They came in here for lunch,’ I echoed.

My parents never came into the pub. I couldn’t remember the last time they’d crossed the threshold. I wondered what had tempted them inside on the very last day I could have wanted them to darken the Smuggler’s doors.

‘They came in for lunch,’ Tess said again, ‘and your dad asked Sam what time you’d be starting today and Sam said…’ shefaltered, then carried on, ‘Sam said, you wouldn’t be starting at all, because you’d… quit.’

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