Page 77 of Break My Heart
‘I’ll go, but not until later. Tell your mom I’m sorry I can’t help out in the morning.’
‘Don’t worry about it. She’ll understand.’
Wade comes through the door to the back. ‘Sawyer, we need you out front. We’re getting slammed.’
‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ He leaves and I talk to Gina. ‘I need to go. Wade needs help out front.’
‘Didn’t you hire two more servers?’
‘They’re here, but it’s not enough. I’ll call you later, okay?’
‘Yeah, bye.’
I’d like to help her, but I’m going to stay out of it. Gina likes being independent and figuring things out on her own. I’m hesitant to even offer her a suggestion because I’m afraid she’ll accuse me of telling her what to do. Her ex used to do that and she hated it. She said Ryder was controlling and treated her like she was a child, which is why she didn’t want to work for him anymore and why she broke up with him. I don’t want her thinking I’m that way too so I’m keeping quiet.
Chapter 17
Gina
I don’t understand it. Cars have been driving by G’s since we opened and hardly anyone has stopped. Are they just in a hurry to get into town? What’s the rush? The festival doesn’t start until tomorrow.
As soon as I got off the phone with Sawyer, I told Aria and Lexi we’d be running the $2 beer special again. I put a sign on the road, letting people know, but now it’s dark out so they won’t even see it. I promoted the special on the webpage and social media, but I doubt anyone saw it since I’ve only got a few followers.
‘You can go home,’ I say to Lexi as she stands at the bar, looking bored.
‘Really?’ She perks up. ‘Right now?’
‘Yeah, go ahead.’
She races to the back, leaving Aria and me behind the bar, which nobody is sitting at because the handful of people here are at the tables.
‘You can go too,’ I say to Aria. ‘There’s no reason to have both of us here.’
‘What’s going on? Where is everyone?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. It’s like everyone just stopped coming. Is it the beer? Did something happen to it?’
‘It’s not the beer. The beer is great.’
Just to be sure, I grab a glass and get a sample of stout from the tap. ‘It tastes like it always does.’
‘Yeah, I told you, it’s not the beer.’
‘Then what’s going on? This is festival weekend. We should be packed.’
She shrugs. ‘I guess they’re all going to Sawyer’s place. You have to admit he’s got a better location.’
‘And we’ve got better beer.’
‘You didn’t tell Sawyer that, did you?’
‘No, but it’s true. He knows it is. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than he has. He’ll get better. It just takes time. Point is, we should have customers. It’s not hard to get here and we have plenty of parking. The parking downtown is a nightmare. It’s hard to get a spot even when it’s not festival weekend.’
‘Maybe people don’t want to drive out here once they’re in town.’
‘People who like beer won’t care. Ryder and I used to go to microbreweries in the middle of nowhere and they were twice as busy as we are. People will drive out of their way for a good craft beer.’
‘Then I don’t know what to tell you.’
