Page 1 of Wild Hope
1
TRAVIS
The coffee burns my throat on the way down, and the bitterness sets my taste buds on edge.
I swallow the bitter brew and slide the cup back to Maggie.
“More cream.”
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
I try not to let her see me sigh. Maggie was only supposed to help out in the kitchen, but when a waitress quit last week, I convinced her to help out in the restaurant for a few shifts. The poor girl’s as shy as a door mouse and as jumpy as one too.
“Don’t worry about it.” I give her a reassuring smile while making a mental note that we need to expedite finding new staff. “I’ll cover the rest of the shift.”
There’re only two tables left, and we’re not likely to get many drop-ins on a Monday afternoon.
Maggie gives me a grateful look and scurries out the back. She’s a competent cook, but the woman doesn’t know how to make coffee to save herself.
I skate around the back of the bar and tip out the sorry excuse for a brew. There’s a sealed bag of Brazil’s strongest coffee beans, and when I open it a rich aroma fills my nostrils. I breathe in deep and tip a bunch of beans into the grinder.
Wild Taste Bar and Restaurant is known for its craft beer, due to the brewery out back, but we also serve the best coffee on this side of the mountain.
With the beans freshly ground, I fill the porter filter and make myself the perfect cup.
A few minutes later, I’m back on my black metal barstool taking the first sip.
“Mmmm,” I say to no one in particular. “That’s good coffee.”
While I wait for the caffeine to hit my bloodstream, I glance over the bar. Bike memorabilia adorns the walls with a vintage Harley taking pride of place. There’re photos of the motorcycle club riding out for a charity event in our full Wild Riders MC leather jackets, and then the members dressed in their military uniforms for a Veterans Day parade.
The restaurant’s unusual in that it’s split in two. The bar opens up to a dining area, and there’s a VIP section over the road perched on the edge of the cliff face. The views from that side are stunning, looking over the valley below.
We’ve had to keep it closed the last few weeks due to staff shortages. It’s hard to keep the service running on both sides when you’re a waitress down.
I’ve been helping where I can, but on top of my workload, I’m exhausted.
As a founding member of the Wild Riders MC and manager of the Wild Taste Bar and Restaurant, there’s a lot to do. The MC club owns the businesses, but Quentin and I run the place.
We’ve opened the brewery up for tours, and it’s not going as smoothly as I’d like. The marketing has been too effective. Every tourist on both sides of the mountain wants a brewery tour, and we’re booked up solid for the next several weeks. We’re extending the tour times and hours, but so far there’s no one to run them.
It’s hard to get staff to stick around in the ass end of nowhere.
What attracted a bunch of ex-military bikers to a place is not the same as what most people want. After the military, I came here with my best friend Quentin and bike mad Raiden. It was the perfect spot to regroup, recover, and get our asses going on the next stage of life.
It was Raiden’s idea to start the Wild Riders MC club, and he became president. Our compound comprises the group of business that have sprung up on the side of the mountain: the restaurant, the brewery, and the bike repair shop out back. We’ve got clubrooms at the back of the restaurant and rooms upstairs for whoever needs them.
The closest town, Wild, is a twenty minute ride away. And that’s how we like it. Quiet, remote, and isolated. Perfect for a bunch of damaged soldiers.
But it turns out not everyone wants to live in the mountains. There are plenty of tourists to keep the bills paid, but finding staff who want to live in the middle of nowhere is a problem.
It’s rare to get a quiet moment, and I sip my coffee and let my mind wander. As it so often does, I think about how good I have it up here: a thriving business, a cabin in the woods, my MC club with brothers who’d do anything for me. Yet, in still moments like these, there’s a restlessness in my soul, a feeling like I’m missing something, like I got it all wrong.
I survey my restaurant. The table of tourists pouring over brochures, the couple finishing their lunch in the corner, the bikes parked out front, the noises from the kitchen as Chef preps for the evening trade, and the smell of hops from the brewery which permeates my clothes and is how I got my road name: Hops.
I should be happy, I should be content, yet there’s something missing.
Like I’ve done so many times in moments like these, I pull out my wallet and slide the dog-eared photo out of the card holder. Me and Quentin stand upright in military uniforms. Between us is a woman with blonde hair falling over her shoulders. She’s wearing shorts that show off thick creamy thighs and one leg is bent, her knee bending in towards the other, her heel in the air. Her smile is wide and lights up her sparkling eyes, which are the same deep green as the forest canopy.
