Page 47 of Conquered Obstacles

The only real problem we had was people showing up and trying to buy all the extras we had like we were too stupid to figure out what they were doing. I had been clear with Dion and his managers who I’d personally spoken to that there wouldn’t be any of that. People could have two or three items, and if I found out they were allowing more, the deal was off.

That meant their Karma Bakery-specific treats and the hours they received to do this for us. Our drivers were also there to check on things and make sure it was all going to the right spots. We had a couple of trusted people from the factory in charge at each location using a Karma Bakery van and… We were covered.

And made a killing from the sales totals that I was seeing. Just from Thursday. Sure, it all cost a fortune, especially with the expansion and additions, all the salaries for sure, but the amount we were getting from Costco alone would pay for it all in no time.

These huge holidays were the other way.

Could we make up some more holidays? Ones that didn’t help my brother’s stupid power base?

Actually, that sounded like a great idea and something to seriously consider. Maybe just do this for a weekend when we changed up new menu items or added something. That seemed to be when we had the most crazy and sold out too fast, so we could make a weekend event of it at some discount.

Starbucks did things like that, right?

I had no idea, but I texted the twins what they thought and they loved it. Or even just to use as a focus. Mary thought it should be a weekend of pie and doing all kinds of everything, slab pies and some they could take home to bake. Highlight one product that maybe people wouldn’t try on their own.

A festival of pies basically.

Perfect.

She thought we should do it in a few weekends because that was smack between the crazy now of Easter and Mother’s Day and would be fun.

We liked fun. Sure. We could talk to Heitor about what was coming in the next shipment and make all of the pies.

Who didn’t love an excuse to have pie?

Friday was even crazier. We had to keep posting on social media that we had limited extras and we would stop even allowing that if people misbehaved. I would keep making more appear, but there had been an issue at the Providence location where a mob had practically threatened to storm the truck and steal it all if they couldn’t get what they wanted.

No, just… No. We weren’t having that kind of crazy for Easter treats.

No.

Once we finished with the ordering times, the twins talked to me, and we decided the rest would be to areas in MA that we knew well. At least for this time. We talked to Dion and he agreed. He thought it was a bit too much crazy for his people even, and it was a good way to get the market wet for the idea, but people were taking things too far.

And he didn’t want to get pushback from his parent company… Which was actually Chen. I hadn’t known that, but it was part of cycling their covers and lives to the human world, but that was who bought out AMC however many years ago. They were smart and handled my realm better than I did.

It was good to have a relationship with them just for that.

We posted all over that given the amount of people who had relied on our extras instead of putting in orders and the problems we’d had at the new order pickup locations, we weren’t bringing any extras. It would be orders with confirmation numbers and verified texts for the pickup locations only. We would still have extras at the bakery and that was all we could handle while ramping up production.

And we were hiring at the factories.

There really was only so much I could sneak in even with all the expansions and misdirection we were working on.

I was exhausted by the time I got home and wanted to crash… Instead, I had a BBQ spread waiting for me that made my mouth water and a very sexy man giving me looks that I was going to enjoy my night to the fullest.

I could find the energy for that, right?

Yes, I was a goddess and would make it happen.

“No work talk,” he told me after we sat down. He shook his head when I opened my mouth to argue.

“But I wanted to hear more about your opening.”

“Nope, we’ve been talking about it, but not tonight. No family. No work. No issues.”

I blinked at him for several moments as he made me an overloaded plate. “I have no idea what to talk to you about then.”

“Yes, you do,” he chuckled. “You just aren’t always the best at being thrown for a loop. I want to get to know you. Don’t you want to get to know more about me?”

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