Page 29 of Employing Patience

“The bar upstairs is a pigsty. You’re exhausted if you’re falling asleep and breaking glasses, so I need to cut your shift short tonight. But you can fix upstairs first.”

“But I—”

“Unless you want to go home right now?”

“I want to finish my shift. I can’t leave them to—”

I cut him off again, but I soften my voice this time. “We both know you’re causing more issues than helping. You’re tired. You need sleep.”

“Pfft. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Keep making mistakes like breaking my glasses and you’ll sleep when you’re fired.”

He scowls.

I grin. “Now, are you going home, or do you want the extra hour upstairs, away from everyone, cleaning up the mess?”

He eyes me. “I’ll go upstairs.”

“Good choice.”

He takes the glass out to the dumpsters, and I’m already upstairs waiting for him by the time he joins me. Instead of going back into my office, I take a seat on the couch that has the best view of the bar. Which I know because I’ve made use of it at many, many of my parties.

“We going to talk about this morning?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“You don’t crawl around on the floors here, do you? I can’t imagine they’re sanitary.”

“Like the convenience store would be any better.” He’s keeping his back to me, tidying up the chocolate powder I sprinkled all over the countertops.

“Why’d you do it? Got some kind of animal kink I should know about it?”

“And why should you know about it?” he throws back.

“Call it professional curiosity.”

That gets enough of his attention that he throws me a look over his shoulder. “Do you have any secret animal kink I should know about?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis. And until the day I ask you to put on animal ears and a tail, you don’t need to know.”

“Ah, but you’re saying the day will come.”

“You should hold your breath while you wait.”

He chuckles.

I’m not deterred. “If you don’t answer my question, I’m going to assume I hit the nail on the head.”

Joey throws me a wink. “It’s a need-to-know basis. Sorry, boss man.”

“You call Freddy boss man?”

“No.” For some reason, that makes me happy. “I actually have respect for him.”

“Ouch. Direct hit.”

“Feed your ego some more fiction, and I’m sure it’ll recover.”

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