Page 12 of Challenged by the Single Dad

Renée and Chloe gaped at each other.

“Sink or swim, and get eaten by sharks, huh?” Renée murmured before taking her tray and wandering away to go check on a table.

Chloe finished the margarita, and Quinton came to grab it. “Looks perf,” he said, throwing her a wink. “Thanks.”

She and Dom worked in total silence for almost two hours, and it was utterly painful.

He chatted like he hadn’t a care in the world with customers, but he was stingy with his words when it came to staff. He downright starved her of even a grunt, let alone anything remotely resembling a language found on earth. She would have settled for sign language. Not that she knew very much ASL. But it would have been better than the total disregard he showed her.

“How’s it going?” Jagger plunked himself down at the bar. “Interested in making me another one of those kickass Caesars?”

“Anything for the boss,” she said cheekily.

That got her the first noise from Dom—a grunt of disdain.

“I’m just as much a boss as you are, asshole,” Jagger said.

Dom merely lifted his brows at his brother.

“So, who is the oldest?” Chloe said, getting to work on the Caesar.

“Clint,” Jagger said. “He runs the brewery. You’ll meet him eventually. Then Bennett, who runs the business and finance portion of things. Then Wyatt, who you’ve met. He’s in the kitchen. Dom is next and he’s out front being the happiest, chattiest Kathy on the whole fucking island. And then I’m the beautiful baby. The biggest, handsomest, and most brilliant. And I do it all. I’m the floater.”

“The floater?”

“Yeah. I help Bennett out with the cabins. But I also pitch in behind the bar, or run food. I will fill in for a dishwasher if we can’t get one or somebody calls in sick. Clint doesn’t really trust me in the brewery to do anything but stick labels on things, but I’m the best at doing it. I’m also the only one without kids. So I do a lot of babysitting my nieces and nephews when the rest of the dads are working.”

She wanted to desperately ask where the mothers were, but she didn’t. The look they were getting from Dom told her she needed to drop this topic like a hot potato.

Once she strained the Caesar over the ice, she plunked in four pickled beans and slid the glass in front of Jagger. “I added a bit more tabasco and horseradish because you said you liked it hot.”

“I do like it hot.” He picked it up and took a sip, then closed his eyes. “Damn, girl. That’s good.”

Renée sidled up to Jagger. “What’d she make for you? That just looks like a Bloody Mary.”

“It’s better than a Bloody Mary. Try it,” Jagger said, sliding it to her.

She took a sip. “Oh! That’s got some kick.”

“That’s the horseradish, probably,” Chloe said with a grin as another order came through on the ticket machine. “And the tabasco. Though, I actually prefer Louisiana Hot Sauce. It’s more flavorful than Tabasco, in my opinion.”

A scoff behind her had her turning around. Dom was busy ripping off the ticket, but his scoff wasn’t from the drink order.

“Dom, are we going to put Chloe’s drink on the special’s board? Because I think we should,” Renée asked. “It’s great. What is it?”

“It’s a Caesar. Basically, a Bloody Mary but made with Clamato instead of tomato juice. And then I add horseradish because I like the kick and flavor it adds.”

“Yeah.” Renée nodded and took another sip of Jagger’s. “That’s really good. We definitely need to add that to the board.”

Dom was busy pouring a lager from the tap. But he looked as though he’d just bitten into a rotten egg. “You could cut more fruit for garnishes,” he said to her, plunking the full, beautifully poured pint on the bar for Renée to grab.

She nodded. “You got it.” She located the fruit, cutting board, and knife and went to work.

Jagger sat there and chatted with her, casually drinking his Caesar. And any time a customer came up and asked him what he was drinking, he made sure to tell them it was her idea, and just how delicious it was. By the time he left, she’d made six more Caesars for different people, all while Dom’s glares just grew hotter and hotter.

“What are you doing?” he asked so abruptly she jumped where she stood.

She’d had to make so many Caesars that she kept being pulled away from her job of cutting up garnishes. But now that things had died down a bit, she could resume her slicing.

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