Page 16 of Take the Bait

She’d all but given up. After the disastrous Fall Festival, she spent the weekend trying to figure out how soon she could move back home. She knew the kindergarten teacher at the elementary school was retiring soon, so maybe she had a chance of snagging that job. The idea of living near her parents and sister again simultaneously warmed and shattered her heart.

Because she forced herself to face it: she waslonely.

Extremely fucking lonely.

She’d fancied herself adventurous and daring, moving somewhere new.

And now, she knew the truth: she was nothing more than a failure.

But reading Tucker’s email, she felt a spark of hope—one she tried to squash. This couldn’t happen. Not after she’d all but decided she was done here.

But the temptation to respond was too great. And what did she have to lose? So before her kindergarteners showed up ready for a lesson she hadn’t finished prepping for, she began to type.

Tucker had been refreshinghis email ever since he emailed Hanna after the Fall Festival.

Never mind that she probably didn’t check her work email on weekends.

Never mind that she might not even bother to respond, anyway.

Never mind that he had work to do.

He was coming off desperate—possibly even just shy of creepy. But he’d been a slave to his business for a couple of years now, too wrapped up in his work to hang out with his best friend, Shawn, or drop by his family’s house for dinner orlaugh.

And with Hanna, he laughed more than he had in years. With Hanna, he forgot that work existed—let go of his workaholic tendencies and the steady thrum of low-level panic he’d grown used to over the past few years.

He rubbed his eyes, mentally making a to-do list of everything he needed to get done today. Review seasonal menus. Meet with his line cooks. Plan the specials for the next few weeks. Double check on food shipments. Schedule time with his accountant.

He’d become what he promised himself he wouldn’t: a workaholic. He knew it was a problem. Knew he needed to take more breaks and stop working fifteen days in a row. But how could he, when his employees were counting on him to get paid? When his patrons came to his restaurant wanting to be fed? When he’d finally come so close to realizing his dream, even though he was more burnt out than he was willing to admit?

Tucker knew he was lucky. Most new restaurants failed, and the remaining ones took years to turn a profit. He’d spent acouple of years after culinary school running a small catering business and hosting booths at the local farmer’s market—test runs of a sort, to see if he could expand.

And he did. Everything he worked on eventually became what was now Fish Food, an ocean-front restaurant he was insurmountably proud of. It was a calculated risk, renting the property and taking out loans to revamp the space. But he’d done it, and he was on track to pay back his debts ahead of schedule.

Tucker loved his job. He really did. But he was in that precarious position a lot of business owners face where he wasn’tquiteprofitable enough to hire extra hands to take some of these tasks from his plate. So he did them—working, sometimes, 70 or 80 hours in a week.

It felt lonely, at times, to run a successful business by himself—to sit on the mountaintop and have nobody to share it with, to work twice the amount of hours as the average person and not have anyone to come home to. Sure, his family was proud and came into the restaurant often. Shawn offered to help out whenever he needed it—an offer Tucker couldn’t quite bring himself to cash in on.

This time next year, he dreamed of bringing on more help. Hiring catering coordinator and a restaurant manager and a controller. Maybe even an administrative assistant for him. In his wildest dreams, he worked 40 hours a week and slept eight hours a night.

But they weren’t there yet. Another tourist season, and it was likely he could make at least one or two of those necessary hires. It was a light at the end of the tunnel for him, even if it was a small light that sometimes felt a million miles away.

Tucker grabbed his phone and refreshed his email again, trying not to be annoyed at himself for compulsively doing so less than a few minutes after the last time.

A smile stretched across his face as he saw a reply from her.

Subject Line:Re: Dinner?

Tucker,

After wiping penises off my face, I think it’s only fair that you get to call me Hanna.

I, too, went through a detective phase. Wasn’t much of a Sherlock girl, though. I preferred Nancy Drew. I read, like, 50 of the Nancy Drew books and then carried around a homemade detective kit for the better part of fourth grade. When kids asked to play with my magnifying glass, I haughtily told them it was not a toy to be played with, but rather a tool for solving crimes. It was all quite dramatic. I felt extremely misunderstood, but perhaps if I’d met 10-year-old Tucker, we could’ve formed a crime-fighting team.

Are you sure you want me to drop by your restaurant? What if there’s a repeat of Burpgate? Proceed at your own risk.

—Hanna

P.S. I still have the detective kit. You know, in case there’s an emergency sleuthing situation.

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