Page 43 of Wolf Lost

“I’m sorry,” he said for the fifth time, a slightly canine whine in his tone. “I don’t know what I do different when—” He waved at the muddy mess he’d left all over the portafilter.

“It’s fine, Ash,” Sawyer assured him. He didn’t take the thing, though. He didn’t want to touch it. “You’re the kitchen guy, remember? Not the coffee guy.”

“But when we open, we should all know how to do all the things, shouldn’t we?” Ash asked. He looked over at where Dez and Gavin were putting the wood stain on the bakery case. It had ended up a communal project, everyone in the pack putting some work into it, and it was almost done. Dez had been right; it was better than the ones in catalogues, and it went beautifully with their decor.

Sawyer smiled at Ash, bumping him with his shoulder. “I’ll be here to run it. You don’t have to worry about it. And Gavin can run the register like a good little alpha, and Dez is on dish duty.”

Dez snorted and looked up at them. “Fat chance. You got breakable dishes. I’m not touching ’em.”

“We couldn’t buy plastic plates for a restaurant, Dez.” Gavin didn’t look up from his work when he spoke, so familiar with the argument that he probably could have made it in his sleep.

Dez’s hand twitched, and he dropped his brush on the cloth they’d spread out to protect the floor. He clenched his jaw, and Sawyer immediately recognized the look in his eyes. Self-loathing meltdown impending.

“Fine,” Sawyer said, loud and pretending that he was angry. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. “If you two must be difficult, Gavin can be the busboy.”

Then he realized he’d just told his pack alpha that he was supposed to clean up after people. He swallowed hard, and half of him expected it to be a bridge too far. This was the one that made Gavin growl and tell him to show some damn respect.

Instead, the alpha burst into laughter, his own brush falling to the drop cloth and spattering his fancy tennis shoes with varnish.

“You, um, you okay there, Gavin?” Ash asked, still holding the gross portafilter and looking as confused as Sawyer felt.

Gavin grinned and wiped his eyes on the back of his wrist. “Yeah, I... When I said I was thinking about joining the army, my father told me that was for poor people.”

Sawyer reached out and grabbed the portafilter from Ash, so they wouldn’t make the trifecta of messy dropped things, and looked back at Gavin. “He sounds like an asshole.”

“There’s a reason I haven’t been home in a decade.” Gavin leaned down to pick up his brush, staring at it like he was having a conversation with it and not his pack.

“You signed on the dotted line the next day,” Dez said. His jaw had unclenched, and he looked slightly amused instead of angry. Score. Sawyer was sorry if it had made Gavin uncomfortable, but Dez feeling useless was much more important than anyone’s mild discomfort.

Gavin gave him a bitter little smile. “How well you know me. Better than my father, obviously.” He glanced over at Ash and Sawyer and waved his hand in the air, as though dismissing the story even as he finished it. “I was thinking he might have a coronary if he saw me bussing tables and doing dishes. Which is to say sure, I’ll do that. But the fact of the matter is that we need to hire employees, because the four of us can’t run a coffee shop on our own.”

Ash seemed astonished by the notion of hiring people, but Dez nodded thoughtfully. “Sawyer should do it.”

“Me?” Sawyer was dumbfounded. “Why me?”

“Sounds right to me,” Gavin agreed. “Sawyer is Goldilocks. Ash is too nice, you’re too mean.”

Far from offended by the assessment, Dez nodded and looked at Sawyer. “Congratulations, you get another shitty job as punishment for being nice.”

“But not too nice,” Ash added. He gave Sawyer an apologetic glance. “Sorry.”

Somehow, it didn’t bother him at all. Sure, it was another job for him to do, on top of trying to teach Ash how to make coffee—and probably teaching future employees to make coffee—but it was just one more sign that Sawyer belonged.

He grinned, a little manic, at Gavin. “Should we put up a now-hiring sign?”

“Already?” Ash’s voice was high and squeaky. “I can bake like one thing. How are we going to stock that case?”

Gavin flinched and bit his lip. Sawyer felt for him, having to diplomatically point out how long it would take for Ash to learn how to bake. “I thought we’d hire someone, at least to start.”

“We were always gonna hire a baker.” Dez snatched his brush up off the floor, dipped it in the varnish, and got back to work. It was a clever thing to do, making the words seem more casual and less personal. “Even if you become an expert, it’s too much work for one guy. So we hire somebody smart who knows what they’re doing, and you can be their assistant till you know what you’re doing.”

Ash looked as though he’d been struck by lightning, but in a good way. After a still moment, he grinned. “That sounds awesome!”

Gavin gave a bright smile as he started working again. “Great. We’ll get some ads up looking for baristas and a baker.”

Sawyer hoped for his sake that Ash was better at baking than he was at making espresso. He couldn’t be much worse.

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