Page 30 of Executive Benefits

“I don’t, man. That’s a lot of money to just toss away.” David’s eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Of course, she did fuck you out of the teachers’ party.” He wiped a hand down his face and looked at me. “She’s going to the holiday party at the restaurant, right?”

“Yeah. You should talk her out of it,” I said, not in the mood to talk to or see Kendra ever again. Especially when something might really be happening with Julia.

David sighed. “The staff still like her, Nick. They want her there. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you tell them what she did.”

I shook my head. “I’ll just come off looking like an asshole if I do that.”

“Well…”

“For fuck’s sake, David. Just act normal,” I snapped.

“I have more bad news.”

“No shit. You have a terrible poker face.”

“I don’t. I take your money all the time.”

“That’s just what I want you to think because I feel bad for you.”

David chuckled. “You wouldn't just give your money away. Especially when you were with Kendra. She wanted all of it.”

“That’s the truth,” I huffed. “Just tell me so we can get back to planning this menu.” I waved the notebook at him.

“Finnley’s is also doing a rebranding now,” he said.

“The corner bar?” I screwed my eyes closed. “That place is spending money to rebrand?” They hadn’t so much as updated the blood stains on the wall from their first bar fight in 1970. “Why would they be doing it now?”

I wondered if Julia took on another client? It wouldn’t be wrong of her to do it, but it would be weird if she went to them. Maybe they… One look at David told me it wasn’t Julia.

David lifted his glass to me. “I’ll give you one guess.”

“I’m going to hold it over your head for the rest of your life how much you sided with Kendra on everything for a really long time.”

“Still excited to have her come to The Bridge for the holiday party?” he asked, and I wanted to knock the cocky grin right off his face.

“No one is excited to have her come to the party,” I said dryly. My mind started to drift to Julia. I was agitated and wanted to talk to her. I wondered if she could make sense out of this for me since she was outside the cluster fuck. “And it’s not going to be called ‘The Bridge’ anymore. It’s Gray’s.”

“That’s big. The town is gonna have lots of opinions on that.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for.” I looked at the paper and skimmed the menu to see if there was anything else I was missing or didn’t think of. I tossed it to David. “Here, something’s missing. What?” I asked him. He always helped me with my menu planning, even though he was an insurance guy. He had a good eye for food and could have been a chef. But he always said he wanted to make money more than he wanted to make food.

I couldn’t blame him there.

He perused the notebook and muttered to himself.

I took a minute to process what Kendra was doing. “Maybe I should tell her off?” I said.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to do it at the party,” David responded absentmindedly as his eyes raked over the menu. “You can do another appetizer,” he finished. “This is all the new food?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re going to test it out on the staff so they can start getting used to the new menu, even if it’s not changing for a little while. It’ll give us time to pick out the issues and pin the positives.”

“That sounds like something your twenty-eight-year-old girlfriend told you.” David chuckled. I started to defend her, but he didn’t really say anything terrible. I went to tell him she wasn't my girlfriend. Not only did that sound weird because I was forty-four, but we hadn't even spoken about that. “She’s… I don’t know what she is,” I answered.

And that was the truth.

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