Page 134 of Stay With Me

“Did I hear my name?” he asked then cackled.

Sammie turned and shot him a look. “Not now, Chase. We’ll come find you later.”

He gave a small salute before poking his head back out. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be ready when you are, boss lady.”

Nick rested his chin in his hand and lifted his eyebrows, genuinely impressed with Chase’s obvious respect for Sammie’s position and authority.

She turned her face back to his, pushed away from the desk, and picked up the tablet.

“Third order of business,” she began again, pushing the chair back around to his side of the desk. “A new point of sale system.”

This time when she sat in the chair, she inched it right up next to his, crossed her long legs toward him, and leaned close to him so their shoulders were touching. She powered on the tablet and opened an app, then looked into his eyes while she spoke to him.

“Once again, this wouldn’t normally be my area, but I found that software and I think it would be a valuable investment that would make your life a whole lot easier,” she explained, using a much softer tone than during the Chase conversation. “Let me show it to you and you can decide whether or not to take the leap.”

“Sure.”

He’d probably buy any and every software available if it meant he could sit close to her and listen to her voice like this.

“Basically, it’s a standard point of sale system, except that instead of the waitstaff using a notepad to take down orders at the table, and then entering them at a central terminal, they’d use a handheld device at the table and input the orders immediately.”

She tapped in a few options as an example. “Once they submit it, it goes directly to devices at each station in the kitchen for the respective components of each dish. Which cuts the time required to prepare the dishes in half, which means patrons get their food more quickly.”

“Wow. Sold.”

She laughed and seemed to nudge his shoulder playfully, and he was hard pressed not to put his arm around her.

“That’s not even the best part. Since it manages all of the tickets, it automatically sends the information to a bookkeeping system, from which you can generate payroll and log profits. You can set it up to track your food inventory so you’ll get a report that can be used when it’s time to restock. Also, this is where you would do all of your scheduling. Each employee would have an account. When you submit the schedule, they get a notification to check it and they have to click to accept it. That’s where they can request time off or switch with other people if they need to. It’s all accessible through an app they install on their phone.”

He tapped through a few screens, then looked at her with no small amount of amazement. “This is awesome.”

“Right? It’s like a restaurant manager in a box.” She laughed.

“How did I not know about something like this before now?”

She shrugged and smiled as she pushed the chair away again and stood. “Because I wasn’t here to find it for you?”

He chuckled.

“I’m kidding,” she said with a smirk. “You’ve had way too many balls to juggle. I think you need this in order to take away a few of those balls.”

He dropped his chin into his hand and gazed at her. “I think I just need you.”

The smirk faded from her face and their gaze held for a moment until he shook his head and stood.

“I mean, I need a person like you here,” he clarified. “To do this sort of thing. I hope you’ll consider sticking around for a while.”

She simpered. “We’ll see.”

“We will indeed.”

They lingered quietly for a moment, still looking at each other’s eyes before the sound of footsteps drifted down the hall.

“So,” she interjected. “The last thing is I saw that you’ve never done any employee evaluations. I put together a form and made a few notes for you after meeting with everyone and basically getting a bunch of gossip. That’s in your e-mail too. If you want to look it over, I’ll set up meeting times for everyone.”

“Sounds great,” he said. “You’ve been busy.”

She shrugged. “Just doing my job.”

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