Page 17 of The Hometown Dilemma
Once satisfied with the rough ideas, I took the opportunity to check theInterior Nirvanawebsite again. It was becoming a somewhat daily ritual. Anticipation bubbling, I navigated to the ‘Apply for the show’ section, only to find it still wasn’t open. My shoulders slumped. I knew I shouldn’t be disappointed, but a small part of me thought that if I were one of the first to apply, I’d have more of a chance at getting accepted.
I had drafts of all the application criteria all ready. As soon as they were accepting applications, I simply had to upload it. Although as I glanced over the work I’d put together for Moira Channing, I realized some of it easily eclipsed my existing work. Adding a couple of the documents I’d created that morning to my application folder, I shut down the website, vowing not to check it again until the end of the week.
A message pinged on my phone.
Wade:Just checking you’re okay? I hadn’t heard from you today xx
I stared at it blankly. Wade had taken the time to check up on me again because I hadn’t replied to him.
I hadn’t pinned him as someone who cared that much.
Plus, he was my sister’s ex-boyfriend.
Surely there were some rules about that?
Cami clearly didn’t harbor any feelings towards him, given the way she’d acted with that football player the other night. I shouldn’t even consider going there unless I’d spoken to her about it.
Did I want to go there?
We had history.
We were old friends.
He had a past reputation as a player.
But remembering how he’d been in the car last night, how he’d followed up this morning and now, he was already leagues above the guys I’d dated in New York.
My heart screamed YES! I did want to go there…
Then my head made me message Austen to tell him I’d meet him at the Abbott Ridge real estate office in half an hour.
Damn head…
ChapterEight
Wade
Jaime hadn’t repliedto either of my messages.
Maybe I’d read the signals totally wrong. I spent a lot of the night overthinking everything and by the time my alarm went off, it felt like I’d had about an hour’s sleep. It was going to be a long day.
I had a rare day off from the bar. Well, by ‘day off’, it meant I wasn’t on the schedule, but I was meeting with Dad to chat through some ideas to draw more people in. It was highly likely we’d rehash everything we’d already spoken about, and Dad had vetoed, but today I planned to stand up for myself. This time, I wanted to get his approval on at least one thing. We had to start doing things differently. Otherwise, Dempsey’s wouldn’t survive. In a college town, we had a captive audience, but we really weren’t capturing them as we should be. With that and our staffing issues, Jaime’s silence wasn’t the only thing that had kept me awake last night.
Since I didn’t have to be over at Mom and Dad’s until eleven, I had a leisurely start to the day, taking my time over coffee, catching up on my social media, and watching a bit of television. I’d been working so hard recently I’d almost forgotten how to relax.
But the short period of respite didn’t lessen my determination to make some changes to the business, and by the time I headed off, my head swirled with persuasive tactics to use on my dad.
“Wade, look at you. Are you eating properly? You look thin.” Mom opened the door and started with her traditional greeting. Violet Dempsey handled all the finance and accounts for the bar. But she also dabbled in baking and didn’t hesitate to whip up a batch of pies and pastries for me to take home if she had any suspicion I wasn’t taking care of myself.
I gave her a hug, then gently pushed past her into the house. “Mom, I’m fine. Been working a lot lately is all.”
Even though I couldn’t see her face, I sensed her shaking her head.
“You’re like your father,” she murmured. “He’s in the den. I’ll bring some coffee and muffins in a minute.”
Shrugging off my jacket, I hung it on the hooks by the front door like I had since I was a kid. I could hear the low hum of the television from the den and went to join Dad.
“Morning,” I called.
