Page 28 of Chasing Blue
Shaking her head, Milly starts reeling off the impressive clientele list Scarlett’s business has worked with, pulling up images of past projects online to back up why we should work with them.
* * *
Finn’sat the bar when I arrive to meet Scarlett later. As well as attending college, he works for me pretty much full-time, and I’ll proudly admit, for a seventeen-year-old, he handles his time well. Because the legal driving age is eighteen in Victoria, he had his lessons down here with me, but I sent him up to his mum in Queensland for his test because you can take it at seventeen up there.
I bought him a truck last Christmas. This has meant I’ve been able to give him more responsibility at work. He now drives around to each of our jobs and checks on things for me. He meets with contractors or does simple things like today when he came here to open the place up for the plumbers, who had work to finish in the kitchen and behind the bar.
“They get done already?” I ask when I notice he’s the only one here.
“Yeah. The sinks, dishwashers, and ice machine are all plumbed in. The taps at the little sinks behind the bars are all connected, and yeah, that’s about it, I think. They said to call them if there are any problems.”
I watch as he moves behind the bar and tries out each of the taps, then checks under the sink for leaks. When he straightens and his eyes meet mine, I can’t help but smile as my gut pulls tight with pride. He really is a good kid, and I mentally give myself a pat on the back for the job I did raising him on my own.
“What?” he questions.
I shake my head and clear my throat. “Nothing, I was just about to come around there and do all the things you just did, but you beat me to it.”
He shrugs. “I’m my father’s son, you taught me well.”
“I tried, but it was on you to listen. But the way you’re handling the extra responsibility I’ve given you proves you’re someone I can trust. That feels good, Finn, having someone I can rely on to look after things when I’m not around means a lot.”
He throws the rag he was drying the sink with at me, and I catch it.
“You getting sentimental, old man?” he asks with a grin identical to my own.
“Fuck off with the old man. We both know the girls on your TikTok are all just waiting on more videos of me.”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “You wish, Boomer.”
“Boomer? Mate, I’m a Millennial, and how many views and likes do you get on the videos I’mnotin?”
I’d drunkenly agreed to let him film us doing some stupid dance one Saturday night when my brother Nate had been down, visiting for the weekend. I didn’t know he’d uploaded it to some app until about two weeks later when I ordered coffee at the Maccas drive-thru. The little girl taking my order asked if I was Finn’s dad from the TikTok video, and then told me that her mum and older sister thought I was hot.
I called Finn as soon as I’d got my coffee, and he sent me the link to the clip he’d shared, then screenshots of some of the messages he’d been sent asking about me.
He’d received over fifty thousand likes, so I told him to add the business name to his profile because you never know, we might get some work out of it.
I’d refused to do any more dancing for the cameras, so Finn had pranked me a few times instead, filmed my reactions, and uploaded them.
I might’ve checked them out, maybe a few times, maybe two hundred. Each clip had thousands of likes, views, and comments, more than anything Finn uploaded without me in it, so I naturally like to get a rise out of him and rub it in his face.
“You expecting someone?” he asks, gesturing over my shoulder.
I turn and look behind me to see Scarlett through the window, unloading stuff from the back of her car.
“Is that the interior design chick? She’s hot, you still haven’t told me the story there. Is she the reason Jules hasn’t been around all week?”
My brows shoot up as he reels off his comments and questions, but instead of answering, I move towards the door.
As I approach her car, Scarlett looks up, and that smile of hers hits me right in the chest.
“Hey,” she calls out, her eyes taking me in from head to toe before meeting my gaze. She likes what she sees, and I like that she likes what she sees.
“Fuck me,” I hear Finn say behind me, “sheisthe reason you’ve given Jules the flick all week. Good move, I approve . . .”
“Shut up,” I look over my shoulder and tell him through gritted teeth.
“Hey, Scarlett, need a hand with that lot?” my son ignores me and asks.
