Page 35 of Bossy Ex's Brother

“Stella—”

“No, it’s fine,” I turned to Stella. I knew she was a little older than all the other girls. Brandon gave me the rundown and told me a little bit about her family life, as well as the fact that she had two girls to take care of. I knew she was probably worried about how to compete with girls who were younger and possibly offering more.

“You can handle your set however you see fit,” I told her. “All the creative pizzazz is mostly for the marketing. You choose how deep into it you want to go and if you want to create lore behind your performances or not. And if you need something that you think will help you be more competitive, then you can let me know. We can get choreographers, set design…you name it.”

“Thanks,” Stella said in a sarcastic tone. “I needed a six-pack and a stack of hundred in my hands yesterday. Think you can give me that, Ms. Manager?” Then, without waiting for me to answer, she turned and stormed off.

“Give her some time,” Fab said sympathetically. “Stella hates change, so it takes her a while to get used to it. You should have seen what happened when Brandon decided to install a computer clock-in system instead of a manual one. She just about had a fight with him in the middle of the bar, but she eventually came around to it. Just like how she’ll come around to your idea too.”

“Well, I like it,” May said, shooting me a wink. “I’ve wanted to dust off my skills for a while now. Maybe I can put on a one-woman parody of the Nutcracker. A dirty nutcracker, if you will.”

“Yeah.” I had no idea what that was, but I smiled encouragingly. “We can do that.”

We discussed it for a few more minutes as she explained what the play was about and how she saw the vision come to life. By the end, I not only knew key details about the Nutcracker, but I started to get pretty excited about seeing her performance.

By the time I left the dressing room, I was in significantly better spirits and encouraged for what was to come.

And this evening, as the bar started getting filled up, everything went surprisingly smoothly. I guessed that rumors of what happened yesterday had spread or the customers today were just significantly better, but we didn’t face any issues today or the rest of the week, for that matter. During that time, Luca and I worked together on the logistics of the rebranding, which meant spending a lot of time with the boss himself.

And to my surprise, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

He was pretty funny when he wasn’t deliberately trying to be annoying to me. He had great business insights most of the time, and he listened closely before he passed judgment on something. I could tell he wasn’t totally on board with some of the ideas I had, but he always maintained an open mind, and we discussed it thoroughly instead of just outrightly rejecting them. And I appreciated that because it meant he didn’t think I was stupid even though he knew I didn’t have a degree.

It came up once when we were balancing his books yet again because the man was just a mess with accounting. During those times, we spoke mostly about work, but on a few occasions, we ventured into topics about my family.

“You know, you’re pretty smart,” he said as I started writing down some more items for his report. “Where did you learn all this stuff? College?”

“Um…” I hesitated to tell him the truth. I knew I was still on probation, and the truth could affect whether or not I got hired at the end of the one-month trial. But at the same time, I didn’t want to lie to him.

“No, actually, I never went to college,” I admitted sheepishly. “I picked up most of these skills by working in the industry and then taking a few online courses myself.”

He seemed surprised at the college thing, but instead of reacting in anger, he followed it up with a question. “Why didn’t you go?”

I shrugged. “We just couldn’t afford it. My mother wasn’t around, there were five of us to take care of, and I didn’t see the point in taking out a bunch of loans for a degree that might not work out. Especially since, at the time, I had no clue what I wanted to even do. So I decided to take a year off to figure it out while working to support the family. But then a year turned into two turned into three, and I realized it just would probably never be feasible.”

His eyes were fathomless when he said, “I’m sorry.”

I shrugged again, “It’s fine. It probably wouldn’t have been for me anyway. I wasn’t the type who did well in school.”

“Really?’ Amazement colored his tone. “Cause you’ve always seemed like a square to me. You know, those girls who got As and everything.”

I would have flipped him off at the square line, but he didn’t say it offensively. There was even an undertone of admiration in his voice.

“Yeah, that wasn’t me,” I said. “I wanted to be one of those girls, but I’m pretty sure I had undiagnosed ADHD because studying by myself was hard for me. I learned better by doing. Plus, if I wasn’t too interested in a topic, it was torture to get myself to learn about it. I wouldn’t have gotten through Algebra at all if it weren’t for Felix.”

“Your brother?” he asked.

I smiled, remembering. “Yup. Now Felix is a giant nerd, and he loves to teach. He was like two classes below me, but he knew more than I did about everything. He’s a whiz with numbers, computers, and just about anything you can think of. No idea where he gets it from since no one else in our family is like that. He got a full scholarship to Harvard for it, but then….”

“He dropped out?” Luca asked wryly, and then I remembered that he had heard most of the conversation.

I sighed. “Something like that. But he’ll go back. I’ll make him because he can’t just throw away his future and an opportunity like that.”

“You should let him.” His expression was stern when he said the next words, and I blinked at him in shock.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said. “He’s a grown man. All you can do is advise him. You can’t force him to make the decision you want.”

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