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Pushing past him, she reached into the cupboard where the black bags were stored. A cafe that put time limits on their customers wasn’t the type of place she was running. Not now, not ever.

“What are you doing?” Kent asked as she tore off a bag and marched out of the kitchen.

“Putting those blackboards where they belong.”

She could feel Kent on her heels as she went around the tables, sweeping up the blackboards and dropping them straightinto the bin bag. When they were all in there, she turned around and handed it to him.

“Now that you’ve wasted the first part of my morning. I need to get on with the rest of my work,” she said. “And if I see those things out here again, I won’t just bin them. I’ll burn them.”

CHAPTER 35

“You can’t just not speak to him,” Sophie said. “It’s not efficient.”

“I disagree,” Gemma replied.

Placing and collecting orders did not require her to speak at all, and it didn’t matter how much Sophie tried to ameliorate the situation. Gemma wasn’t having it.

“I agree. He should have mentioned it to you first, but what if he takes the money for the blackboards out of our tips? You know I’m saving up to buy Graham those Lego kits he wants for his birthday. Lego is seriously expensive. I need those tips.”

“He’s not taking any money out of the tips,” Gemma said, half wishing that Kent would try just so she could give him another earful.

More than once, she considered picking up the phone to Oscar and telling him that the new set up wouldn’t work. She didn’t need an eight-week trial to know that. But somehow, she’d restrained herself. It helped that Kent seemed to realise she needed a wide berth. Or at least, she thought he realised, until Wednesday morning, when he appeared out of the kitchen the moment she arrived.

“Gemma, I was hoping we could have a word?” he said.

She hated that phrase. What was she going to say? No? That was what she wanted to answer, but she knew she couldn’t. So what he really meant was that they were going to talk, whether she wanted to or not.

“I’ve got a lot to set up this morning.”

“I’m aware, which is why I’ll make this quick. I’ve been here nearly two weeks now?—”

“I know exactly how long you’ve been here,” Gemma said, though she chose not to add that she had a countdown on her bathroom mirror written with a whiteboard marker.

Kent’s smile tightened.

“Right, so nearly two weeks, but we haven’t yet had any staff meetings.”

“Staff meetings?” Gemma walked over to the counter to start setting up the coffee machine. “What do we need staff meetings for? There are only three of us here most of the time. We can just tell one another anything we need to.”

“Oh yes, and talking has been working so well for us so far,” Kent said, arching one of his eyebrows.

Gemma ignored the gesture. After all, he was the one who had said nothing to her about those bloody blackboards. Communication was a two-way street, and he had put just as many roadblocks up as she did.

“Sorry, that was rude.”

“When would we even have time for a meeting?” Gemma said, ignoring his apology too.

“I thought that we could just come in earlier, one day a week. Maybe when most people are at work. Choose a day when the part-timers come in too.”

“If Dawn or Heather are in, it means Sophie or I aren’t. Unless you don’t think I need to be there, in which case, go ahead without me. This sounds like an executive manager’s decision, after all.”

A flicker of tension tightened in his jaw and caused a spark of satisfaction to rise within her.

“We need a way to disseminate information,” he continued. Clearly, it was now his turn to ignore her comments. “What about staff emails?”

“Staff emails?”

“I could set them up and send around any important notices in a bullet point format. That way, everyone could look at them at a time that’s convenient for them. Would that work better?”