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Muttered agreements followed her question, although rather than responding immediately, Flick cleared her throat. Flick was one of the newer members of the book club, but it felt like she had been there forever. She was weirdly invited by her ex-husband’s now fiancé. The pair had such a lovely relationship. Gemma couldn’t help but be a little jealous. After all, all her ex had left her with was a bad credit rating and debt in her name.

“I know this might go against the grain, but perhaps he thought not helping Mr Jordan was the right thing,” Flick said.

“How could anyone think that?”

“I’ve met Mr Jordan a few times at Alex’s volunteering centre,” Flick replied. “He really doesn’t like fuss at all. He made it known that he wouldn’t come in on his birthday if people were going to sing because he hates it that much. Could Kent have maybe sensed that and wanted to stay out of the way?”

“That’s a nice idea, but there’s no way that Kent Parker is the type of person who can sense what anyone else wants other than himself.” Gemma didn’t want to rant all night. Really. She had hoped book club might be the chance she needed to get Kent out of her head, but now that she had started, she couldn’t stop. “He’s going to be the chef, for crying out loud, and yet he’s spent more time out in the cafe, sitting there, sipping on a damn espresso, and making notes on his tablet. Besides, if you were going to come in and see your new place of work a week before you were due to start, wouldn’t you at least ring and ask first? That would be the decent thing to do, right?”

She looked around at her friends, who nodded dutifully.

“I get it,” Jules agreed. “I’d hate to have someone turn up in my classroom and start taking notes without giving me a warning that they were coming.”

“Exactly!” Gemma raised her hands with such force that some of her drink sloshed down her arm. Not that it stopped her. “I can’t believe he thought he could just turn up and then come back day after day, even though I’ve made it perfectly clear he isn’t welcome. No. I don’t like it. I don’t like him one bit.”

“I don’t get how you haven’t spoken to him at all, though,” Fleur said. “That must be really difficult.”

“Not really.” Gemma took a long sip of her drink before wiping her arm across her top. “I don’t need to speak to him. If he wants something to eat or drink, I make sure Sophie takes his order, and the rest of the time, I pretend he’s not there. It’s not as if he’s tried to speak to me, either. He’s asked me exactly zero questions. I mean, I’m the manager. I’d be happy to answer anything he’s got, but apparently, he doesn’t think I’m worth talking to.”

“I’m sure that’s not it.” Eunice, the oldest book club member, sat next to Fleur and was always quick to offer an opinion. “It sounds to me like some wires have got crossed somewhere.”

Gemma shook her head.

“Not on my part,” she said. “My wires are very much in straight lines, and every one of them despises Kent Parker.”

She paused. More than ever, she wished she’d not brought him up at all. That they were all having a nice evening talking about books. But before she could divert the conversation back to where it was meant to be, Nina, the local librarian and long-term member of the group, spoke.

“You are going to have to work with him, though, right?” she said. Like Marie and Gemma, Nina was one of the few in the book club who was still single. “Surely you need to get past this?”

It felt as though everyone was ganging up on her, and given how Gemma knew she was in the right, that wasn’t something she was willing to accept.

“Look, I don’t want to talk about Kent,” she said. “Particularly not now. It’s going to be tough enough with George going. He’s been there longer than I have. It’s not even going to feel like the Waterfront Cafe without him.” She looked at Sophie, who nodded understandingly. She was, after all, the only other person who truly got how she felt there.

“Are you doing anything for him, a farewell?” Flick asked.

“We’re having a little get-together at the pub after. I think we’ll finish half an hour early or so, then head up and get some dinner. The Saturday girls and the part-timers are coming too, so it should be a good send-off. And we’ve got him a little gift, too.”

“That sounds great,” Jules said, smiling gently.

“Yes,” Gemma replied. “Hopefully, we’ll give him a good send-off.”

The thought of George leaving caused a knot to tighten in her chest and a peculiar lump to form in the base of Gemma’s throat.

“You know, I really didn’t like how they ended that book,” she said, getting them back on track for the first time since they had mentioned Kent. “Did anybody else find that it was really abrupt?”

CHAPTER 8

Friday was its usual, hectic self, made even more so by the bright sunshine and the clear blue sky. Summer was desperate to make an appearance, but Gemma wouldn’t believe it just yet. The weather had a way of doing this, tricking her into believing that the cold, grey, rainy days were gone by offering a brief glimpse of clear skies and weather that was far too warm for jeans. But she knew that just around the corner, there could be a rainy spell with vicious winds driving all their customers away.

One thing that did brighten her mood, however, was the fact that by 1 pm, there was still no sign of Kent.

“He starts work tomorrow,” Sophie said. “Perhaps he wanted a day away from the place.”

“Probably,” Gemma replied. “And thank you for changing shifts with me. I really didn’t feel up to working tomorrow with him. The weather forecast’s not great, and the last thing I fancy is a quiet day with no one to talk to except Kent Parker.”

It wasn’t the most mature way of handling the matter. She knew that. Gemma was the manager, and she should have been the one to work with Kent on his first day, but the fact was, he had already rubbed her up the wrong way, and they would bestarting off on the wrong foot. This way, she figured, she could find out from Sophie how good he was at doing his actual job. If he didn’t upset anyone else, and they didn’t get any complaints about the standard of food going down, then maybe… just maybe… she would cope. After all, the chef always came in far earlier to prep and left a couple of hours before they shut up shop. Maybe, with the help of some part-timers, Gemma could avoid seeing him altogether.

“How are you feeling, George?” she asked him just after four. Normally he would have left several hours ago, but today he had stayed in the coffee shop to say goodbye to everyone. It was a testament to what a wonderful person he was that several of the customers had come in especially to say goodbye to him on his last day of work. A couple had even brought him gifts.