Page 19 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter fourteen

After a lazy Sunday morning in bed and an afternoon curled up on the sofa with Nell, binge-watching trash TV, Daniel hadn’t managed to summon the courage to mention the supermarket pitch date.

By Monday morning, his guts felt gnawed in two. He phoned the buyer—a woman with a broad Leeds accent and a no-nonsense attitude that rivalled his own—from his office.

“Hello, Daniel,” she answered briskly. “You got the email, then.”

“Aye, I did. Can I just say what a fantastic opportunity this is and how grateful I am—”

“But?”

“Eh?”

“I can hear it in your voice,” she said, cutting through his attempt at flattery like a blade. “You’re calling to ask if we can change the date, aren’t you?”

Daniel exhaled, relieved she’d skipped straight to the point. He launched into his explanation, words tumbling over each other. “It’s just that the twenty-seventh happens to be my wife’s birthday, and if I miss it, well, she’ll probably serve me with divorce papers.

“Good Catholic boy that I am,” he added, glancing upwards at the Artex-covered ceiling, hoping the heavens wouldn’t mind the outright lie, “I cannae get divorced. My mother would never speak to me again.”

The buyer let out a throaty chuckle, the sound both amused and pitying. “Mothers, eh? I sympathise. I really do.”

Oh-oh. There was definitely a ‘but’ coming.

“As you might expect, we’re very selective about the products we stock,” she began, her tone measured.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of small producers out there offering excellent goods. Sometimes, we choose products not just because they’re the best example of their type—though they often are—but because we know we can rely one hundred percent on the suppliers. ”

She paused for effect before continuing.

Reliability, she explained, meant showing up when you said you would.

The pitch was his one and only chance to make a good first impression.

She wouldn’t blame him if he decided to turn it down, she added almost kindly, but there were hundreds of other producers chomping at the bit, ready to fill his slot.

Daniel sighed inwardly. There was no wriggling out of this. With a weary promise that he and his partner would be there, he ended the call and leant back in his chair, rubbing his temples before switching on his computer to search for hotels in Leeds.

Leeds. Not the most glamorous destination. Sure, it had five-star hotels, but it didn’t carry the same allure as London or Paris. Their supermarket pitch was scheduled for 11.30am. Realistically, it would swallow up most of the day.

Holly knocked on the door and stepped in without waiting for a reply.

She’d been his personal assistant for the past ten years, joining straight from school.

Most people assumed she was older than her age, thanks to her wardrobe choices—outfits even your average granny might have considered old-fashioned.

Take today’s ensemble: a navy blue dress with white polka dots, a pie-crust collar and long sleeves, her hair held off her face with a velvet Alice band, paired with red-framed cat’s-eye glasses.

The whole look had a certain retro charm, but it screamed frumpy.

Maybe she dressed to suit her partner’s tastes, who was thirty years her senior.

“Alright, gaffer?” she said, breezing in and dumping a thick pile of papers on his desk.

She tilted her head, squinting at him. “What’s up wi’ your face?

Looks like somebody shat in your cornflakes, and there you were, ready to dig in, starving—like you havenae eaten in days—only now you cannae touch it because you’re feart you’ll swallow a mouthful of shite. ”

Daniel grimaced. That was another thing about Holly. Her unparalleled talent for weaving scatological imagery into everyday conversation.

He waved a hand vaguely toward the papers. “Thanks, Holly. Anything urgent?”

“Nope.” She flashed him a cheery grin. “Just the usual daily dose o’ misery. Cheer up, eh? Could be worse. You could be the one eating the shitey cornflakes. Fancy a coffee?”

“Aye, please.”

Holly returned a few minutes later, placing a steaming mug on his desk, accompanied by one of her homemade scones.

Daniel waited until she’d left the room before wrapping the scone in a tissue and slipping it into his top drawer.

He would dispose of it later—discreetly.

Holly’s talents, while many, did not extend to baking.

Her scones could double as paperweights.

He turned his attention to the stack of papers in front of him: invoices to review, printouts of priority emails, and several applications for the recently advertised vacancies. He decided to tackle the staffing issue first, as Stuffed! urgently needed reinforcements.

The Hyndland shop required a new manager to replace Liza, who was stepping up to fill Joe’s role.

There was also a vacancy for a general shop assistant in one of the Edinburgh branches, plus two temporary positions to handle the summer music festival rush.

Those temp jobs always attracted a flood of applications, as young people saw them as a sneaky way to avoid paying the festival’s exorbitant entry fees.

That meant sifting through the dreamers to find the workers. Loving music was fine, but at the end of the day, they were there to work.

One application caught his eye. A sixteen-year-old from the East End who’d been working at a busy Greggs bakery. That kind of experience meant he’d likely be familiar with hygiene standards, which was a massive time-saver when training new hires.

Decision made, Daniel called through to Holly. When she appeared in the doorway, he held up the application.

“Get this lad in for an interview, will you? Let’s see what he’s like before we offer him the job.”

Holly plucked the paper from his hand. She glanced at it, squinting behind her cat’s-eye-glasses. “Ryan Colquhoun? Aye, good choice. Thought he sounded like the best bet. I’ll call him now. When for, gaffer?”

“Next week, oh fuck, no I’m too busy. The week after…”

She shook her head. “That’s too close. We’ll need tae have him out in a van doing the industrial estates before that, so’s he can get some practice in.”

“Okay, you interview him next week,” Daniel said. “Ask Joe if he can sit in too.”

“On it like a bonnet! Greggs, eh? Bet he’s a dab hand at sausage rolls. Maybe he’ll teach me a thing or two.”

Daniel nodded absently, his focus already drifting as Holly left the room.

He reached for his coffee, the mug warm in his hand, and took a sip, wincing at the bitterness.

He pulled open his desk drawer, retrieving a jar of sugar and added a generous spoonful to the mug, swirling it around with his spoon.

The irony wasn’t lost on him: running a chain of delis in Glasgow that prided themselves on stocking premium single-origin coffee beans, while here in his office, he drank supermarket instant.

The twenty-seventh for the pitch. A date carved in stone. He leant back in his chair, rubbing his temple as he mulled over the possibilities again. Joe couldn’t do it, but what about Liza standing in for him at the pitch?

For a brief, ignoble moment, he wondered whether Liza’s wheelchair might score them some bonus diversity points with the buyers. He dismissed the thought immediately. Like Joe, she would hate that kind of pressure, and he’d promised himself long ago never to compromise integrity for a deal.

A lesson learned courtesy of Uncle Shane. Albeit, not one his relative thought to teach.

What if he turned the opportunity down entirely?

Focused on pitching to other supermarkets instead?

The thought was tempting, but it would mean discarding everything he’d worked toward to get Stuffed!

in front of the UK’s biggest supermarket in the first place.

Winning this pitch meant hitting the big time—a goal he’d set for himself two decades ago when he’d first started in business.

To walk away now? It would feel like failure.

He sipped the coffee again, now marginally improved by the sugar, and sighed heavily. There was no getting around it. He’d have to break it to Nell that their weekend in London was off the table.

And then, somehow, come up with a list of wildly imaginative ways to beg for her forgiveness.