Page 36 of Tribute Act
I eyed him. “I know. I was thinking about asking you, but being on your feet all day isn’t a picnic. It’s not that long since your surgery.”
He glanced up then, tossing the controller aside. “Come on,” he scoffed. “It’s been nearly eight weeks. I’ll be fine. Plus I’m bored and I want to earn some cash. If you don’t let me do it, I’ll just go and get a job somewhere else.”
I knew he wasn’t kidding. And the truth was, Katie only did a handful of shifts each week—if I swapped the rota around, I could make sure I was around to do any grunt work when he was working.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “On the strict understanding that you promise to tell me the moment you start feeling tired and agree to take regular breaks. Proper sit-down ones. Agreed?”
He rolled his eyes at me, but then nodded and grinned, clearly pleased.
The next morning, it was my turn to open up the café. When I shuffled into the kitchen straight from the shower, a towel slung round my hips, I found Mack already dressed and making tea.
“Oh—uh, morning,” I said, jerking to a halt in the doorway, self-conscious about my slight spare tyre. Somehow, for these last few weeks, I’d managed to never be unclothed in front of Mack. Even during our one-night stand, we hadn’t exactly been scrutinising one another’s bodies, so it felt weird to suddenly have my naked chest on show in the far-too-bright morning light.
Mack looked up from the mugs he was dowsing with milk, clocked my state of undress, and blinked in surprise. For a long, awkward moment, I stared at him, and he stared at my chest.
At last, he managed to drag his gaze upward again. “Um—I was thinking. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to open up with you this morning.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said stupidly, accepting the cup of tea he held out to me. “You’re not meant to start till ten.”
“Well, I’d like to—you don’t have to pay me for it. I’d just like to scope the place out. See how things work before I get started, you know?”
“Oh, I’ll pay you,” I said hurriedly, horrified at the implication I was being cheap. “It’s only that I hadn’t planned to start you off with opening up. But sure, if you want to do that, that’s fine.”
He chuckled. “Hey, I’m just glad to escape another morning of daytime TV.”
It was typical of him to wave off the money issue—one of the nicest things about Mack was how easygoing he was. If that’d been me, I’d probably have made a big point of principle about how I wouldn’t accept payment for those unsolicited hours and the whole conversation would’ve become awkward. Not Mack, though.
I took my tea back to the bedroom and quickly dressed in jeans and a polo, examining my belly in the mirror for a bit longer than usual, smoothing my hands down over my torso. When I’d lived in London, I’d been in pretty decent shape thanks to my early morning gym visits and healthy, if expensive, eating habits. I still did some free weights at home, so I had reasonable muscle tone—good pecs and arms—but my gut! Jesus, I had to do some cardio and cut out all the carbs and sugar I was eating. If only I was like Mack. God, that man had so much self-control . . . I thought of his long lean torso and swallowed, hard.
I wished it was mere envy I felt when I thought of Mack’s body. That had to be better than the unrequited lust that had been riding me since he’d moved in.
With a sigh, I turned away from the mirror.
Mornings were always busy at Dilly’s. We opened at eight thirty on weekdays and our first sit-in customers usually rolled in just after nine—mostly parents who’d dropped off kids at school. Midmorning brought the pensioners and parents with younger children, followed by the lunchtime rush, so there was quite a bit of early prep needed.
That morning, Mack and I got to the café at seven thirty. I showed him round the service counter, coffee machines, and till area, explaining our system for orders and payment, then took him into the kitchen and showed him where everything was stored. He picked up the details quickly, his easy grasp of the essentials testament to the many catering jobs he’d had before.
Together, we unloaded stock from the fridge and larder and brought it into the main body of the café, loading up the refrigerated part of the service counter with cling-film-wrapped tubs of sandwich fillings, and stocking up the baskets on top of the counter with bread, rolls, and pastries.
While Mack filled the coffee grinders with beans, I rolled out some ready-to-bake scone dough Derek had left in the fridge, cut out a couple of dozen rounds, and rattled them into the oven. I’d bake another couple of dozen in an hour or so, and probably a third batch just before lunch—the fresher the better with scones. Derek’s scones were soft, crumbly, and utterly delicious. One of our best sellers was the “Dilly’s special ice cream afternoon tea”—a warm scone served with clotted cream ice cream and strawberry jam sauce, all homemade.
“We don’t make any of our other cakes and pastries,” I told Mack. “Not yet anyway. That’s where I want to get to though. Ideally, everything we sell should be homemade.”
“Dilly’s everything?” Mack teased.
I grinned at him. “Why not? Once we’ve established the brand, the sky’s the limit. I’m looking into getting some of our ice creams into the shops.”
Mack raised his eyebrows. “Impressive.”
By 8:15, the scones were out of the oven and the café was ready for opening. Mack practiced his barista skills, making us both large coffees, a latte for me and an Americano for him. I hesitated when he passed me the latte—I needed to give up the big milky drinks—but in the end, I caved. It looked too good to pass up, the creamy foam just the right consistency with a fancy little coffee pattern worked into it.
“God, those scones smell amazing,” Mack said.
“Wait till you taste them.” I opened one up and spread it thickly with butter before handing it to him.
He took a bite. “Oh my god,” he moaned through a mouthful of pastry.
“I know,” I said. “Derek makes them.”