Big Pickle: A Secret Boss Romantic Comedy - JJ Knight Page 0,19
on the fly. The price of his help, he claimed, was to make it up to this fiery lady, with the side benefit of making it harder for my deli to profit.
Not that Nova was being overpaid for a manager. In fact, she’d been pretty underpaid for the work she’s been doing. She should have been at least pulling an assistant manager’s salary.
Plus, he gave her back pay and a bonus. That was pure Max mischief. He’s already had legal do the paperwork and courier it, along with authorization to have tech let her onto the network.
Yeah, it’s going to be hard to pull ahead with all that. Good for Nova.
Bad for me.
I suppose at this point in the challenge, it isn’t about winning. Well, it is. But I probably don’t have a chance in hell.
It’s about figuring out what’s going wrong with my deli. And fixing it. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out I’m so far behind the others I can’t possibly catch up. The numbers the accountant sent us didn’t lie.
I buzz again.
This time Lamonte opens the back door. “We don’t want any,” he says with a laugh.
When his remark causes me to take a step back, he chuckles again. “I’m kidding, man. You look as serious as a heart attack.”
“How’s Nova this morning?” I ask.
“You mean, does she seem in the killing mood? Like she might chop you to bits and mix your mangled body in the meat sauce?”
“Is it that bad?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
We head inside. The entire crew is in the kitchen. They’re clustered around several yellow buckets.
Elda dunks a plastic-gloved hand into one and pulls out a large green pickle. “Praise the Lord,” she says. “We no longer have to stuff those teeny peckers.”
Nova nods. She has her back to me. Today’s ensemble is a sweet, form-fitted short-sleeved shirt and green camo pants. I try not to be too obvious admiring that sweet ass, but she looks around and catches me anyway.
“Jason,” she says. At least she’s dropped the bitter note. “Glad to have you back.”
Okay. That’s not too bad.
I wonder if Max left out anything they’d said to each other. Maybe he somehow turned me into a likable character.
I give her a quick nod. “Thank you for letting me return. I’m sorry I overstepped.”
“I think we know where we stand, right?”
“We do.”
I walk up to the line of buckets. “What’s all this?”
Lamonte circles the table to the other side. He shoves a plastic glove on his hand and arranges a row of pickles, so they are lined up by size. “The minute Nova got access to the delivery system, she tracked down our original supplier of extra-large pickles for the stuffed dills. We’ve been struggling with a new company the last couple of weeks. Their pickles were too small.”
“Pricks,” Elda says.
Everyone erupts into giggles. It’s apparently a favorite joke.
But this definitely interests me. “Somebody switched the pickles?”
Nova’s fingers wrap around a particularly girthy specimen, and I have to steel my jaw to shove aside the untoward thoughts in my head.
Nova turns the pickle over. “Susan switched our provider.” She lifts the pickle close to her face, taking a closer look. I have to take a deep breath and will my male anatomy to chill the hell out.
“Why would she do that?” I ask.
“They’re bound to be cheaper,” Lamonte says. “Maybe she was seeing something on the books that meant we weren’t turning a profit on the stuffed ones.”
“I doubt that woman cared one whit,” Elda says with a snort.
“I’ll try to take a look tonight,” Nova says. “There’s a lot to untangle from the books.”
“How did you get new pickles so fast?” I ask.
“I called first thing this morning. Austin is a regional distributor for these, so I was able to get someone out right away. They were very happy to get our business back.”
She sets down the pickle and glances at me. “Don’t stand around being pointless. Get an apron on. Back to dicing.”
“My nemesis,” I say, and the crew laughs again. My gut tightens. I’ve never felt camaraderie with a group like this before. It’s interesting and new.
It feels good.
Except Nova. She watches me warily, as if she doesn’t quite trust I’m there to work.
I’ll have to prove her wrong. I need to earn all of these people’s trust.
I can’t count on the AWOL manager being the crux of the problem with my deli. And it’s possible Max gave a giant raise to the very person who’s causing