Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,5
at the window,” she said. “Just say hello to the people as they pull up and take their payment. I’ll do the rest.”
“But Kate—”
She shooed me over to the window before I wasted any more time on protesting. There was no way that she was going to be able to keep up with both the espresso bar and the drive-through drink orders at the same time.
I did as she said. I greeted and talked with the people who pulled up at the window and processed their payments, which I managed not to screw up. Anytime there was a break in the drive-through, I looked over at Kate and saw her busting out four to five drink orders at once. My head was spinning as I watched her work. How could a girl who was so flighty be so damn efficient?
She apologized to the customers who were ornery and comped their drinks so that they left happy and didn’t complain to management. She dwindled down the crowd of waiting customers until she was left with the current drink order and the last customer. She even somehow managed to squeeze in one of her specialty lattes for a woman who came in regularly and fed her dog the whipped cream off the top of her mochas.
At thirty minutes before closing time, the store manager came in to assess the evening and ask us how everything went. He looked around the café and saw the few customers who were still hanging out to be content and sipping their drinks while working on laptops and engaging in pleasant conversations. The espresso bar had been wiped down clean—even though I had made a disastrous mess spilling drinks all over it before Kate took it over—and everything looked as though it had been running smoothly all night.
“How was the shift?” our manager asked Kate.
“Great!” she said enthusiastically.
I had known Kate for a long time, and I don’t think I’d ever seen her so tired as she was right now. She sure did a great job of hiding it, though.
“No problems at all,” she said. “Smooth sailing. Brooke is a natural! Even some of the picky regular customers took an immediate liking to her.”
“Is that so?” he asked with a healthy dose of skepticism as he looked directly at me.
Kate gave me a look from behind him that indicated she would kill me later tonight back at the apartment if I didn’t smile and confirm her story after she had busted her ass to save my job for me.
“Absolutely! I answered as I smiled at our manager with feigned confidence. “Piece of cake.”
He stared at me for a second, and I thought for sure that he was going to start quizzing me on how many espresso shots went into a drink or the temperature to steam the milk. But instead, he just nodded and turned to walk into the back office to work on the product order.
I could see Kate sigh with visible relief.
“Hey, baby,” Nick said as he walked up to the counter to pick her up since our shift was almost over. He usually came in at the end of the night to get a late-night coffee, so there wasn’t really any sense in all of us bringing cars to the tiny parking lot. I was the weird one who liked to walk home. It helped me clear my head.
Kate leaned across the counter to kiss him, and when the store manager came back out to look for a pen, he scolded her for fraternizing with the customers. Kate just rolled her eyes at him. If only he knew what a great employee she was, he wouldn’t criticize her for anything at all. She did the job of two, if not three, people tonight.
“You look beat,” Nick said to her. “Rough night?”
Kate looked at me and laughed. “Not as rough as it could have been,” she said as she came to put her arm around my shoulder and pull me out from around the espresso bar with her.
We took our aprons off as we walked and hung them up on the hooks for the night. Kate shouted a goodbye to the manager, and we all left the café together.
“You sure you don’t want a ride home?” Kate asked as we got to Nick’s car.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure. It’s a short walk, and I could use some time in the cool air to think.”
“Okay,” she said as she shrugged. “See you back at the apartment