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ChapterNineteen
GEMMA
“You want help with dinner?” Felix asked.
I waved him off. “I’m just putting a pizza in the oven. Go do whatever work you want to do.”
He smiled at me. After we got out of the shower, I noticed he had that look in his eye, like he was plotting something. He grabbed his paint set and easel with the unfinished painting. “I want to go down to the dock and finish this.”
“Babe, go!” I said, and I wanted to stop myself from calling him that. He wasn’t my boyfriend. Come Sunday, we would go back to barely being friends. I shouldn’t call him that. Even though he got a shy little smile on his face when I did.
He kissed my cheek and walked out of the cabin.
I went into the fridge and grabbed a 611 Ale. I popped the top off with the bottle opener on the fridge. I took a sip and set the beer on the counter again, then opened the freezer, took out the frozen pizza, and put it in the oven.
I was exhausted from taking Felix out on the boat today and from the marathon sex afterward. We were trying to squeeze every moment out of the rest of our vacation together. In two days, this would be over, but I didn’t want it to be. I just didn’t think I could convince him otherwise.
I sat on the couch in the living room and sipped my beer while I spied Felix out on the dock with his painting. He looked in the zone, and I didn’t want to bother him. He seemed so sure of his place in the world, and I liked how invested he got into making me a new logo for my shop.
I pulled out my phone and tried to see if I could get on the internet. I searched his name but couldn’t find anything. I found his website linked in the bio on his social media accounts. His website was amazingly put together, which wasn’t a surprise since Felix put a lot of care into his work. All the stuff he did for the Brewery was in his portfolio, but he also had logos he had done for different businesses, and even some sports teams. He was fantastic at this, and I felt confident he’d give me a logo that exuded my essence.
I set my phone down and forced myself to think about the marketing job. That had been the whole point of coming up here this week. I loved working at the brewery, but it was a dead-end job. It wasn’t like I could become ‘head bartender.’ The only place to grow was to become the house manager, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that either. I loved helping come up with the beer names and new ways to get our name out there.
Maybe I should take the position.
I went back into the kitchen and found the shopping list notepad in the junk drawer. I found a pen and sat at the kitchen table as I started a pros and cons list for taking the job.
PRO: Career growth, be my own boss, have control over marketing ideas, career path if I ever leave the brewery, bigger salary.
CON: Failing, No longer interacting with customers.
The pros outweighed the cons by a lot. My biggest reason for not wanting the job was my fear of failure. My fear of having the same thing happen as when I worked that soul-crushing corporate job. But Felix was right. Declan never treated me the way my old boss had.
When I stared back at my words, I realized I finally had my answer. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t still scared about my future.
My timer beeped, and I went to check on the pizza. I took it out of the oven and let it cool on the stove. I walked out onto the porch, but I felt bad bothering Felix when he looked so engrossed in his work.
“Hey!” I called out to him. He turned around, and I had to lift my hand above my eyes to spy on him. “Dinner’s ready!”
He held up a finger and went back to painting.
I gave him five minutes, and when he still didn’t come in, I piled slices of pizza on a plate and held our beers in my other hand. I walked down the wooden steps to the dock. Felix was still too focused on his painting of the lake view to notice me. He had perfectly captured all the colors of the sky at this time of day. It was amazing what his hands could spit out on the canvas.
He turned at the sound of my footsteps and frowned. “Shit, sorry. I got too in the zone.”
He took a slice of pizza from me as he examined his work. I handed him the beer, and he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
I sat down on the dock, took a bite of my pizza, then took off my shoes and put my feet into the water. I loved being down here by the dock, especially as the sun was going down.
“What do you think?” Felix asked.
I turned to him and looked at his painting. “It’s beautiful. Your art’s amazing.”
His chest puffed out in pride, and he joined me in sitting on the dock. We drank our beer and ate our pizza quietly as the sun went down in front of us.
“I think I’m gonna take the job,” I said after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
“Really?” Felix asked. “Sweet thing, that’s great. You’ll do amazing at it.”
