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“My favorite words,” he murmurs, kissing my hair.
Chapter4
Keely
Two Months Later
Jamila wipes sweatfrom her forehead. Sawdust and drywall floats through the air. The place smells like paint, caulk, and plastic as we lean over a clipboard. Numbers are scribbled all over a spreadsheet, some crossed out, others circled. “We’re over budget,” she says, sounding anxious.
Around us, a small team of construction workers hammer, screw, frame, and refinish, turning what was once a nice, upscale cafe into the skeleton of a donut shop.
“How can you even tell?” I ask, squinting at her handwriting. “Seriously, Jams, this is like a fifth-grader’s doing our bookkeeping.”
She whacks my shoulder with her pen. “Don’t be a dick. You can do it if you’re so much better.”
“No, no, I’m sorry, you’re doing great.” I grin at her, waving my hands in surrender. “But seriously, how do you know?”
“We were fine until a couple days ago when the foreman said we had to move that gas line. Now we’re a few thousand in the hole.” I tap at a number that’s immodestly large. “This doesn’t even count equipment and materials cost.” She chews the end of the pen anxiously.
“We’ll be okay. I have some more money I can use.” Which means I won’t be retiring, but whatever, that’s okay. “And if it gets really bad, I have a pretty good credit limit.”
She groans. “We arenotmaxing out your credit cards. Do you know how much they charge?”
“Yeah, like thirty percent. It’s criminal.” I turn to look at the room, my arm draped over her shoulder, hugging her against me. “But we’re doing this, Jams, and we’re doing it ourselves. Nobody else but us.”
She sighs, lowering the clipboard. My best friend is a beauty: light brown skin, big brown eyes, the sort of curls most girls would kill for. She’s in overalls and a long-sleeve thermal, a bandana covering her hair. “We really are doing it,” she agrees.
The opportunity thrust itself in my face two weeks after Ash’s ceremony. Two weeks after my one-night stand with Mr. Crowley, the man-who-shall-not-be-named, the man-who-rocked-my-world. The cafe down the street from Bottle of Smoke abruptly closed when its old owner passed away and she didn’t leave the place to anyone. The instant I heard the space would be vacant, I contacted the leasing agency to see if the building’s owner would rent it to me. The guy got back right away, said the building had been bought out by some random megacorporation’s holding company, but they agreed to rent to me for a criminally cheap monthly price. Still expensive, since it’s a good location in Boston, but half of what Ash pays.
I accepted on the spot. Even before asking Jams if she was in.
Now we’re halfway through renovations, the place is coming together, and it looks like we might fail before we even open the doors.
“There’s always a bank loan,” Jams suggests as we walk through what will one day become the front room. Glass display case showing off all those gorgeous little donuts, seating area for people to hang out and enjoy, coffee machine with free refills—I want this place to be donut heaven.
“I’ll look into it,” I promise. “At least that would be real funding and not, like, shooting ourselves in the foot.”
“Mostly, anyway.” Jams puts her hand on her hips, staring through the back door. The original kitchen is getting a total renovation. “When’s the proofing equipment showing up?”
“Soon,” I say, checking the invoice email on my phone. “A few days.”
“Mixers? Scales? Cooling racks?”
“Soon,” I repeat, flipping into more emails. “Uh, days now. I mean—”
“You don’t know.” She glares at me. The construction guys studiously ignore us. “Keels. You don’t know.”
“No, I know, it’s just—”
“It’s just you have no clue when any of the actual equipment we’re going to need will show up.” Jams huffs, shaking her head. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
“There was a delay, the shipping estimate—”
“There’salwaysgoing to be a delay with you.” She gestures with both arms. “We need fryers, skimming equipment, oil, donut ingredients, heck, there’s even special glazer stations—”
“It’s all coming,” I say, starting to get frustrated. “Why are you dumping on me suddenly?”
“Becausethey’rebehind schedule too.” She jabs a finger toward the workers. One of them glances over, but quickly looks away. “We paid first month, last month, security deposit, right? Then a bunch of new crap sprang up with all this—” She gestures around us at the work. “Which sucked away most of our cash. Meaning we have approximately one month worth of rent left. Meaning we need to open, and open soon, or else we’re absolutely screwed.”
