—Not the Payback I was Looking For—

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JENNIE

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Even though BB isn't open on Thanksgiving, I still head into the shop first thing in the morning. I need to frost the cupcakes for my family's dinner and all my supplies are there. Plus I want to drop off yesterday's unsold goods at the local soup kitchen, along with any other treats that won't be fresh by tomorrow. Usually one of their staff comes to pick them up, but they couldn't make it yesterday and I figured it was easier for me to do the dropping off on the way out of town.

I'm surprised to see Lisa in the back alley outside The Manoban Cap. She usually isn't in until sometime after ten, and it's barely eight thirty. She's pacing as she talks on the phone, her tone clipped and annoyed. She's not wearing her usual plaid-and-jeans uniform, either. Today she's in a pair of gray sweats and a hoodie, her hair is a mess, again, and she has a serious five-o'clock shadow going on. She's wearing her glasses, like she rolled out of bed and came straight here. Amazingly, she still manages to look delicious.

"Well what the hell am I supposed to do now?" She spins around and stalks back into The Manoban Cap.

Looks like it's her turn to be in a mood.

I'm about to go back inside, but a tired-looking Chan steps out and sags against the wall, cringing when Lisa's loud, angry voice filters through the gap in the door.

"What's going on?"

He startles and holds his finger to his lips. "I'm hiding."

"Why are you here this early?"

"Because I was supposed to help with food prep and get double pay today, but it looks like that's not happening."

Lisa comes busting out into the back alley again and the door nearly hits Chan in the face, but his reaction time is at least decent, because he manages to get out of the way before the steel connects with his nose.

"What the fuck am I going to do?" Lisa grabs her hair and kicks the giant metal trash bin.

I've never seen Lisa anything but calm. "Are you okay?" I ask, even though it's very obvious that she's definitely not okay.

"No!" She throws her hands in the air. "I'm not fucking okay!"

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Unless you can magically thaw twenty-five damn Cornish game hens in the next three hours, then no."

A sinking feeling hits me. I let Yoshi sign for the order yesterday and then I got busy with customers. It was nonstop all day. "Oh my God. Is this my fault? Did they go in the freezer instead of the fridge?"

Lisa's brow furrows. "What? No. The freaking company I ordered from messed it up. I ordered fresh Cornish game hens and they brought me frozen ones and a bunch of cans of damn pie filling instead of pie."

"Oh no! I hope they're giving you your money back." I can't even imagine what it would do to my bank account if something like that happened to me.

"Yeah, but that's not going to help me tonight. Now all I have to serve for Thanksgiving is potatoes, stuffing, and freaking vegetables."

She paces the alley, hands still in her hair. I try not to ogle her tattoos, or the way her jogging pants do a great job of hugging her butt, but it's a challenge.

"What if we put them in a cold water bath?" I suggest.

"They're rock solid. It'll take at least six hours and then we'd still have to prep and cook them. I spent eleven damn hours in a car yesterday so I could be open on Thanksgiving and this is what I get. I should've checked last night." She scrubs her face with both hands. "Chan, you might as well go home. Enjoy the day off."

"We could do wings or something," he offers.

"It's Thanksgiving. People don't want wings. They want a proper dinner, and we don't have one. We don't even have a dessert to serve. There just really isn't a point."

"Sorry, Lisa. I know you had big plans for today."

She waves him off. "It's fine. It's not your fault."

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" Chan takes a step toward the door.

"Yeah. Thanks for coming in early. I know you'd rather be sleeping."

Chan leaves and Lisa slips her hands in her pockets and drops her head with a sigh.

I feel awful for her. Thanksgiving can be a good opportunity to make money, if you have the food to serve. "Do you need any help with anything?"

She rubs the back of her neck. "Nah. Guess I'm gonna sit on the couch and watch TV today."

"Why don't you come over and I'll make you a boozy coffee." I incline my head toward BB. It's really the least I can do.

She blows out a breath. "Yeah, sure. Why not? It's not like I have anything better to do."

I'd be offended, but I don't think it's a personal attack, more that she's upset about the sudden and unexpected crappy turn her day took.

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I make us both special lattes, hers spiked with booze, mine not since I have some baking to do. "I need to frost some cupcakes. If you're interested in hanging around, you can be my taste tester."

"Uh sure, yeah. I could do that."

I lead her to the kitchen and set her up with a stool. I pull the naked cupcakes from the fridge so they have time to warm up, don a hairnet—hygiene before vanity—wash my hands and slip out of my heels and into a pair of flats before I get the rest of the ingredients out.

"Do you need any help?"

"Nope. You're good to just hang out and drink coffee. I'm sorry about the delivery. We had a busy day yesterday and I let Yoshi accept it. I didn't even check what it was."

"It wouldn't have mattered. I didn't tell you what was supposed to be delivered and I should've checked everything last night, but that drive was hell. There was an accident on the way back and it took seven hours instead of four, which is already long enough, you know? I just didn't plan this as well as I should have. Rookie mistake, I guess."

"You can always do a post-Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, can't you? Maybe on Saturday you can do a Cornish game hen special?" I tie my apron and set up the industrial mixer so I can work on the buttercream.

"That's what I'll have to do. They've already been in the fridge overnight. I'm hoping by tomorrow afternoon they'll be thawed and then the kitchen staff can prep and cook them."

"At the very least you'll be able to thaw them the rest of the way in a water bath, won't you?"

"Mmm. Yeah." She watches me measure ingredients, turn on the mixer and set the timer before I move to a smaller one to prepare the chocolate buttercream for the triple chocolate cupcakes. My dad put in a special request for those. He put in several special requests. Sometimes it's hard to understand why he just won't let me live my dream when it's so clear I know what I'm doing.

"I can't believe you're wearing a dress and working with chocolate."

"I do everything in a dress."

One of her eyebrows lifts.

"Almost everything," I amend. I don't know why my mind immediately goes to sex on account of her eyebrow raise. Possibly because Lisa's hair is sticking out all over the place like she's just been screwed? Or because she looks half–book nerd and half badass with the glasses, sweats, and full sleeves. Or because I haven't had it in forever.

I'll go with the last one.

I stick my head in the fridge and take far longer than necessary to retrieve the milk so she can't see my embarrassment.

"Do you ever wear pants?"

"Not often."

"What about when you're at home?"

"I still prefer dresses most of the time. I mean, of course I have things like leggings for when it gets cold, but this is how I'm most comfortable." I push up on my toes to try to reach the container of icing sugar. I don't know why Yoshi insists on putting it up this high all the time. Probably because he gets a chuckle out of it.

"Why?"

I look over my shoulder. "Why did you cover your arms in tattoos?"

"Because I want to wear my memories, see them every day and remember." It seems a lot like an unfinished sentence. She hops off her stool, plucks the canister from the shelf and hands it to me. "You still haven't answered my question. Why are you more comfortable in dresses than pants? You have killer calves, and the waist up is easy on the eyes. I gotta imagine whatever you're hiding under those skirts matches the rest of you."

I give her a sideways look. "Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation, and if you'd like to take it as a compliment, feel free."

I laugh. "This is my style." There's actually a lot more to it than just being my style, but it's not really something I tend to share with people, let alone a rival bar owner who barely tolerates me and is probably humoring me. "Just like plaid shirts and black rimmed glasses and sleeve tattoos are yours."

"I'm going to say something, and I don't want you to take offense to it."

"Does that mean it's going to be offensive?"

Lisa chuckles. "I think it could be misconstrued as an insult when that's not how I intend it."

"Go ahead then." I check on the icing and start measuring out the ingredients for the chocolate buttercream.

"You give off this classy pinup girl vibe crossed with a fifties housewife, but you're an entrepreneur. It's sort of a contradiction, isn't it? And here you are, all dressed up at nine in the morning, making me coffee and whipping up buttercream icing."

"I made you coffee because you looked like you needed a break and a shot. And do you mean to say I don't look like I should be taken seriously because I'm not wearing a pantsuit?"

"That's not what I said."

"Sometimes it's good to be underestimated, don't you think?" I set another timer for seven minutes while I let the butter cream.

"I don't think it's about underestimating you. I mean, clearly you have vision and business savvy, but you don't come across as…threatening, I guess."

"Sort of goes hand in hand with being underestimated." I dip a spoon into the chocolate ganache and hand it to her, before I do the same for myself. My sample is much smaller than hers. I wait until she's done groaning her way through the spoonful before I ask another question. "So tell me about The Manoban Cap. Your grandfather owns it and you decided to come work with him? Or take it over?"

"He lost my grams a little over a year ago; they worked here together since they were teenagers, so doing it without her was…hard. That's what all the framed couple pictures are about on the wall opposite the booths. It's the story of their life together, which was spent at the bar for the most part."

I press my hand to my chest. "Did they meet there?"

"They did." She nods, her eyes suddenly far away. "The bar has been in our family for three generations. Gramps bartended and Grams was a waitress. Fell head over heels in love with each other. Caused a big ruckus since she was a few years younger than him and her parents were hoping she'd marry up, but no one and nothing could keep them apart." She smiles softly; it's full of fondness and sadness. "They even dated in secret for a while. Lots of backroom and closet stories, I'm sure. Not that Gramps would ever disrespect Grams by telling any of them."

I laugh and then sigh. "Did she get sick?"

"Uh no, she was healthy all the way to the end, thankfully. She had a heart attack and passed in her sleep." She flips her spoon absently between her fingers.

The timer on the vanilla buttercream goes off, and I slow down the speed so I can add the sugar and vanilla. "Your poor grandpa. Was he with her?"

"Yeah. It was rough there for a bit and running this place on his own was just too much, so things kind of slipped. I was working in finance and hating it, so Gramps gave me an opportunity I couldn't refuse."

"Which was to bring this place back to life?" I supply.

"Yeah. He said if I could run it successfully for a year he'd loan me the money to start up my own brewery, which is something I've always wanted to do, but banks aren't all that excited about giving you money for that kind of thing when you don't have the entrepreneurial experience behind you."

"Don't I know it. It took me three years before the bank would give me a freaking loan for this place."

"What'd you do before you set up shop here?"

"I had a cupcake truck."

"Seriously?" She looks like she wants to laugh.

"Don't knock it. I started out with tents at food festivals and then weekend market booths until eventually I had a pretty decent following. When I saved up enough I invested in a truck."

"And you did that on your own?"

"Yoshi helped, actually."

"What's the deal with you two?" She gives me a curious look.

"He's a friend, and he helped me get started. We worked together for almost five years."

"And that's all you've ever been? Friends?"

"Yup. We were good at being in business together, and even that had its limitations. But I learned a lot from him and he was a great mentor."

"He never tried for more?" Lisa presses.

"Nope. Selling cupcakes out of a truck puts you in seriously close quarters with another person. He's seen all my sides, the good, the bad and terrifying. Besides, getting in bed with a coworker or colleague is a recipe for disaster. Pun completely intended."

She laughs and shakes her head. "Yeah, can't imagine it's a great idea for a lot of reasons, although my gramps would likely disagree."

"Those were different times, weren't they?"

"Less complicated in a lot of ways, and yet more at the same time." Lisa nods.

Twenty minutes later, I have batches of icing ready for decorating.

Lisa is practically drooling as she watches me put it in piping bags, so I get out a bunch of spoons and bowls and let her sample a bit of each as I decorate the cupcakes for dinner.

"I thought you weren't opening up today."

"I'm not." I pipe chocolate mocha buttercream on the triple chocolate cupcake. "These are for my family dinner." Although, half my family will probably make the sign of the cross at them. My mom and sisters are huge keto fans. The easy conversation shifts into that slightly awkward what-now limbo. "Do you usually spend Thanksgiving with your gramps?"

"Typically he was always here for Thanksgiving. Grams really loved the holiday and always wanted to make sure people who didn't have family to celebrate with could go somewhere and have a nice dinner, which is why I ordered all the Cornish game hens. It's been hard for Gramps to be here without her, though, so I told him I'd run things today. He went to my brother's place. He's staying there for a few days and won't be back until Sunday sometime. You're going to spend the day with your parents?"

"Yup. I haven't seen them since I opened this place, so I'm due for a visit." Before I can really consider what I'm saying I blurt, "You should come with me."

Lisa's eyebrows lift. "To your family Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah. Yes." I nod slightly more vigorously than necessary. "You can't spend the holiday alone. My parents always make a huge production of it. You need to stuff yourself with turkey and beer. It'll be fun!" I'm not sure that fun is really the best description for my family events, but it's too late to take it back now.

"I don't know. I should probably plan for the rest of the weekend," Lisa says slowly.

"You already have a plan, a post-Thanksgiving dinner. Come with me. No one should be alone during the holidays."

She grins. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely positive."

"Can I sample the cupcakes before we go?"

"Of course." The eye roll and the duh are implied in my tone.

"Okay. I'm in."

"Fabulous!"

What the hell have I just gotten myself into?

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