Rosalie accepted his handshake, surprised by his firm grip. Her gaze met his and she didn’t hide the determination in her own. He needed to know she was serious. She was going to help him make this happen. Being a waitress at Ady’s was considered a basic minimum-wage job, but she took pride in the idea of turning the restaurant around.
“One condition,” Nick added as their handshake ended.
“I’m almost afraid to ask. What’s the catch?”
Nick’s cheeks spread as his dimpled grin crept onto his face. “You’re in charge.”
Chapter Six
Project Fixer-Upper caught Nick by surprise. He hadn’t expected Rosalie to breeze into his office and propose the plan. She had no idea he overheard her phone conversation, but it was difficult for him to forget. She hated working at Ady’s and considered the place a pigsty. He assumed she would never want to waste her time trying to fix what was a lost cause.
But she was right. Ady’s could only survive for so long on their current trajectory. He was struggling with the mortgage payments as it was. If business declined any lower, he wouldn’t be able to pay without dipping into his own personal savings. That was no solution. Something needed to be done.
When he shook Rosalie’s hand and agreed to Project Fixer-Upper, he looked her straight in the eye. He saw how determined she was based on her taut expression alone. She meant every word she said; she wanted to help transform Ady’s into what it had once been. He held her hand in his and his stomach flipped. His mind began to wander…
Maybe he had misunderstood her over the phone. Maybe she didn’t think so lowly of Ady’s. Maybe she didn’t think so lowly of him after all. For as new as she was at Ady’s, her opinion inexplicably mattered.
For the rest of the afternoon, he hid out in the office, but he refrained from his usual nap. He chose to think about the last year. Before Mom passed away, his life had been simple. Even as a single dad, times around the restaurant and the Fontaine home were good. He hadn’t understood how quickly things could change. How tragedy could strike in the blink of an eye and spin his entire world upside down.
One day Mom had been there. The next she was gone. He was left with exhaustive grief and the keys to the restaurant. Instead of stepping up and accepting the responsibility like a man, he had done the opposite. He had turned a blind eye and avoided his new role as owner of Ady’s. The whole town knew he was a slacker. He was a loser who failed to do Mom’s memory justice and pick up the reins in her absence.
Nick rose from his chair and grabbed the stack of weeks-old mail. If he was going to try to make a change, he could handle the small things he had avoided. The mail seemed like a good place to start. He sorted through tedious bills like those from the electric and water companies and tossed the junk mail into the trash. The last envelope he hesitated on, frowning at the sender’s address.
He had never heard of Yum Corp. He tore open the envelope and scanned the letter. At the top was the company’s logo—a smiley face with a spoon hanging out the side of its mouth. He read only a couple sentences into the letter before he snorted and crushed the paper into a ball within his fist.
Whoever Yum Corp was, he didn’t trust them for a second. Their offer was a scam. No one in their right mind would be interested in buying Ady’s, even a corporation as lucrative as they claimed to be in their letter.
Nick put the strange mail in the back of his mind and checked the time on his phone. Maxie’s kindergarten class let out in thirty minutes. He grabbed his car keys and headed for the office door. The dining area was as vacant as earlier. Zoe sat at one of the tables scrolling through her phone and there was no telling where the guys were. He cared more about where Rosalie was; she was nowhere to be found.
“Rosalie on break?”
Zoe spared him a glance from her phone. “She left five minutes ago. Had to go pick up her daughter.”
“I forgot. That’s where I’m headed.”
“It’d be funny if her girl and Maxie are buddies.”
Nick merely smiled on his way out. “Doubt it. Not just any kid can keep up with Maxie.”
At the school, a parental crowd gathered outside the chain-link fence of the kindergarteners’ playground. The two kindergarten teachers, Ms. Gumbel and Mrs. Richards, stood at the entrance matching little ones with their parents. Nick parked half a block down and joined the back of the crowd.
Ms. Gumbel spotted him once the group diminished to a handful. She smiled and pointed out Maxie on the playground. “Mr. Fontaine, I hope you don’t mind. Maxie made a special friend today and wanted a few extra minutes of playtime. The other girl’s mother didn’t seem to mind. I figured it was harmless considering how hard of a time Maxie had in preschool making friends.”
“I don’t mind at all. She was going to play outside again once we got home anyway.”
“Good. You can go introduce yourself to Remi’s mother if you like.”
Nick didn’t bother mentioning that he already knew Remi’s mother. He excused himself from the small sidebar conversation with Ms. Gumbel and ventured onto the playground. Rosalie sat on a bench outside of the playground while the girls took turns on the slide. Maxie’s face lit up the second she spotted him. She whizzed down the slide belly facing down and landed in a flip on the sand.
“Papa!” she screeched. She shook the tiny grains of sand from her hair and hopped to her feet.
“Hey, kiddo! Be careful. Go down the slides right side up.”
Maxie heard nothing. She dashed toward him and jumped into his arms. He caught her and hugged her close. It took him a while to notice Rosalie had gotten off the bench and walked over alongside a breathless Remi. He set Maxie back onto her feet.
“I hope you don’t mind the extra playtime. I figured why not since my shift was done,” said Rosalie.
“No, sounds like a good idea to me. Who would’ve guessed they’d be friends?”
“It’s definitely a coincidence.”
Maxie and Remi grew bored of their adult talk and skipped off toward the playground. Nick considered calling after Maxie, but thought better of it. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.
“Remi told me Maxie is her bestest friend in the world.”
“Bestest friend, huh?”
“After a week.”
“Looks like they might be onto something. They’ve forgotten about us already.” Nick pointed to the playground where Maxie and Remi had hopped onto the swings. They were too far out of reach to eavesdrop on what they were saying, but the five-year-olds’ mouths moved, chatting away. Both he and Rosalie smiled at the sight.
Maxie had struggled to make friends. Her tomboyish, sometimes bossy antics put off the other girls her age. They wanted to be make-believe princesses and play house. Maxie wanted to frog leap and catch fireflies. The differences left Maxie, already an only child, stuck playing by herself more often than she liked. He and Ellie, among other family, tried to backfill the open positions that belonged to childhood friendship, but they were never enough. They weren’t the real thing.
A girl like Remi, though? She was. She giggled along with Maxie as the two raced higher on the swings.
Nick glanced to Rosalie, who also stood watching the girls. Her face glowed with satisfaction, the autumn sun highlighting the dew on her brown skin. She was lost in similar thoughts. Could it be possible she felt the same way about Remi finding a friend in Maxie?