“What is this about Botox? Kerry, you better not do anything to that pretty face of yours. Besides, if they jack it up, you know we’re all gonna laugh at you, and then we’re going to have to kick the doctor’s ass on top of it,” Lucas said as he bounded around the corner from the back staircase.
Kerry let out the ridiculous breath that she was holding as she turned toward Lucas, who had changed into black sweatpants and a sleeveless black cotton tee that showed off his taut, lean but well-honed muscles. He had his baseball cap turned backward, signaling he was ready to get down to work. But then she noticed the duffel bag he’d dropped on the floor by his feet.
“I swear, if you two jerks aren’t related by blood, you should be,” she said. “I wasn’t talking about Botox.” She looked back at Jesse, then gave him a frown. “This is just your brother once again trying to be a smart-ass.” She turned back toward Lucas. “So are you sticking around to help out today, or is that getup for work or working out?”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a tilt of his head and an apologetic smile. “We’ve got exercises to go through at the station. I could get the time off but I think I should save the days for when I’m really needed to work here.” He looked at Jesse. “I have a feeling it will be often.”
Jesse shook his head. “Chill with that, Superman. Go out and do your save the world thing. I’ve got this covered.”
Lucas gave Jesse a “Sure you do” look, then turned back to Kerry. “But make a list of the things you need me to do to help. I’ll come over on my day off.” His expression got a little more serious this time as he looked back at his brother. “You try to keep a level head. I know you want to do a lot around here and make everything grand for Mama Joy, but remember we’re trying to get out of the red. Not further into it. Don’t go overboard.”
“When do I ever go overboard?” Jesse replied.
For that, all he got was a pointed look. “Like I said, a level head. If you need a reminder of what that means, just text me.”
Jesse frowned. “Your Damian is showing. Now go. I don’t need a reminder or a minder. But thanks.”
Lucas sighed before turning to Kerry. “Sorry to run out and leave you with this one, Kerry, but I promise when I’m back to work here, you’ll have all my hands and then some.”
Kerry grinned. “You make it sound like a promising promise. Now, don’t worry about things here, you just get on with your training and lifesaving. We’ve got this.”
“Bye, bro,” Jesse growled out. “We’ve got this.”
7
A PROMISING PROMISE? Kerry’s words to Lucas were still echoing through Jesse’s mind as he made the walk south and crosstown to meet his friends that night at Bird’s, a local restaurant and bar.
Had she been actually flirting? Nah, she couldn’t have been. Kerry wasn’t the flirting type. She had to have been just making conversation. It was banter, of course. Kerry Girl type of banter, and he was just reading it wrong.
But what was up with that delivery dude, Tracy? The way he looked at her you’d think he was angling for a forty-percent tip and an excellent service survey write-up. It was UPS, not freaking Uber Eats, man.
Jesse told himself to chill. This was just the normal running-a-business stuff that went along with the day-to-day of the shop. And Kerry clearly was not being flirty—maybe. So him thinking she was being flirty was just due to the fact that he’d never really been in a one-on-one situation with her for such a long length of time. Never gotten to observe her in this way. Not that this type of observation was in any way a hardship. More like a revelation, really. And not a bad one at all. It was just, well, surprising.
Little Miss Surprising Flirt or not, Kerry’s knowledge of the shop and Mama Joy’s running of it was undeniable. She was everything he needed and perfectly highlighted all he didn’t know. Wools versus cottons versus blends and the proper storing of them—and they still had to get into the nuts and bolts of cataloging, distribution and sourcing. Thank God for her. If she hadn’t stepped up and he had been stupid enough to just let her walk out the door, they would be sunk. The woman was practically a yarn encyclopedia and, as such, invaluable to him.
Invaluable. The thought exhilarated, scared and embarrassed him all at the same time. It scared him because he didn’t want Kerry to be invaluable to him. She had her own life and she didn’t need the obligation of being saddled to the shop or him for any length of time. It embarrassed him because, as Mama Joy’s son, the one without any definite career path or responsibilities, he should’ve known more about her systems and the running of the family business. He was a knitter and knew some yarn fundamentals, but listening to Kerry, it was clear his knowledge was sorely lacking. She was perfectly spotlighting how well he’d wasted years fluttering from idea to idea and job to job on the pretense of finding himself. What an ass. As if he was ever going to find himself in any of the lame jobs he had been picking up anyway. Mama Joy must have been so disappointed in him. The fact that she faced his half-assed ways of playing at adulting with a constant unflappable positive energy was beyond him.
Nope. Kerry didn’t need to be stuck with the responsibility that Mama Joy had of taking care of a slacker like him. And she wouldn’t be. At least not for long. He’d get his shit together. Finally, once and for all, and take the responsibility he should have taken years before.
He thought of Kerry and her patience when explaining a pricing structure to him earlier. He could see she was being extra cautious, as if she were teaching one of her elementary students, which probably should have annoyed him, but honestly, he knew he needed just that type of step-by-step handling right now. Hard as it was to admit it.
“You have to understand,” Kerry had told him when they were getting into yarn pricing, “these yarns are more expensive for lots of reasons: the material, which is rarer and harder to come by, the strength and wear. Of course, we have less expensive yarns and stock them to have a full range to serve the community, but putting more volume into cheaper yarns I think would be a mistake.”
When he was about to argue further, being nervous about the amount of stock they had in these more expensive yarns, she shook him off, anticipating what he was going to say before he said it. “I know what you’re about to say, and yes, cheaper yarns can theoretically bring in more sales volume, but we can’t compromise there. If folks want that, there are the bigger discount stores to serve them. People do, and hopefully new customers will, come to us for the specialty hands-on experience.”
Jesse coughed as his body unexpectedly heated. Kerry should not be using expressions like “hands-on.” It made his fingertips itch and his throat dry.
She continued. “There’s just no way small shops like this could ever beat the big craft stores when it comes to discount yarns. So Mama Joy made a concerted effort to put most of the inventory in higher-quality specialty yarns from small, mostly independent contractors.”