Rab looks equal parts relieved and uncertain.
“Ah, Christ,” Calum mutters, gesturing toward the door.
Chris glances up and sees that Dan has just swaggered in. “Is there no other pub he can go to?” he wonders out loud.
“None other where he might find you,” Calum points out, giving a fake smile to Dan, who waves enthusiastically and calls out, “All right, partner?”
“Not your partner,” Chris murmurs as Dan saunters over, carelessly treading on Ginger’s back paw. She yelps in protest and backs up against Chris’s legs.
“Watch it!” Chris scolds the man.
“Ah, sorry, didn’t see you there, boy,” Dan says to the dog.
“Girl,” Chris corrects.
“Oh yes, of course she is.” Dan makes stupid faces at the dog, who glances up at Chris with a “how long do I need to put up with this idiot?” look before lying down again.
“What brings you all the way down to Leith tonight?” Chris asks him. “Thought you’d be busy getting your restaurant ready to open. Opens next week, right?”
“Oh, uh, we’ve decided to push the opening back a bit,” Dan answers, trying to get the barman’s attention. “Oi! Belhaven, please!”
“Have you now? You know what a pop-up is, right, Dan?” Chris asks. “It’s only there for a little while. Time’s a-wasting.”
“It’s all right—we’ve got it covered! We’re just pushing it back a week so we can get ourselves sorted. Two weeks from Monday.” He receives his beer and takes a swig.
Chris stares him down until Dan starts looking uncomfortable.
“The same night Elliot’s reopens?” Chris confirms.
“Oh, is that their reopening?” Dan fidgets with the beer bottle and avoids all eye contact. Calum and Rab are now watching this interplay as if it’s history’s closest Wimbledon final.
“Come off it—you know it is,” Chris snaps. “You did that on purpose.”
“What do you care?” Dan asks, finally looking up, eyes flashing. “You said yourself you don’t care about the place anymore. You’re not still doing the daughter, are you?”
In another life, perhaps, Chris would have smashed that bottle (and maybe a few others) in that douchebag’s face, then dragged him by his hair out into the street while his mates hooted encouragement in the background. He’s sorely tempted to do so—and more! But he’s keenly aware of the dozen of his employees watching, waiting to see how this’ll go down. How their boss will handle the situation. He can’t be splashed all over YouTube beating some fellow chef to a pulp, even if the guy does seem to deserve it. He can’t mess all this up. Not again. A second chance is one thing, but a third?
So instead, he places his glass of beer down on the bar, very slowly rotates to face Dan full-on, and says in a low, even, absolutely deadly tone: “You’re a right piece of shit, and you know it. Rest assured, that pop-up is the only restaurant in Edinburgh you will ever own or work in. You won’t be able to get seasonal work in the most desperate chippie. So you’d better pack your bags and think about where else you want to live and work, and it better not be Scotland, London, or New York if you plan on staying in this business.”
A long silence follows, and then Calum leans across Chris toward Dan and says, “This, I think, is the point where you piss off.”
Dan drains his beer and hurries out.
Everyone watching collectively exhales as Chris picks up his phone and starts searching the contacts.
“Excuse me.” A pretty brunette appears at his elbow, tossing back her hair so he can get a good view down the front of her tube top. “Really sorry to bother you, but my friend and I have a bit of a bet on. Are you the guy from Outlander?”
“No,” crows Calum, “he’s better! You should see what happens when you put a hand on his old stones!”
“Excuse me.” Chris shoulders his way out of the pub, Ginger in tow, hastily texting Susan.
Chapter Nineteen
A Trick of the Light
“That asshole!” Gloria bellows. She immediately follows that with a stream of Polish that needs no translation.
“I know,” Susan sighs. “I hear you.”
“That manky prick.” Rey hands Susan her phone back. Chris’s message still lights up the screen: Dan has rescheduled his opening for 2 wks Monday. Thought you should know. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
This is important enough to have brought even Julia to the kitchen, and now she shakes her head and crosses her arms. “He did this on purpose.”
“Gee, you think?” says Gloria, driving a chef’s knife viciously through a head of cauliflower.
“It’ll suck away all our press,” Julia continues, ignoring Gloria. “All those journalists we invited—even if they go to both events instead of just choosing one, the story will be about pitting us against each other, not our reopening. All of our publicity becomes his.”
I know! I know! Susan desperately wants to scream. Nobody’s saying a single thing that didn’t flash through her brain within twenty seconds of receiving that text. She probably moved through all the stages of grief in record time. (“No, this can’t be right.—What an asshole!—Maybe there’s some way I can fix it. Can we reschedule?—Shit, no, we can’t. We’ll just have to soldier on and hope for the best.”)
“What about rescheduling?” Gloria suggests. “Move it up a night. Rey and I can manage, can’t we, Rey?”
“Sure. What’s twenty-four hours less of prep time?” He shrugs, as if that isn’t actually a fairly significant ask.
“We can’t reschedule. We’ve got press notices out, and Sunday’s the last night of our aunt’s play,” Julia explains. “We need her and the other celebrities there if we’re going to have any chance of getting coverage.” She glances at Susan. “Philip’s coming, right?” Her face says: He’d better be, or I’m going to drag him here myself. I’ll be damned if nobody sees all the work I’ve put into this place.
“I think so,” Susan answers evasively. She hasn’t asked him yet. It feels a little bit like using him, especially now. But she does actually want him to be there, and not just for the obvious reasons, so … she’ll ask tonight.
“We’ll stick to the set date,” she agrees. “But maybe we’ll move it forward an hour. Start it at half five, and maybe we can get the journalists a bit tipsy before they go elsewhere. Or stuff them so full of food they won’t want to go.”
Julia rolls her eyes. “Half five? Nobody eats at that hour except toddlers and geriatrics. They won’t show up, Susan!”
“Well, you suggest something then!” Susan snaps. “This is just how it has to be, Julia. I’m sorry. I can’t force Dan to open on a different night, can I? Unless you can, this is what we’re doing.”
Julia shakes her head and huffs back upstairs, muttering about all her hard work going to waste.
“Are we agreed on the earlier time?” Susan asks Gloria and Rey.
“You’re the boss,” says Gloria.