Second Chance Baby Read online

  Twenty minutes later, I got a call from Stephanie. She filled me in about her meeting with her clients and asked how lunch went. I gave her a quick overview of what was going on and said I was filling out applications. I didn’t tell her which positions I’d selected. While I would have to tell her once I got the job, I didn’t really want to tell her I was applying to be a bartender at a bar and a cook in a fast-food restaurant. She would probably try to talk me out of it and convince me to look for something else. It would be better to just get the job and tell her I had it.

  While I continued to flip through postings, we talked and eventually made plans to meet up a couple of days later. We got off the phone, and I was heading for the kitchen to start making a grocery list when my phone rang. Assuming it was Stephanie remembering something she didn’t tell me, I scooped it up and answered it.

  “Ava?” an unfamiliar voice said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “My name is Tyler Anderson. I just read your application for the bartender position.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised he was already calling me. “Yes.”

  “Could you come in for an interview tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Great. Come on in around noon.”

  He gave me the address, and I thanked him before hanging up. There was a tingling feeling in the back of my mind. Tyler Anderson. The same last name as Mason. And the same first name as one of his slew of brothers. What were the chances it was the same Tyler?

  Probably pretty good. But what were the chances Mason had something to do with the bar, too?

  Just the thought of it made me nervous.

  4

  Mason

  Tyler had managed to read over the applications submitted into the job site the day before. But I was the one running the interviews. From the very beginning when Tom bought the bar for us, I was put in the position of manager. All of us worked together as much as possible, but most of the administrative work and management duties fell on me anyway. It was just part of my personality to take on those tasks and be able to handle them.

  Hiring somebody for the bar was a new prospect, but one I was looking forward to. Having somebody else there to help behind the bar would benefit everybody.

  “Alright, Tyler. Fill me in,” I said, sipping my second cup of coffee and gearing up for the interviews.

  “We had five people apply,” he said.

  “Wow. That’s a pretty good showing for the first day.”

  “I contacted all of them, and three agreed to come in today.”

  I shrugged. “Slightly less of a good showing, but it thins the pool. We’re not looking for the leader of the free world, here. We just need somebody with at least something resembling a personality who knows how to make drinks and can add.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure all of them have those qualifications. At least the last two. Can’t promise anything on the personality front. Here’s the application for the first guy. He should be here any minute. I set up the appointments kind of separate from each other so there wouldn’t be any awkwardness,” Tyler said.

  “Awkwardness?” I asked.

  “If one showed up while the other was there,” he said.

  “Tyler, we’re not dating these people. They know there will be other people applying for the job.”

  He nodded but didn’t look convinced. Laughing as I took another sip of my coffee, I carried the application out to the front. Jesse was behind the bar cleaning, but Matt hadn’t gotten in yet. I’d told him to go ahead and take the afternoon off. He would be in later in the evening to help with what I hoped would be a decent crowd.

  I didn’t have a lot of hope when the first applicant walked in. His ill-fitting suit aside, he looked nervous and uncomfortable from the first second he stepped into the bar. He looked around like he was waiting for somebody to jump out at him. I waved from the table where I’d set up shop for the interviews.

  “Hey,” I said. “You must be Brad. I’m Mason. Come on over and we’ll get started.”

  He nodded and came toward me, keeping his arms close to his sides and looking at every surface like he was afraid of what might be on them. This wasn’t going to work out for him. But I was still going to give him the benefit of the doubt and the fairness of a full interview. If he could survive sitting down in the chair across from me. His hand shot straight out in front of him when he got to within a couple of feet of me.

  “Bradley Jensen,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “You too,” I said, shaking his hand, then gesturing to the chair across the table from me. “Have a seat.”

  Just like I expected him to, he recoiled from the seat and stared down at it uncertainly before finally sitting.

  “Thank you for having me,” he said. It sounded like he was on a first date with a girl and her parents.

  “You bet. Why don’t we start with you telling me why you applied to work here?”

  Five minutes of him talking about his father insisting on him having real-life job experience and his future at the family company later, I was done. I stood up and extended my hand again. Bradley looked confused but stood up and shook it.

  “Oh, is that it?” he asked. “That was relatively painless. Do I begin now?”

  It almost hurt. It really did.

  “Well, we do have a few other candidates coming in today. We’ll give you a call when we make a decision.”

  “Oh,” he said again, then nodded. “Yes. I suppose that’s customary. How long should I anticipate waiting?”

  My teeth clenched so hard it hurt, and I forced a smile. “You’ll hear from us by tonight.”

  “Thank you. I look forward to it.”

  He turned and walked away, and I relaxed as the door closed behind him. “You probably shouldn’t. Alright, Tyler. Who’s next?”

  The second applicant was little better than the first. In fact, she made it seem like Bradley had a sparkling personality. She didn’t even have the understated arrogance. It was essentially nothing. She just stared at me from across the table, no expression, no lift in her voice at any point. When I ended the interview, she stood and left without a word. I watched after her, stunned.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked, turning to Tyler.

  He looked up from his corner stool where he was going over kitchen inventory lists to turn into me later and shrugged. “I mean, she sounded better than that on the phone man.”

  Tyler handed me the final application, and I scanned over it. The way it was laid out, the personal information about the applicant was on the last page, so the first thing I saw was education and previous job experience. The first thing I noticed about it was this applicant had earned an MBA. That immediately made me question why they were applying for a job as a bartender. I pushed that thought out of my mind, feeling judgmental. I had no idea what was going on in this person’s life. Maybe it was a tough time and they needed some extra income to pay off student loans from a graduate degree.

  In all honesty, this could work out ideally for us. Somebody with an MBA could be a perfectly fine filler for behind the bar and could maybe later help us in other elements of the business. Feeling more optimistic, I flipped to the last page of the application. And my heart dropped.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

  “So, you noticed, huh?” Tyler asked.

  “Were you not going to say anything?” I asked. “You were just going to let Ava walk in here and apply to work at our bar without giving me a heads up?”

  “I couldn’t decide if it was better if you knew ahead of time or worse,” he said.

  “Better,” I said. “Much better. That way I could prepare myself for it rather than getting a kick in the gut.”

  “Better prepare fast,” Tyler said. “She’s here.”

  My body tensed and my spine straightened. I drew in a breath, trying to make my expression as calm and unemotional as I could before turning around. Whe
n I did, I saw her standing just a few steps from the door. We both froze. Our eyes burrowed into each other, and neither said a word for what felt like hours but was hopefully only a few seconds. Finally, I managed to claw back my composure and waved.

  “Hi, Ava,” I said. “Why don’t you come back with me and we’ll get started?”

  There was no way in hell I was holding this interview out in the full view of my brothers. It was going to be awkward enough as it was without them staring at us. Without a word, Ava fell into step behind me, offering a brief wave at Tyler and Jesse, and we went into the back office. I closed the door, and as soon as it clicked, I wondered if that was the right move. Maybe I should have left it at least partially open. But if I did that now, my discomfort would be even more obvious. I forced myself to walk away from the door and sat down behind my desk. Turning the spinning chair around, I pointed to the other chair in the room so she would sit.

  “I was wondering if the Tyler Anderson who called me was that Tyler Anderson,” she said as she sat down.

  “It was,” I said, then cringed internally.

  “Clearly,” Ava said.

  I forced my focus back onto the interview. Going down the small talk route wasn’t going to lead anywhere good.

  “By the looks of your application, you are way overqualified for this position. Why did you decide to apply to be a bartender?” I asked.

  What I really wanted to ask was when she had gotten back into town and why she was here. She’d left so abruptly, and I hadn’t heard from her since. But I kept those questions to myself. They didn’t matter right now. This was all about our bar needing a bartender and her needing a job.

  “My parents need some help,” she said. “My father was in a pretty serious accident recently and won’t be able to work for a long time. I came back here to help my mom take care of him and realized they need more help than just me being there when my mother is at work.”

  The explanation made my heart drop and guilt creep around the edges of my mind.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I hope he heals well.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “So, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what you’ve been doing over the last couple of years. If you have any experience working in a bar?”

  Ava looked at me strangely, then seemed to pull herself out of whatever thoughts had sunken into her mind and came back to the interview. We talked for a few more minutes before I gave a nod and reached out to shake her hand. I nearly jumped back at the electricity that still rocketed through my body at her touch. I played it cool but could see that she had also been affected. Fuck, this was going to be a bad idea.

  “We’ll be in touch,” I told her. “Thank you for coming in.”

  I let her walk out of the office first, then followed her. We waved at each other halfway through the bar, and she left. The door was barely closed before my brothers started bombarding me with questions.

  “How did it go?”

  “Where has she been?”

  “Why did she come back?”

  “Did you talk about anything but the position?”

  “Why is she applying to be a bartender?”

  “Did she know you worked here and that’s why she applied?”

  “Are you going to see you again soon?”

  “You are going to hire her, right?”

  “Was it super awkward?”

  I let them get them out of their system before answering. “She’s obviously overqualified for the bartender position. But having an MBA could be really helpful for us. She could help run the business and maybe come up with some ways to increase it. Besides, she was the best interview all day. Even if she didn’t have the MBA, she was up against Daddy’s little pinstriped nonsense and possibly a ghost. Ava wins.”

  “How about the two other applications?” Tyler asked.

  “Have they returned your call about setting up interviews?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I shrugged dismissively. “Then they’re out of luck. We want a go-getter.”

  “I thought we just wanted someone who could make drinks and add,” Tyler said.

  “I’m adding go-getter. But it doesn’t matter, because we found our bartender.”

  My brothers exchanged glances, then nodded in agreement.

  5

  Ava

  Stephanie and I had plans for a couple of days later, but as soon as I left the bar, I called her.

  “Are you busy this afternoon?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Well, yes. But if you need me, then no.”

  “I think I need you,” I said.

  “Give me twenty minutes and we can meet up at the coffee shop. Does that work?” she asked.

  “Sounds perfect. I definitely need some caffeine. Maybe some hard liquor. Which ties into what I need to talk to you about,” I said.

  “Now you have me intrigued,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I hung up feeling better, but only slightly. That definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Even after the call from Tyler when I thought it was possible this was the Anderson family I had a history with, I didn’t let myself think about it too much. It made me far too nervous to even consider that I could walk into my potential new place of work and see them. The thought of seeing any of the Andersons was challenging enough. When I let myself consider, even briefly, the possibility that Mason could be there, I wanted to throw up and hide under my covers. Not simultaneously, but in close succession.

  Then I shoved it all out of my mind. I balled those thoughts up and tossed them away. Then I started thinking about what was next. Which, for me, meant diving headfirst into my job search throughout town. Every available job couldn’t possibly be listed on the site. There had to be some places going for the old-school help wanted sign in the window approach.

  At least, I could hope.

  I got to the coffee shop before Stephanie and ordered the biggest hazelnut coffee they offered. Usually I pretended just the flavored coffee was enough for me and had it black. But this wasn’t one of those days. Extra sugar and fat be damned, I wanted a healthy glug of heavy cream and a swirl of whipped cream. I deserved it after that disaster of an interview. Before I walked away from the counter, I added a chocolate chip muffin.

  None of that order went past Stephanie when she arrived. She showed up at the table with her green tea and gave a scrutinizing eye to the cup and plate on the table in front of me.

  “Oh, this is one of those situations?” she asked, pointing to the muffin.

  I had already used my fingers like tweezers to pluck all the chocolate chips out of the top of it.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Be right back.”

  She set down her tea and walked back up to the counter. A few moment later, she returned with something that smelled like Christmas.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Peppermint white chocolate mocha,” she said. “And a dark chocolate chocolate-chunk scone.”

  “Ah. Ebony and ivory. Very nice.”

  Stephanie made an affirming sound and tore a bit from her muffin. “So, what’s going on?”

  “I told you I was looking for a job so I can help out my parents,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I went for an interview this afternoon.”

  “That’s fast. How was it?”

  “Two kinds of heavy cream and a chocolate chip muffin bad,” I said. “Mason was there.”

  She nearly choked on her mocha. She regained control of herself and stared at me over her cup as she lowered it to the table. “Mason?”

  “Yep.”

  “As in your Mason?”

  I shook my head. “No. Very distinctly not my Mason anymore. If you’ll remember, that’s the reason I left Astoria in the first place.”

  “Where were you applying for work? The last I heard of them, the Anderson boys bought a bar.” I lifted my eyes to look at her,
and her mouth dropped open. “You applied to work at a bar?”

  “They were looking for a bartender,” I said. “At this point, I need to find something fast. I don’t want to get to a point where I’m struggling to pay my own bills and help my parents. I can coast on my savings for a while, but I would feel much better if I had a consistent income coming in, too.”

  “But you’ve never worked at a bar,” Stephanie pointed out.

  “And I highly doubt I’m going to work at one now,” I said. “You honestly think Mason is going to hire me to work with him? I’m surprised he went through the interview.”

  “He interviewed you?” Stephanie asked, her voice dropping lower.

  “I nodded. “That’s where the whipped cream comes in.” I realized how that sounded in the second after it came out of my mouth. Cringing, I shook my head and let out a breath. “Yes, he did the interview. And he was very professional.”

  “Too professional?”

  “A little bit.”

  “So, I’m guessing he told you he was giving it to someone else?” she asked.

  “No, he said they’d get in touch. I haven’t heard from them. And honestly, I’m not even sure I want to. It would be much less awkward if they just didn’t say anything,” I said.

  “You know,” Stephanie said, swirling a swizzle stick through her coffee. The shock was gone from her voice, now replaced by something hinting. “It is kind of amazing you were only back in Astoria for a day and you already ended up back with him. I have to admit, I think it’s fate.”

  She said it in a breezy, noncommittal kind of tone meant to keep me from overreacting. It almost worked.

  “It is not fate. And I’m not back with him. I was in the same room with him for maybe ten minutes. That’s it. And it’s only because I need a fast job and he happened to have one.”

  “Just happened to,” Stephanie said, nodding but clearly unconvinced.

  “Yes. And now I’m going to job hunt.”