The S.P.E.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Sebastian ran around "helping" me run the front while his dad ran the grill and our part-timer Sharon manned the counter. My nephew was very cute but highly ineffectual. At least he wasn't making a mess and he wasn't screaming. Tina was upstairs trying to juggle the twins and finish her manuscript. This was the fourth (fifth?) and her publishers were starting to put the screws to her. Apparently having three children under the age of five was not enough of an excuse to them for being behind. I did not envy her. The twins had colic and even working the packed lunch rush was more peaceful than being upstairs- hence Sebastian choosing to work with "Aunt Weezy."

I scooped him up after he tugged on my pant leg for the fifty- or sixtieth time. "Seb! May I help you good sir?" I asked my nephew. Then I blew a raspberry into his stomach to make him giggle. He clapped his chubby little hands and begged "Again, Again!"

I didn't hear the doorbell jingle, but I did hear a voice behind me say, "Is that a service anyone can order because nobody blows raspberries into my tummy anymore." If I hadn't been holding my nephew, I would have dropped everything in my hands. As it was, I dropped my jaw and turned around to see Logan Bush standing in my restaurant.

"Aunt Weezy, are you fish?" Seb asked me. His mother always told him to close his mouth because he would let his jaw slack by telling him he looked like a fish. He was ecstatic to get to tell a grownup she was a fish. Logan laughed.

"She does look fishy, doesn't she little guy? Here," and with that he reached out to me and pushed up my chin with a single finger. If I could have formed words I would have tried to say something snarky or sassy or sarcastic. Instead I just smiled like an idiot, gave Seb a kiss on the cheek and set him down.

"Go find your daddy and stay away from the oven." He was too short to reach the counters or the grill, so it was relatively safe to send him into the kitchen to find Zeke.

I watched Sebastian disappear behind the counter and turned back to the man in front of me who made me stupid. After all my experience dating and with guys, I still hadn't shaken Logan and his hold over me. "He's adorable. Is he yours?" Logan stood there, hands in his pockets and stupid brilliant smile on his stupid handsome face.

"Uh, no. No. God no. That's my nephew. He's Tina's. I don't have kids." I stammered out my disclaimer, bumbling words like a twelve-year-old with a crush. I could feel my face grow hot, but I wasn't about to give Logan the satisfaction of looking away. Now that I got my tongue un-stuck, I suddenly remembered that this man may have done some great things for me and my family in the past, but the past was gone, and we were just strangers now. He made sure of that by never responding to my hat.

"Can I help you?" I decided politeness would be the best course of action for the man who oversaw our lease.

"So formal now, Louise? Aw, it's alright. I'm here on business anyway." He pulled an envelope out of his satchel and I nervously wiped my hands on my apron. I didn't know if it was nerves, or if Sebastian was wet, but my hands were damp, and I couldn't face Logan with nephew pee, or sweat, or who knows what on me. I ran behind the counter and grabbed some sanitizer, quickly eliminating whatever it was. He handed me a stack of papers from across the counter. As if he had done so every day of his life, he sat on a stool and opened a menu. "Chicken fried steak burger with country gravy... Japanese eggplant burger with garlic aioli...Lamb chop platter on Sundays? You sure have made some changes to the menu. Did you have to kill Bob?" Logan joked.

For some reason, I couldn't be nervous talking about my dad. "Ha! No. He hired Zeke and eventually Zeke wore him down on switching up our menu, on offer some new things. It really helped with business. That's why it's me here today and not Dad. He takes Fridays off now. "