Two Heartbeats on One Page

Chapter 32

Jordan knocked on the office door, even though it was cracked. He was at the end of his shift and figured having this conversation would be best done off the clock.

His surgery was scheduled for a little over a week from then. He already had two weeks off, but it wasn't going to be enough. He should have requested the time off earlier this month, as soon as he'd found out about the surgery, but there was so much going on and every time he remembered, there was nobody on shift for him to talk to about it. Until now.

"Come in!" Jenna called. Jordan pushed the door open and she smiled, gesturing him in. "I'm glad you're here. I was hoping I could catch you before you left for the day."

"Yeah, uh, I have to talk to you about my upcoming time off?" he said as he entered. She gestured for him to sit.

"Of course," she said. She closed the notebook she was working in and looked up at him. "What's up?"

"Well," he started. His hands were a little shaky, but at least his voice wasn't. "I know you gave me the two weeks in the beginning of December, but the surgeon said the recovery time will take a little longer." He paused. "A... a lot longer. I'd need to be out of work at least a month, and if I were able to come back after that I'd have to be on light duty for another month or so. I'd have to stay in the front of house." He swallowed nervously, because even though it had been months since the robbery, he wasn't sure if he was ready to do that, yet.

Jenna's face was serious, but other than that, unreadable.

"I'm sorry," Jordan said quickly. "I didn't realize it would take this long. But it's really invasive. I can get the paperwork from my doctor, I'll use my sick leave, my PTO, my vacation. I'll keep in touch and let you know if I can get back sooner. But if I try to force myself back too soon I could cause serious damage and have to go straight back into surgery again."

"Well," she said. Her eyebrows were furrowed, not angry, exactly, not annoyed. Jordan wasn't sure what. "I'm sorry to hear that, Jordan. But at least it will give us plenty of time to train your replacement."

Jordan choked. His chest tightened and he couldn't breathe, oh god, she was firing him? No, he needed this job, he loved this job, if he lost it, he had no idea what he'd do.

"You're firing me?" he finally whispered.

Jenna's eyes went wide and suddenly she seemed to realize what she'd just said.

"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Jordan, no, no, we're not firing you! We love you! Oh shit, I'm so sorry for scaring you like that. I phrased that really poorly."

Jordan laughed a little when she swore. She only ever did so when she got flustered. He relaxed a little, but was still twitchy with nervous energy. "So, what...?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jordan. Nobody ever talks to anybody in this place, I guess. A few days ago we had a meeting and decided that we wanted to offer you a promotion to kitchen manager. I thought you'd already been told since I was out these past two nights. I just meant that if you're going to be out for a while, it would give us plenty of time to train someone new for the baker's position."

Jordan's hand curled into his shirt over his chest. Was he going to start hyperventilating? He was. "You want me to what?" Management? Him?

"We'd like you on as the night shift kitchen manager. Your shift would stay about the same, but extended an hour, a half hour earlier and a half hour later. So you'd be doing about nine hours per shift, starting at 8:30 instead of 9:00 so you have time for a meeting with the day manager, can go over paperwork, things like that. If you agree, we'd like to get you mostly trained in the next week, before you have to go on leave so you can start straight in when you get back. We'll find a way to work around your restrictions until you're fully healed."