Kendra would be there too and he figured he’d do it at the end of the day, then he and his girlfriend could get dinner in the restaurant.
She’d said she’d never eaten there and he’d be there anyway for work. In his eyes it was the best way to let everyone know they were a couple and be out in the open with it.
His family would see him and it’d get back to his aunt.
Then he got thinking, his aunt almost always showed up when he was here so he’d wait to see if she did or not tonight.
Might as well make a splash with the knowledge.
“Ivan,” Ella said when he walked into her office. “You didn’t need to take time off of work to come in. We could have met another time or just talked on the phone.”
“I wanted to come in,” he said. “Then I can stay for dinner after.”
“Alone or with Kendra?” his cousin asked. She was shifting in the chair behind her desk trying to get up and he moved over to help her and she waved her hand at him.
“It’d be crazy to eat alone since we are both here.”
Ella laughed at him. “This is going to be fun. I can’t wait to see how long it takes for my mother to show up.”
“I figured as much,” he said.
“You’re a sly one doing it this way. Kendra didn’t even say a word to me about it.”
“I wasn’t aware she had to give you the details of our dating life,” he said.
He heard the laughter and turned his head to see Kendra standing in the doorway. “Be nice. She might be your cousin, but she’s my boss.”
Ella laughed. “Come on now. We’re still family here. I might have to stick around to watch this myself. Should we take bets on how long it takes my mother to show up? Before dinner or during?”
“What are we betting on?” Cade asked in the doorway.
“I should have figured you’d hear that,” Ivan said.
“I was walking by. I love a good bet and my guess is it has to do with Mom,” Cade said.
“Ivan and Kendra are going to have dinner here tonight. We are taking bets how long it takes for Mom to show up.”
“Before dinner,” Cade said. “Ten bucks. Hang on.” They watched as Cade left the room and came back with his phone. “Everyone give me their bets. I’ll go collect them from Brody, Aimee, Liam, Margo and Aiden. Full house here today.”
Ivan turned to look at Kendra. He was going to defend the way things were happening until she said, “During dinner. And she is going to come marching over to the table and give you an earful, Ivan, then me. That’s my bet.”
Yeah, this was the woman he was falling in love with. The one that could play along with the rest of them in some good-natured fun.
He gave his bet, Ella did the same and they watched as Cade took off to gather the rest.
“If you worked here daily you’d get to enjoy this more,” Ella said.
“I like where I am,” he said. “This gives me the best of both worlds.”
They asked him all the time to come work for them, but he liked his job. He liked working for his family too. At this point in his life, he wasn’t lying by saying he had the best of both worlds.
He had more vacation time than he knew what to do with at his other job and oftentimes took it to come meet with his family here. It’s not like they asked more of him than he could give. He was sure if they thought he had more time, they’d find stuff for him, but he was good for now.
Plus this gave him an excuse to come see his girlfriend too.
“Then let’s get to work,” Ella said.
They went through more numbers and projections for the distilling and saw the game plan developing. By May they’d begin to sell what they had in the shop at the brewery and see how it went.
