movin' on

The brunette shot him a grin as she walked out the door. Kace snorted, raising a hand to shoot her a little wave as she headed back up the street. Michelle’s daughter was a fixture in the place – a more interesting one than the cracked vinyl seats in the booths or the greasy bowl shaped metal light fixtures overhead (he probably oughta clean them up before the health board came around for an inspection), she’d told him – and she hadn’t exactly been wrong. It had been dinner last night, lunch today. While it was putting cash in the register (I pay my way, Sadie had warned him when he’d gone to throw in a slice of pie on the house), and giving him something better than the rest of the customers and the grizzled staff he was hiring to fill the necessary spots so he wasn’t slicing up potatoes and himself at 6am to look at, he definitely wasn’t gonna complain about it.

Having a mama who was an absolute sweetheart helped that way too. Kace shut the register and smoothed his shirt down as he turned to where Michelle was adjusting her apron after that hug and picking up the two plates ready on the pass. ”Can you cover while I speak to this guy?” he asked. So far Michelle had proven to be one of the backbones of the place, always ready to step up and give the idiot who’d jumped in at the deep end with this after his brother had kicked him out of the shallow end (alright, maybe it’d been a shallow end filled with sharks that was as likely to drown Kit as it was him, but he’d still been kicked) a hand.

She winked at him as she skipped back to pass off the two plates of meatloaf to an elderly couple up near the window. ”Not a problem hun. You take your time.”

Kace didn’t think it was gonna take much. It wasn’t like he was hiring for the Savoy or anything. He puffed out his breath, tucking his hair behind his ears as he glanced up at the clock on the wall. Whether or not Dominic turned up on time was one of the big things, whether or not he could chop those potatoes without losing a finger was another. Anything more than that was just gonna be a bonus. Somehow it’d been easier back home. Gage had always been ready to sit some beach bum down at a table to work out whether or not he’d rob them dry or be able to stick it out a whole shift when the waves were good.

The chick who’d come in to interview yesterday had been the sort that wouldn’t have done. This town wasn’t exactly south LA, but there’d been something in the red head’s eyes that had the alarm bells ringing. That was the sort of chick who could go from beaming smiles to tearing your face off in an instant. Polite promises to call and let her know after he’d interviewed the others who’d applied had been given, but she was already flipping him the bird and shrieking at him not to bother as she’d headed out the door, letting it slam hard enough to rattle plates behind her. A lucky save he guessed.

This time he had the back booth all set up. Glasses and a jug of water set up, something semi-professional, but not too stuffy. Kace stayed up front as Michelle came back, not waiting there like this was some guy turning up to his execution. Michelle chit-chatted to a couple of Whitmore students checking out, she looked up first at the guy coming in the door. A fireplug of a guy, visible tattoos on his hand, more like the image of a con than Mikey presented, but hey, none of that meant shit and Kit was proof of that. Tucking hair he probably should’ve pulled back behind his ears, Kace offered the guy a nod in return to that sharp jerk of a chin he got in greeting. ”Yeah, I’m Kace. You’re early…” Not an accusation, an observation that already had a tick going next to this guy’s name. Crazypants yesterday had been twenty minutes late. ”It’s appreciated.” He caught Michelle giving him an approving look at the corner of his eye, like the mom neither him or Kit had ever had.

He’d been about to extend his hand for a shake when Dominic got close enough, but he handed over his resume instead. Prepared. He liked it. Kace unfolded it and skimmed over it, not even getting to the bottom and the referees names before the guy swore and … fuck. Setting the resume down on the counter, Kace looked up, his brows knotting up faintly. Kit had been here long enough to know just about everybody. He guessed he had been too, although he hadn’t exactly been looking at most of them when he’d been stuck hanging around invisibly in the background. ”For my sins, yeah. You know Kit?” Little bells, like the one over the door that he hated every damn time it tinkled, began to ring in the back of his head. Wait, wait. The scrappy little dude Frank had brought home on Christmas, the party he’d bugged the fuck out of – who wanted to bask in all that joy when you couldn’t even raise a glass. He’d been back, he’d heard Frank mention him in low tones, but they hadn’t exactly crossed over much, not since Cassie had dragged him back at least.

Puffing out a breath, Kace nodded towards the booth at the back. ”And you know Frank .. and I guess I shoulda recognised the name. You’re the Christmas guy right? Frank’s buddy.” Between them Kit and Frank seemed to have become some sort of hub here that everybody seemed to end up drawn to like trash around the piers back home. ”You wanna sit down?” It wasn’t exactly gonna be a full on interview now. Nepotism got you everywhere in Hollywood and Kace guessed Mystic Falls wasn’t all that different now.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 1024

Going on appearances alone tended to be total garbage. His old man had gone with one, falling for the pretty little starlet before he realised just how little he and Kamilla had in common and look where it had gotten all of them. Mystic Falls wasn’t exactly Beverly Hills but there’d still been moments where he’d looked around and wondered how the fuck the people with money in this town hadn’t tossed the rest of them out. Mangy things from out West, bringing their blood-soaked resumes and piss poor ways of self-medicating with them.

Kace had expected those lips to sneer when he’d bought the place. Long hair more redolent of a Kurt Cobain wannabe and a cigarette dangling from his lip as he stood out back of the diner, the sort of guy who’d tear up the health code and start slinging things other than apple pie and what’d turned out to be pretty decent burgers flipped by a guy who’d been behind bars until recently. They expected a guy who looked like Frank, someone clean cut and responsible, the poster boy for a settled suburban life, even if that impression only went skin deep with the guy. He’d seen Frank’s little tin of medication, had watched through that misty veil as he’d walked that path with Kit for a little while. They were all screwed up in one way or another, and that included the big wigs in charge of the town.

He looked up at Dominic, eyes lingering on the tattoos for a moment – not an issue, not when he’d seen guys litter themselves with scrappy looking shit that was a thousand times worse and those were guys who made a living out of looking decent on screen – then up to the guy’s face. Maybe he should’ve recognised him when he first walked in, caught the name at least. Frank wasn’t exactly the sort of guy to litter the fridge with photos, probably since half the guys in the ones that he did have were now six feet under. Like Christmas Guy’s fiancé.

Frank wasn’t the yappy kind, hadn’t spilled the million secrets of Kit’s he musta been keeping, he hadn’t gone into detail with Dom’s life either, but there were always some crumbs dropped. Enough that he wasn’t about to step on an emotional landmine that might’ve still been live after more than a decade. ”Dominic … better than being permanently labelled as Christmas Guy. I shoulda caught the name from Frank.” Paid more attention altogether, although you were allowed to be a little self-centred when you’d been dead for a few years right?

Like Mikey Dominic wasn’t much of a talker, those one-word answers curt, but not rude. It wasn’t like he was expecting a salesman, people didn’t walk in the door needing to be talked into adding bacon to a burger like you’d talk them into a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-pape. Kace plucked the resume back up from the counter, carried it to the table with him. There wasn’t exactly much to study on it, but he glanced again as he sat down. ”Just about everythin’,” he said honestly, shoving his hair back behind his ear again. ”The guy who had the place before liked keepin’ his staff thin on the ground, but there’s no point in workin’ your people into the ground. Front of house, the grill if you can toss some fries in hot oil without leaving ‘em raw. Prep in the kitchen. Bus boy if you’re really hard up.” He wasn’t about to make some friend of Frank’s wash dishes for eight hours straight.

Sandy brows drew together as he frowned down at Dom’s resume. All the really ancient stuff made no difference – it wasn’t like anybody here cared that he’d spent an entire summer scraping old wax off of jagoff’s boards when he was sixteen. Bodhi’s was his big lead in and even that was hundreds of miles and years away. The tattoo parlour – shocker – was Dom’s most recent job listed. ”What sort of thing were you lookin’ at? What did you do at the parlor?” Frank hadn’t exactly been forthcoming there, but there were a million things you could do in a place like that. Dom’s tattos didn’t look like he’d done them himself, although they weren’t exactly world class art. ”You want a glass of this?” Some water hadn’t exactly made Mikey’s interview easier, but at least he wasn’t just sitting there like a dumb shit then, trying to act like he knew what he was doing with all of this. He poured himself a glass, tipping the jug of water towards the other.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER * Word Count: 775

When Kit had gone off to war, he’d lost a huge chunk of who he was. His brother wasn’t there at his shoulder, ready to rush straight into the surf or trouble with him. He’d been out there, half a world away, doing the latter at least with other people. Every time he’d come back, those visits too short, a form of homesickness all of their own, he’d opened his life up to his big brother, each time Kit had boarded another bus or plane to go back, Kace had felt that world shrink back down again. Kandice had done her best, but she’d always gone her own way with things, settling down, having a kid, shit that her little brother couldn’t even imagine having for himself. Staggering from friend to friend, there hadn’t really been a centre to it all without Kit, not until Bodhi had died and then the bar had been that.

Kace glanced around the Grill, wondering when this place was gonna feel like that, instead of some lean-to on the side of the life that Kit had here – cause it had been Kit’s life that he’d elbowed his way into. He hadn’t bitched about it, neither had Frank, even if there’d suddenly been another asshole muscling in on his space here, but that feeling like he was interloping on what they had here stuck hard.

Was he gonna get an earful about this too? ’What the fuck are you employing Frank’s buddy for?’ Like Dom was another line he’d crossed, just like the damn club. Frank didn’t seem like the sort of guy to get territorial, but at some point between … him screwing up, and Cassie dragging him back through that invisible veil, Kit had gotten that way. My place, like the club was anything but a cess pit, and after years in Hollywood he’d learned how to fucking handle those.

Too fucking late. If Kit had a problem, he’d have to take it up with Dom himself, because even if the guy wasn’t that hard up, he was at this point. It was get some of those spots filled or he was gonna be working his ass into the ground here, trying to make the Diner some sort of success that he could claim all of his own.

Huffing out his amusement, Kace slid the resume aside, honestly not needing it at this point. His gaze slid up to meet Dom’s, his brow furrowing as he said he didn’t think he’d want him out front. ”In case some old biddy gets offended at those?” He lifted his chin towards Dom’s knuckles, his lip finally peering back in a sneer. ”If they do then there’s plenty of other places for them to go. I’m not letting small minds push me out of employin’ the best person for the job.” There’d been plenty of push back against Bodhi’s at time. Gentrification trying – and failing – to choke the life out of the place. If people couldn’t get their heads around something that was a little rough around the edges, then fuck ‘em.

The guy definitely had a sore spot there though, hands running over his tattoos as he sagged back. How many other places in town had already taken a look and him and had turned him down? He’d have said the same about Mikey. These were guys you took one look at and got wary over, if you were being fucking delicate about it. In the end Mikey had worked out, becoming the most solid part of his kitchen crew. ”I’ve got someone who can show you the ropes,” Kace promised, glancing that way now. ”Everybody’s gotta start somewhere.” Just like he had those few first weeks at Bodhi’s. Band aids littering his hands, half the plates being shoved back across the bar with the sort of complaints that had been met with a wave of charm from Gage. They’d got there in the end though.

Pouring the water, Kace studied Dom, trying to imagine him welcoming folks to the parlour. Being a walking advert for it woulda been a bonus there. He set the jug down, picked up his own glass and used it to gesture to Dom. ”You don’t wanna be in the back, you don’t gotta be…” he made clear. At Bodhi’s Gage had always been the one handling the back room shit, the orders, the wages, all the paperwork that had his head spinning at first. Gradually there’d been a shift, but it’d always been good having someone to fall back on when that shit had a headache pounding away at your skull.

Kace hitched his brows, taking a sip of the water. He set the glass down and folded his hands together as he propped his arms on the end of the table. There was no point in beating around the bush when he’d pretty much decided to take the guy on the minute he realised he was Frank’s buddy. ”I’m not exactly experienced at all this shit, I’m definitely not gonna start settin’ out all these strict lines on how these things need to be. How about we split it? Get you helpin’ out in the kitchen some when it’s needed. Savin’ my ass in the office when it’s needed there? Havin’ another set of eyes on all that stuff is honestly gonna be a fuckin’ blessin’.” Maybe Dom would shy away at the idea, like a skittish horse, but he was willing to lay money on the fact that he’d bite his hand off. A little two fer wasn’t gonna hurt anybody here.

Tagged: DOMINIC PHENDER (finish with yours?) * Word Count: 935