New Winslow S6E47
Olivia’s hands were completely covered in dough. So of course that was when her phone was going to ring.
“Shit,” she muttered, despite the fact that Mia’s all-too-keen ears were only on the other side of the counter at the Limerick. She wiped her hands as well as she could on a towel, then fished her phone out of her pocket. It was an unknown number.
“Hello?” she said, wincing at the stickiness of her phone.
“Hi, is this Olivia?”
It was a woman’s voice. “Yes, speaking.”
“Hi, it’s Isabel from Rivera Supply.”
That pleasant little swoop in Olivia’s stomach told her everything she needed to know. About herself. About Isabel. About the fact that she kept falling for people involved in her line of work. But clearly Isabel wasn’t calling to set up a date, so she reined it in.
“Isabel, hey,” Olivia said, tucking her phone under her chin as she turned the water on low to wash the dough off her hands. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check in and see how we did with your first order,” Isabel said as Olivia quickly rinsed her hands and did her best to awkwardly scrape the wet dough off with a paper towel.
“Oh, great,” Olivia said, looking at the remaining thirty pound sack of flour sitting on the pallet. She’d been tripping over it since Isabel had dropped it off and hadn’t even considered where she could store it. “No, everything’s great.”
“Good!”
Isabel’s voice was just a little husky, and Olivia could listen to it all day. Just as a break. A break from her trauma, a break from the fact that her last potential relationship ended in disaster. And she shouldn’t even go down that route. She’d met the woman once. Isabel might be married or straight for all Olivia knew.
No, it was very unlikely she was straight. But there was no way that no one else had snagged her as soon as they could.
“We’re not opening for a few weeks,” Olivia said, even as she tried to justify another order in her head. “How early in advance should I place the next order?”
Isabel gave a soft whistle as she thought. “For the first day, let’s say three days,” she said. “Once you’re up and running, should you decide to stick with us, we’ll figure out a consistent schedule. But you’ll probably need some specific things on day one. Clients regularly call the day before and are like, ‘Isabel! I forgot forks!’”
Olivia laughed, knowing full well that would be her. “My last place was completely automated,” she admitted. “And it all went through the owner, anyway.”
“Yeah, a lot of places do that,” Isabel said. “Where was it?”
“Keegan’s Pub in New Winslow.”
There was a pause and for a second, Olivia thought the call had dropped. Then Isabel gave that little whistle again. “Keegan’s?” she repeated. “It’s funny you mention that, because the owner actually just set up an account with us a few weeks ago.”
Even though she was completely out of there, her heart still dropped at the mention of Bret. “Oh?” Olivia said, trying to keep her voice casual.
“Yeah,” Isabel said. “I’ve never fired a customer before. But I did one delivery over there, just last week. It was miserable, I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”
“Not at all.”
“The owner tried to bully me into a discount when I got there,” Isabel continued.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Olivia said, surprised at the fact she was more amused than angry, though still plenty angry on Isabel’s behalf. “That’s how he’s run it since he bought it. I was there for years before him and things went downhill the minute he took over.”
“Considering his old vendor just retired and at least half of the others in the state refuse to work in New Winslow, he’s going to have a hell of a time keeping that place open if that’s his business model.”
The pang was also unexpected. Even though it ended the way it had, she’d had several good years there before Bret. It was a shame that Keegan’s had to end this way.
“Anyway,” Isabel said. “I’ll call you at the end of March and we can make our plan from there.”
Our plan. God, Olivia was a mess.
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