That went terribly, but the great thing about running your own restaurant is that you never have a second to stop and think about how you could have handled that better.

Or that maybe you should have listened to your head chef when she suggested taking down customer credit cards at the time of booking a reservation, for situations just like this.

Or to pee.

Or breathe through the sick feeling in your gut.

Because there’s always another crisis to deal with.

I grab Chad’s chef’s coat and run out the door after him.

He slouches against the window of the brunch place next door, cigarette glow lighting his face. I knew he wouldn’t go far. He’d want a chance to tell me his side. I dodge the crowd of umbrellas on the sidewalk, holding his coat over my head to get to him.

“What the hell.” I’m breathless from that ten-foot sprint. “You’re quitting in the middle of a service?”

His gaze slips away from mine and he shifts on his feet. Suspicion prickles the back of my neck.

“She’s gonna be the end of this place, Ames.” He waves his hand around, the ash drifting toward me. I step back. “She’s all...” He throws his cigarette on the ground. “She’s all show,” he says in disgust.

“Why don’t you come back inside and we can talk things through with Sophie?” I suggest with more artificial sweetness than I gave the no-show on the phone.

He sighs and shakes his head with a quick jerk.

Chad came with me from our old restaurant and has been with me since I first opened Amy & May’s. He’s been loyal and hardworking, and that’s the only reason I gave him a second chance on our zero-tolerance harassment policy. But his second chance is burning up with the cherry at the tip of his cigarette.

I punch his coat into a ball and toss it at his chest. “You did it again, didn’t you? I vouched for you, Chad,” I hiss.

A passerby snorts their laughter as they walk past. This is just great. An empty dining room, a bad Yelp review, and now the owner of Amy & May’s is having a conniption in the middle of the street.

“It was just a joke, Amy,” Chad whines.

I step in closer to him as incentive to keep my voice down. “It’s not fucking funny. I don’t want to hear it,” I cut him off, slashing my hand through the air as he opens his mouth, most likely to tell me how Carly, the new dishwasher, actually likes it when he makes comments about her body.

I’ve been working in restaurants since I was sixteen and I’ve been harassed in every single one of them. Now that I’m in charge, no one working for me is going to experience that.

Sophie “Hollywood” Brunet and I don’t agree on much but on this one thing we do.

“You can come by tomorrow to clear out your locker and get your last paycheck. And fuck you for saying that Sophie is going to ruin my restaurant when it’s your behavior that caused this.” I spin on the heel of my über-unfashionable, ultra-comfortable black canvas slides.