7. Carly

"Where are all the frickin' busboys?" I exclaimed in the bustling Forge kitchen. "I need my tables cleared off pronto!"

Forge was in its busiest full-swing dinner rush, and it was like I was playing my usual role of Carly the Magnificent, spinning plates and jumping through hoops to entertain the masses, but with the added element of a tightrope and maybe the hoops were on fire to boot. One of our best servers had just quit—we all were taking bets about why, and my guess was that she couldn't handle Logan being around so much more lately, being an overbearing dick and scaring the bejeezus out of all the nice people who made his business run day to day. Since the recently-quit Justine had been kind of snotty to me and clearly looked down on me for being a single mom, her departure was no great loss personality-wise, but I hated having to maintain stability for the rest of our staff. Everyone knew practical, dependable Carly could always pick up the slack.

Being short-staffed would have been bad enough, but said Overbearing Dick was here tonight, driving us all to drink with his snippy orders and brooding stares. His presence escalated the tensions to an all-time high. I'd been too busy with all the clusterfuckery to even talk to Nate, the guiding light of sanity who usually made all the chaos worth it with a well-timed joke, a flirty smile. Maybe my new older stepbrother from hell would be more tolerable if I could talk to the other stepbrother, but no, I never could have nice things.

I hadn't really gotten to talk to either of two new stepbrothers since that dinner, and as a result, I was still mulling over what Nate had told me about Logan. In the immediate aftermath of that big reveal, I'd been much more amenable to the idea of Logan being a good guy, a wonderful older brother whom Nate looked up to so much. But now that he was on a rampage at work and I was forced to bus my tables my damn self, it felt much more fitting to grumble quiet curses on Logan and the whole McDonald line. Everything Nate said, backed up by Logan being on his best behavior during dinner at my mom's house, or not was completely contradictory to the image he gave off to me and everyone else at Forge. I trusted Nate's judgment, but it was hard to reconcile these two narratives of Logan McDonald in my head.

At least I could sort of see the reason for Logan's extra dickishness today. Emphasis on the sort of. We were getting closer and closer every day to the grand re-opening of the restaurant, an event he'd been pouring his blood, sweat, and dollars into for weeks on end. For the past few months, Forge had been undergoing a complete rebranding that was finally almost complete. We'd stayed open the whole time as a team of Logan's marketing cronies buzzed about talking about remodeling and menu changes and what made this place uniquely "Forge", but they'd done a good job of marking the shift between old and new anyway. Now, in hopes of putting this place on the map and one day opening a second location, thus expanding his slow-growing empire, Logan had decided to host a huge party to generate more buzz. There would be entertainment, a special menu, and all manner of other nonsense that put a shit ton of more work on those of us plebeians who were below Logan and Nate, of course. But I guess if I were being generous, I could sympathize with the amount of pressure our fearless leader must be shouldering.

That still didn't justify his yelling at and making one of our sweetest, most innocent dishwashers cry, though.

I could see it in the weary expressions of my coworkers as we gathered in the break room during a rare lull. We were all fed up with this night, this crushing weight of expectation. Maya and the others looked worn out, their shoulders slumped with fatigue, and I was sure I looked just as downtrodden. It didn"t take long for the break room conversation to turn to our shared frustration with Logan"s relentless pushing.

"He"s been riding us like a pack of mules," Maya grumbled, her usually upbeat demeanor replaced with exhaustion.

One of our line cooks, Frederico, nodded in agreement, rubbing his tired eyes. "I don"t know how much more of this I can take."

The others murmured their agreement.

"Imagine having to deal with him in your personal life, too," I grumbled, and then all eyes turned to me. Oh, shit. That shouldn't have slipped out, and now I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"That's right," Graham the bartender mused aloud. "You're related now."

My eyes widened as I realized what they were all suggesting.

"Maybe… you should talk to him," Maya said carefully. I could tell she felt bad for being the one to suggest it, but her wince was only partially an apology.

"What?" I blinked at them, seeing my coworkers' faces all falling into expressions of agreement.

"Please, Carly," Danielle, a college girl who was damn good at her job now that she'd learned the plate-balancing trick I taught her, pleaded. "You"re the one who"s been here the longest. And y'all are family now to boot, right? You have to talk to him for us."

"What am I supposed to say?" My tone was pleading.

"Just tell him he's being a total douchebag," one of the younger hostesses, Holly, grumbled. She looked at her usually-pristine nails, gesturing toward me with one that had broken off under the pressure. "We can't keep living like this!"

I shook my head, already feeling the weight of the responsibility they were placing on my shoulders. "I don"t know, guys. Logan"s under a lot of pressure, and this whole family thing… it's new. I"m not sure he"ll listen to me."

That was an understatement. I was pretty fucking sure he wouldn't listen to me, considering how little we seemed to like each other. He was a family oriented man, but I wasn't part of his family in his mind yet, nor was he included in mine. I knew if I went to his office and tried to talk some sense into him, I'd just become the newest casualty in his warpath.

But my protests fell on deaf ears, and before I knew it, I found myself standing outside Logan"s office, steeling myself for what was to come. Put on your big girl panties, Carly, I told myself, much like my mom would tell me when I was nervous for a big school project as a teen. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door, my heart pounding in my chest.

"Come in," Logan"s voice called out from inside. It wasn't a yell, so that was at least a positive sign.

I pushed open the door and stepped into the office, my stomach churning with nerves. Logan was seated behind his desk, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scanned over a stack of paperwork. And I understood immediately why he hadn't yelled at me for interrupting him. Even as he looked at the work in front of him, I could tell he was barely reading it. His forward-tilted head cast a shadow over his face, emphasizing the deep, dark circles around his eyes. Those broad shoulders were slumped, too, though no less impressive for it. He looked completely exhausted. It was a sight I wasn"t used to seeing from the normally unflappable owner of Forge.

"Sorry to bother you, Log—Mr. McDonald," I started, trying to keep my voice steady. "I just, uh, am here on behalf of the staff. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Logan didn't glance up from his work. "Go for it. Make it quick, please."

I took a deep breath, summoning all of my courage. "Well, I was… sort of nominated by the staff to talk to you. We"re all feeling really rundown, and we need to take a stand. The pressure you"ve been putting on us is starting to take its toll."

He slowly lifted his head to look at me. His jaw tightened, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes. But then his expression hardened, and he shook his head.

"I don"t have time for this," he snapped, his tone harsh. "If you all can't handle the heat, stay out of the literal and metaphorical kitchen. I didn't hire you to complain."

I felt my own temper flare at his dismissive attitude. "We"re doing the best we can," I retorted, my voice rising. "But we"re not robots. We"re human beings, and we have limits. You're pushing too hard, and you're being an asshole about it to boot. We're not going to accept it anymore. So, if you want to keep your employees, you'll chill the hell out."

Logan"s eyes flashed with anger, and for a second, I regretted ever coming in here. Would he fire me for the backtalk, especially since this wasn't my first offense? I braced myself for his response. But to my surprise, he let out a weary sigh and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair.

"Fuck," he let out in a rare moment of unpolished vulgarity, his voice threatening to crack under the weight of his own expectations. "You're right. I"ve been pushing too hard, and I know it. Hell, everyone knows it. You're just the first person who's had the balls to say something about it to my face."

Was I going insane, or was there an inkling of respect in his voice? For the second time, I got the sense that he liked being challenged, if not by me in particular, then just in general. Maybe it was the novelty of the thing. It seemed safe to say that Logan McDonald wasn't the type to be challenged by others often, what with his whole intimidating demeanor and impressive physical size shtick.

"It's almost impressive," he said. He met my eyes, and there was something hot and molten bubbling up within them. "You're tenacious, and you're bold. I'm sure it's part of what makes you such a good employee."

"Thank… you?" I said, letting it come out as a question. He barked a short almost-laugh. Taking advantage of this moment of softness, I jumped back into battle for my coworkers. "Look, all of us respect you. Everyone in that kitchen and in that dining room just wants this place to thrive as badly as you clearly do. We just want to feel like we're being respected as employees and as real people with lives and feelings, too."

He nodded slowly, mulling this over. "That seems… doable. Even for an asshole like me."

I blushed furiously at him repeating my own words back to me, but it felt okay to laugh when Logan cracked a smile himself. The tension finally broke. For the first time, I started to see how Logan McDonald and I could potentially work as colleagues, if not friends. Maybe Nate's assessment of him wasn't as far off as I wanted to believe.

"You ever had any interest in a management position?" Logan asked me out of the blue. I blinked at him.

"Me? Management?"

"Yes. You're competent, clearly, and I could use more people on my team who are willing to stand up to me when I'm being a dictator." He sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers together across his well-muscled chest as he watched me. I could have sworn his eyes darkened, and it made me wonder what he was really thinking under this all-business guise.

I was probably just projecting, though. Every time this man looked at me, I could feel my insides melt a tiny bit against my will.

"I'm looking for someone to help me as I open my next restaurant," Logan explained further. "Someone who can be there during the transition, have input on the decisions, and become the general manager of the location when it's up and running. Would you be interested in it? You'd still have to apply, of course, and I can't promise that I'll take our recent familial connection into account when I'm selecting someone. But from what I've seen in your work ethic, and your willingness to work so diligently for your team… it's the kind of thing I'll need as I expand."

How had my coming to his office to chew him out on behalf of the little people turned into this? I had whiplash from the speed of this shift. And despite my deep knowledge of what my real goals were, namely, turning my photography side-hustle into my full-time gig, the idea of moving up in my current job had its own appeal. I always had to think about Ella, her future, the opportunities I could give her if I had a little extra money to work with. And now that Mom was moving in with Dwight, there was the mortgage to think about, too.

But hell, did I really want to work more closely with Logan? Even if he was starting to show his humanity now that he was exhausted, now that I'd called him out, I couldn't trust that he wouldn't become his full tyrant self again in private. I could see him easily going back to yelling, bossing me around, threatening me with punishments if I wasn't a good girl…

Shit. I was thinking like a horned-up teenager again. At least my anatomy couldn't betray what I was thinking—not in the way that a visible erection could, anyway. And of course, now that I'd had that thought, my eyes automatically darted lower, wishing for a second that I could see past Logan's desk, that there would be visible tenting in his well-fitted trousers.

"You don't have to decide now," Logan said, sensing my indecision, at least, if not my fantasies, too. I sure hoped he couldn't read all the lustful imaginings in my likely-flushed face, anyway. His knowing gaze seemed to burn, and Christ, to think I'd be able to handle more of that intensity while working as one of his direct report employees, much less in bed, was far-fetched. Straight-up delusional.

"It's just something to consider, moving forward. And hey," he started, his voice dipping low in an almost sultry tone that was hotter than it had any right to be, "if you make up your mind, you know where to find me."

There was almost an implied wink in that. Maybe I wasn't delusional to think he was flirting. And even with just that tiniest nudge into an unprofessional direction, my brain wanted to run wild, picture him naked, imagine his large body over top of me, his strong hands holding me down as he plunged his thickness into my heat. Oh, God. I was close to trembling now, imagining the size and shape of said thickness, feeling so certain it would be just as impressive as the rest of him.

"Thanks," I half-gasped, struggling to catch my breath and be a normal non-horny human at the same time. "I'll think on it."

"Do," he almost purred.

And I would definitely be thinking about his offer, among other things, long after I left his office with an extra sway in my hips.