Post by StoryGirl83 on Jan 1, 2010 19:30:35 GMT -5
Chapter Fourteen – Closing Early
Chris looked down at the kitchen floor, somehow never more proud of a clean floor than he was in that moment. He turned to Emily with a smile. “Thank you.”
“Glad to help,” she replied. “Are you going to tell me where all that blood came from?”
“Me,” Chris replied, “but you knew that. When someone wants you dead, they tend to try and draw blood.”
Emily grimaced. “Good point. How’s your side?”
“Better.” A lot better thanks to Mikelle.
“Well, that’s good. Any idea how they got in? Or rather she. You did say she?”
Chris sighed and said nothing.
Thankfully the door to the kitchen swung open and Ty entered, keeping the silence from lasting long. “We’re done in . . . whoa. This sure looks . . . different.” He looked around at the clean floor. “Everything all right?”
“Peachy,” Emily replied eyeing Chris with question in her eyes.
Chris nodded, more in acknowledgement than anything else.
“Since you had me tell them that we were closing early, well Chelsea wants to know if she should call her husband.”
Chris nodded. “If he drove her here, then yes. How soon can you guys have this place cleaned and ready to leave?”
“Well, normally I’d say being understaffed was going to be a problem, but frankly we haven’t been that busy tonight, so it should take all that long.” Ty stood very still for a moment and then asked, “What did your mom say when you told her we were closing early?”
“She didn’t say anything because I haven’t told her yet.”
“Shouldn’t you get her approval, as owner, to close early?”
Chris dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “It was close early or tell my mom that I couldn’t stay here, so she had to leave my hospitalized brother to come finish out the shift.” He held out the phone. “You want to tell her that, because I already thought of my alternatives. I already know Callie will say no and I already know that even if she said she’d come in she still wouldn’t accept the responsibility of being in charge, even for a few hours. I already know Drinka would say yes and I already know that Drinka would want to avoid the kitchen like the plague. She barely meets the requirements for being able to cook that my mom put on this place. There is a reason she stays at the hostess stand. People love Drinka. They would not love her cooking.” He shoves the phone into Ty’s hand. “So make that call if you want, because I’m not telling my mom to come in.”
“Clearly she needs to find more people for management,” Emily mumbled under her breath.
Chris grinned. “Clearly. Last December she had I think three people quit for various reasons. Two of them were in management. She’s not found people to replace them yet.”
“She found you.”
Chris snorted. “Not really. More like she cultivated me. Mom’s been training me to help her in the kitchen since she learned that I didn’t burn water, which by the way I think I cheated on.”
Emily laughed. “How do you cheat on boiling water?”
“Who said my brother was boiling water when he burned it?” As Chris recalled Wyatt was playing with some sort of firepower that Chris hadn’t seen since when he burned the water, the pan it was in, and half the stove. That, of course, was before magic had stopped, so Chris had been very young when it happened.
“If not boiling water, what was he doing?”
Chris shook his head. “I couldn’t really say. I believe I was two at the time.” He shook his head, unused to talking so much about himself, especially around the unmagical. “Ty, would you please go tell Chelsea that she can call her husband and tell everyone else to get cleaned up out there. Emily, would you help me get the dishes and everything in here cleaned.”
Emily nodded. “No problem.”
Ty frowned for a second and then held out Chris’ phone. “You might want this back.”
Chris chuckled a little. “Yeah, probably so.”
“Call your mom. She needs to know,” Ty exhaled slowly, “about what happened in here if nothing else. She’s a mom. They don’t like secrets.”
Chris shook his head with a laugh and took the phone back. “Don’t I know it.” As Ty headed out of the room he opened his phone. Instead of dialing he simply said, “Wyatt.”
Emily watched him with raised eyebrows and headed over to the sink to get started on those dishes.
Chris held the phone to his ear waiting, but to his surprise it was Piper who answered. “Chris?”
“Mom?”
Emily chuckled.
Chris glanced at her, having momentarily forgetting that she was in the room. “Yeah, it’s me. How come you have Wy’s phone?”
“Your brother is with the doctor having some tests done.”
“Tests?” Chris asked worried.
“Apparently he’s regained feeling in his legs.” There was a hint of excitement and an edge of nervousness mixed together in her voice.
“He did? That’s great, Mom. Now, what aren’t you telling me.”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“Really, because when I tell you that it never works. Why would you think it would work with me?”
“Because it wouldn’t matter. I can’t talk about it.”
Chris groaned. “Well, I will be there soon.”
“You will not,” Piper insisted. “You will stay right where you are, where it’s safe.”
“Cause it’s so safe here,” Chris retorted. “No, I already closed the restaurant, or had Ty do it I guess. We don’t have too terribly much to do here and then I’m sending everyone home.”
“Why would you close my restaurant down early?” Piper asked, slightly annoyed. “Do that and you will gain me a reputation for . . .”
“I was bleeding, Mom.” Chris glanced at Emily and slipped into his mom’s office. “I was bleeding really badly. I had to call a whitelighter to heal me.”
“My word,” Piper breathed into the phone. “Not you, too.”
“Mom, she would have come back. And I couldn’t risk someone ending up in the middle of that. Ty almost was. As was I had to use my powers to keep him out of the room. And I have a gauze pad on a no longer existent wound. And I cleaned up the blood by hand so Ty wouldn’t grow suspicious when he wondered where it went so fast. I’m wearing a bloody shirt with a gaping hole in it where I was struck by one of your kitchen knives. I couldn’t not close. Ty saw enough that I had to talk him out of calling the police or the ambulance.”
Chris groaned. “This day’s just a mess.”
Piper looked across the room at Bianca who was talking to her husband. “You’re telling me. Are you going to be okay, Chris?”
“Yeah, for now, but I had to close down for the night.”
Piper sighed and nodded. “Yes.”
“I will get over there as soon as I can. I want to stop by the manor first and check the book.”
“We already know what you are looking for.”
“Bianca,” Chris realized. “That’s what she meant about Wyatt and me being targeted. I’ll come straight there then.”
“Be careful.”
“I will,” Chris assured her before he closed his phone. He left the office and found Emily standing by the sink, drying a plate, her eyes on him. “I just talked to my mom.”
“So I gathered. Somehow I don’t think you meant to.”
“No,” Chris agreed with a laugh. “I called my brother’s cell. Apparently he’s getting some tests done.”
“Not bad news I hope.”
“No, good. He’s getting better.”
Emily grinned. “Well, that’s wonderful.”
Chris nodded.
“You were so worried earlier.”
“It showed?”
She nodded. “Glad to hear that everything is getting better.”
“So am I.” So am I.