Page 31 of Pin My Alpha
“I’m providing artistic direction.”
“You’re drawing skulls on my order pads.”
“They’re morale skulls.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
By noon, the place is full. Not just full like a decent Friday night, but an invasion. Byrne’s has regulars, students, noise. I know noise. This is different. This is chaos with a plan, and Shay is standing right in the middle of it.
Jude is perched on a barstool, filming everything on his phone like he’s making a documentary nobody asked for, with Rhys standing beside him looking patient in a way that suggests he’s given up. Milo has commandeered the end of my bar, setting up three bakery boxes with handwritten labels. Apparently, his cookies require project management. Callum just carries chairs wherever Shay points, moving them like they weigh nothing.
And Shay. Of course. He’s got his curls pushed back with a black headband, a smudge of dust on one cheek. He thrives on this, wrestling the whole room into a spreadsheet. He makes a low, irritated noise every time someone asks him a question, then answers it anyway because he can’t help himself.
He points his clipboard at Jude. “No more soda shots.”
Jude lowers the tiny plastic cup in his hand. “It’s content.”
“It’s twelve minutes of you yelling ‘Cheers to neighborhood engagement’ while Rhys looks like he’s being held hostage.”
“I look supportive,” Rhys says.
“You look like you’re waiting for the fire alarm to go off.”
Callum leans against the bar. “That’s just his face.”
Rhys gives him a dry look. “I have a very expressive face.”
“Baby, it’s hot,” Jude says, patting his cheek. “But it’s still mostly variations on concerned professor.”
Shay’s mouth twitches. “Can we please focus?”
“On it, boss,” Benji calls from inside a booth.
Shay’s head snaps toward the sound. “I’m not your boss.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“He gets like this when he’s stressed,” Milo says quietly, pushing a bakery box across the bar toward me. “Try one. They’re still warm.”
“I’m not stressed,” Shay says automatically.
The room goes quiet for about half a second. Jude snorts into his hand. Callum keeps wiping down a table, but his shoulders are shaking.
Shay lets out a sharp breath, his gaze sweeping the room without landing anywhere. “Fine. I’m operating with an elevated sense of urgency.”
“That’s stress with a business degree,” Jude announces.
Shay ignores him, pointing his clipboard at Jude. “Photos. Now. And try to get one that doesn’t have Knox’s ass in the background.”
Knox, still crouched by the booth, doesn’t look up. “My ass is good for business.”
“He’s not wrong,” Benji says.
The part of me that runs this place wants to tell them all to get their feet off the tables and stop leaving crumbs on the bar I just polished. But that part of me has clocked out for the day. I pick up a cookie. It’s soft, still warm enough that the dark chocolate melts on my tongue.
“This is good,” I tell Milo.
