The Key She Could Never Give Me Chapter 06

The Key She Could Never Give Me Chapter 06

The underperforming location was in even worse shape than I’d expected.

When the assistant manager met me, she set a stack of resignation letters on the desk.

“Mr. Mercer, I’m going to be honest.”

“This place can’t be saved.”

I flipped through them but didn’t answer right away.

Instead, I asked,

“Who’s working today?”

She paused, then gave me a few names.

I set the resignation letters aside.

“Let’s have a meeting first.”

The employees stood around in a loose cluster.

A few were still looking down at their phones.

I didn’t lecture them.

I just pulled up the last six months of sales and customer complaints on the screen.

“This place isn’t short on customers.”

“The problem is, they come once.”

“Then they don’t come back.”

Someone in the group scoffed.

“The equipment’s falling apart.”

“Everything’s old.”

“And the company won’t put any money into this place.

“Doesn’t matter who they send here.”

I nodded.

“If something needs replacing, I’ll put in the request.”

“If it can be fixed, we’ll fix it today.”

“But orders going out too slowly?”

“Bad scheduling?”

“Packaging mistakes?”

“That’s not the equipment.”

Then I handed out the new staff schedule.

“Starting today, everyone’s responsibilities are clear.”

“At the end of the month, bonuses are based on results.”

Someone clearly didn’t believe me.

“We’ve heard that before.”

“Nothing ever came of it.”

I looked at him.

“If this place hits its targets and the company doesn’t pay, come to me.”

“But if you don’t do your part?”

“Don’t blame someone else before you’ve even tried.”

The meeting was short,

After everyone left, the assistant manager stayed behind.

She lowered her voice.

“You really think we can turn this place around?”

I rolled up my sleeves and headed into the kitchen.

“Let’s do what we can first.”

“Then we’ll talk about whether this place can be saved.”

I didn’t rush to change the menu.

First, I went through the books line by line.

By the second week, I had completely redone the evening rush schedule.

The experienced employees worked the busiest hours.

The newer ones handled the basics.

Someone grumbled about the extra steps.

So I took him out front and made him look at the customers waiting for their food.

“Every extra step you take is another minute they have to wait.”

“They might not complain.”

“Doesn’t mean they’ll come back.”

During that stretch, I was almost always the last person to leave.

My hand still hadn’t fully healed.

It still hurt whenever it got wet.

One day, the assistant manager saw me changing the bandage.

“Mr. Mercer, you’re really pushing yourself.”

I kept my head down as I wrapped fresh gauze around my hand.

“I’m not.”

“I just want this place to feel like a real restaurant.”

Slowly, it did.

Older women from the neighborhood started coming in regularly for dinner.

Young people stopped by on their way home from work to pick up

food.

After one month, the losses had come down significantly.

After two, sales were climbing.

By the third month, the location had turned profitable.

During the performance review, Director Claire Donovan sat in the restaurant while the assistant manager gave her report.

When Claire asked what had changed the most, the assistant manager thought for a moment.

“Before, people just coasted.”

“Now?”

“You can tell right away who’s working and who’s holding everyone back.”

After she said it, she glanced at me.

I didn’t respond.

I just looked down and flipped through the report in my hands.

Not long after that, the company announced my promotion.

I became an area manager overseeing three nearby locations.

They also gave me a small company apartment.

The day I got the keys, I stood in the empty place for a long time.

It was a one-bedroom apartment.

The windows faced south.

The floors were new.

I put the old family photo Grandma had left me on the nightstand.

Then I tucked the wedding suit catalog into the bottom of the closet.

For a long time, I’d believed I wouldn’t really have a home until I got married.

Later, I realized something much simpler.

Having a place where I could sleep peacefully at night was already enough.

Around that same time, things on Sloane’s side started falling apart.

The fifth location closed first.

Not long after that, the third location shut down too.

One by one, she scaled everything back until only the flagship location remained.

To cover the losses, she also ended the arrangement she’d set up to provide Jase with proof of

income.

From what I heard, their argument got ugly when he confronted her.

“You promised you’d help me get back on my feet!”

Sloane sat behind the register, dark circles under her eyes.

“I’ll still help you.”

“But I can’t keep using the business to bail you out.”

Jase’s expression changed.

“So now you’re blaming me?”

Sloane didn’t look up for a long time,

“I’m blaming myself.”

“I kept thinking Blake would understand.”

“Every single time.”

“But I shouldn’t have expected that from him.”

“And lie didn’t owe me that.”

After that, Jase kept living in the three-bedroom house.

Sloane, on the other hand, barely went back.

Most nights, she slept in the back room behind the restaurant.

The same room I’d lived in for two years.

It got so stuffy at night that she could barely sleep.

The smell of cooking oil seeped into the blankets.

The freezer would kick on in the middle of the night and wake her up.

One day, while clearing out some clutter by the wall, Sloane found the move-in plans I’d taped

up years ago.

The paper had curled at the edges.

My handwriting was small.

A bigger dining table.

Curtains that let in the morning light.

A pot of mint on the balcony.

I heard she crouched in front of that wall for a long time.

Later, she redid the new house.

She cleared out the primary bedroom.

She replaced the dining table and curtains with ones that matched what I’d written down all

those years ago.

She even put a pot of mint on the balcony.

But by then, I’d already started attending regional operations meetings.

During one of them, Director Claire Donovan asked me,

“What do you want most now?”

I lowered my eyes and thought about it.

“The freedom to choose.

“If I want to stay, I can stay.”

“If I want to leave, I can leave.”

“And I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s approval.”