“Probably wise.” I set the bottle aside. “Wanna share that donut?”
She held her half-eaten donut up to my face and I took a big bite. “Hey!” she laughed. “Don’t eat all of it!”
“Says the girl literally double-fisting baked goods.”
“Well, I had nowhere to go,” she said. “Nothing was open and I wasn’t about to resort to gas station Sara Lee cakes.”
I stared at Chloe sitting there with sweets and tear-stained cheeks as a thought slammed into me. “Oh, my God,” I whispered.
“I know, that’s how desperate I was. Like Little Debbie could compare to these.”
I shook my head. “No… Chloe… we’ve been doing this all wrong.” I scrambled to kneel in front of her. “We’ve been selling baked goods to people who are dumped… during the day? No one gets dumped in the morning on their way to work. Or at lunch Monday through Friday. People wallow at night. In the privacy of their own homes.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. You’re right. No one needs junk food during the day. You need them in the middle of the night!” She shoved the remaining donut in her mouth and pointed to the counter above our heads. “Hand me my phone!”
“Why? What are you doing?”
She grinned at me and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Tell me we have enough inventory and that I didn’t eat it all?” she asked, crossing her fingers.
I nodded. “We have… enough.” I had pre-baked a few dozen donuts. There were plenty of Mac and Cheese balls, cheesecake, and ice cream sandwiches left, too.
“Good. Because I just instagrammed our location now to our followers! Let’s get to the town square.”
I stood and offered Chloe my hand. Hers slipped into my palm delicately and I tugged her to her feet. The bravado from moments ago wavered as she stood there looking up at me. “Do you think anyone will come?”
I shrugged. “I think we have literally nothing to lose.”
19 Chloe
Holy shitake. I had no idea there were this many residents I didn’t already know in Maple Grove… let alone ones who were up late and looking for a sugary fix at eleven pm. “Another order of mac & cheese balls!” I called to Liam who was standing at the fryer, already putting together three orders.
“Roger that,” he called back with a heart-melting grin he threw at me from over his shoulder.
Shit. No. No melting of hearts. Not over Liam Evans. I needed to fix this with my sister and do it fast.
“Oops,” Liam said. “After that order, that’s an eighty-six on the mac & cheese balls.”
I paused, narrowing my gaze at Liam and I realized the only number codes I knew were 69 and 420. “And that means…”
His smirk lifted on one side causing a delicious dimple to divot on his cheek. “It means we’re sold out of the mac & cheese balls.”
My eyes widened, and if we hadn’t had a line around the block of people waiting to order, I swear I would have run to Liam and hugged him. “We’ve never sold out of anything before!”
He wiggled his brows before dunking the last of the mac & cheese into the fryer. “I know.”
“I guess we need to add more salty things to the menu,” I said as I leaned over the edge of the truck and taped a quickly scribbled sold out sign over the mac & cheese. I heard a few groans from the line as I hung the sign, and I called out, “Sorry, everyone! I promise we’ll have more tomorrow and they are worth the wait! In the meantime, just a reminder, everyone who purchases over $20 gets a voucher for a free beer or glass of wine at Nick’s Pizzeria.”
The next in line, two girls who looked college-aged, walked up and ordered two ice cream sandwiches and three donuts.
“You know,” I said, “if you make that an order of half a dozen donuts, you’ll qualify for that drink voucher at Nick’s.”
The blonde girl looked to her friend who gave a nod and they quickly handed over their credit cards.
“We’re still doing the drink vouchers for Nick after what he said about you?” Liam asked.
I shrugged, boxing up six of the daily donuts for the girls. “A wise man once told me we need to nurture our relationships with other Maple Grove businesses.”
“Yeah,” Liam grumbled. “But not the assholes.”
“We’ve all been an asshole at some point or another. I’m willing to forgive him—”
“Doesn’t he have to apologize to you in order for you to forgive him? Or did I miss him calling with an apology?”
“Not yet,” I sighed. “But he might when I go in there and pay for a couple hundred dollars’ worth of booze for other paying customers. No one goes to a bar for just one glass of wine. He’ll be groveling at my feet in no time… you’ll see.”
“We’ve done that much in sales tonight?” Liam whispered, leaving the fryer and looking over my shoulder.
“We’re closing in on $675 in sales—and we’re dangerously low on donuts and ice cream sandwiches.”
I wrapped up two ice cream sandwiches and handed them over the counter along with the donuts to the two smiling girls. The beautiful thing about The Dump Truck seemed to be that you didn’t need to be dumped and crying to enjoy late night sweets. Maple Grove had a serious lack of late night facilities—which was why Addy’s bar was so damn popular.
“Oh my God!” I said, spinning and facing Liam. “We should park outside of Addy’s bar tomorrow night!”
Liam blinked, stunned momentarily before dragging his hand through his hair. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Drunk people are: A) more likely to have a fight with their significant other and B) tend to get the late-night munchies.”
“We don’t have enough inventory for tonight,” Liam said, taking a look
