Managing Macie *ON HOLD*

Chapter 2

Macie

It's been three whole days since my disastrous meeting at the bank, and I'm still no closer to finding a way to save Macie's Pastries. Now it's Sunday and I'm at Mom and Dad's for family brunch.

"Where's Trisha?" Mom asked when she answered the door. Trisha usually came with me to family things. Ever since college, she's been like a sister to me, and my family has treated her as such.

"She had to finish up something for work." Trisha is into interior design and she owes a client a presentation of her ideas or something tomorrow so she stayed back to finish it.

"That's too bad," Mom said. "Anyways, how are things with you?"

"Fine," I said with a shrug. I padded into the kitchen with mom on my heels and took a swipe of the frosting she was making onto my finger. Mom protested as I licked it off. It was good, but mine was still better.

"Just fine?"

I nodded and turned my attention to the door where Dad was standing.

"Hey there Dad," I said before Mom could keep questioning me.

"Hey there kiddo."

Dad came over and ruffled my hair. I glared up at him as he did and he laughed.

"Where's Jake?"

"He'll be here soon," Mom told me. "He and Ethan just went out to get me some more milk."

"Ethan? Ethan Miller?"

Mom nodded and I scrunched up my nose. Ethan was Jake's best friend. They actually met at one of my soccer games back in college. Jake had to go because he was my brother, and Ethan's girlfriend played on the team. Even though Jake is five years younger than us, he and Ethan really hit it off. It was super annoying to me at the time. It still is. I mean out of everyone he could've befriended, it just had to be Ethan fricking Miller.

"What do you have against Ethan?" Dad asked. "He's a good kid."

I rolled my eyes. Of course he thinks that, he hired Ethan fresh out of college and then helped him start his business a year later. He treats him like a son; and he already has one too many of those.

"Nothing," I said with a shrug. Dad gave me a look, but didn't say anything else because the front door opened and Jake and Ethan came strolling in.

"Jakey Poo!" I squealed, just because I knew it annoyed the hell out of him.

I ran up to my little brother and gave him a bone crushing hug.

"Macie," Jake groaned.

"Aw, you know you love me kid," I said, ruffling his hair.

"Mhm."

I laughed and went into the dining room to take my seat. The others filed in and sat down. We all piled food onto our plates and dug in.

"So, how's work Ethan?" Dad asked almost immediately. I rolled my eyes and Mom shot me a pointed look.

"It's good," Ethan said, swallowing a bite of food. "Sales have been doing great and we are really starting to grow."

The boys continued to talk about business stuff while Mom and I talked about baking. She asked how things were going with Macie's Pastries and I lied and told her things were going well.

I refused to admit defeat, especially with the business prodigy sitting right in front of me.

Besides, there was still hope for Macie's Pastries.

Sort of.

The conversation eventually moved on and I listened in on what the boys were talking about. Most of the business crap went straight over my head, but my ears perked up when Ethan said his caterer bailed on him for his charity event next month.

"Macie, why don't you help," Dad suggested. "It'll be good publicity for Macie's Pastries."

"Well, Macie's isn't even open yet."

"I know, but it'll leave people wanting more."

I couldn't tell my dad that I was struggling with my business and didn't know if it'd succeed, so I said I'd think about it and let the conversation move on. The rest of the meal though, I felt Ethan's eyes on me. It felt like he knew all my secrets and saw through my lies.

I suppressed the urge to shiver and pushed through the meal. Usually I stayed afterwards to spend time with my family, but today I left right after, claiming I had a lot to do. Mom was disappointed and I felt bad, but I couldn't stay there any longer. Ethan was making me too uncomfortable.

So, I hailed a cab and went home.

Paying with the money I swiped from Jake's wallet before I left, I thanked the driver and went up to my apartment.

When I opened the door, I found Trisha on the couch with her laptop in front of her.

"Still hard at work?" I asked.

"Yeah," she groaned. "Nothing is good enough for this lady and I'm worried she's going to fire me."

"I'm sure she won't." I went over and handed Trisha the box of food Mom sent over for her.

"Yes!" Trisha exclaimed. "I love Lyra's cooking."

I chuckled and left her to her food and work. I had things to do anyways.

Like figure out what the hell I was going to do about Ethan's charity whatever.