Page 52 of It's a Brewtiful Day

“Back here.” He was in the storage room.

“What are you doing?”

The brightening of the morning light put the storage room into a brand-new light. The shelves stacked without an inch to spare filled in every nook and cranny of the shelving unit. Beyond, I made out the grey-toned lockers, and a ripe curiosity called out, beckoning me to check what I had stepped on.

The staff lockers weren’t nearly as far away as it had felt last night, and peeking around the corner, I spied a knitted mitt on the floor. That had to have been the squishy thing I’d stepped on. Thank goodness it wasn’t a critter or something.

As I turned around, Elliot stood near thefreezer door.

“I'm going to dig out some breakfast. A real in-and-out rush job so it doesn’t lose any more cool air. Anything you’d like?” He’d fixed his hair so it wasn’t squashed on the one side. It almost looked like it was washed as it had a dewy sheen to it.

“What would my options be?”

He scratched the scruff on his chin. “Bagels?”

My jaw dropped as I’d always thought those were brought in fresh daily.

“I may find a loaf of bread, not sure. The freezer is tucked into the back of the fridge.”

I wiped the surprised expression off my face.

“Yeah, don’t ask—it’s a weird system, and don’t tell anyone about the freezer. We buy the bread and bagels fresh and freeze them. Our freezer isn’t super big or anything, just enough to store some basics.”

It made sense, even if it did taint my perception of the term fresh bagels they proudly displayed on their sign in the mornings.

“Any chance of finding a steaming hot cup of coffee in there?” I asked with an elevated smile and a friendly tone.

There was still an abrupt and clipped tone in his voice. “No, but we have ground beans. I could run some hot tap water over—”

“Yuck, and don’t ever do that.” I mocked a gagging sound as I thrust up my hand.

He put the flashlight on and opened the door,closing it behind him. In less than a minute, he returned. “There wasn’t much to grab that would be useful. Here’s a bag of everything bagels and a jug of chocolate milk.”

“Hey, it’ll work.” Even though he was brushing me off, I was trying to be sweet and friendly.

We meandered back to the counter, opening the bag and setting out two bagels.

“Wow—they’re still frozen. I’m impressed.” He talked to himself and covered the bagels with a towel.

“Those the floor towels?” My eyes widened at the horrifying thought.

“No. Those are there.” He pointed to a stack sitting on the table nearest Nina’s office. “Chocolate milk?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Elliot filled two disposable cups, and I grabbed the pen and paper nearby, adding those to our running total. “How much milk is in each of these cups?”

“Twenty ounces.”

I added them to our list—guessing that they would be considered a large size—just to be practical. “So what now? We just wait?”

“What else should we do?”

“I don’t know. This is like the last leg of a journey; you just want to get to the end already.” I sipped the chocolate milk, impressed it was still cold. Not ice cold like it should be but satisfyingall the same.

Elliot lumbered over to the table near the bank of windows and stared out.

“Anyone?”