Taste: A Love Story Read Free Page B

to the stool next to her, set her phone down, and turned to Logan.
    “Rough morning?” he asked.
    “No more than usual, why?”
    “Well, you have what looks like”—he leaned forward and touched the glob on the shoulder of her black sweater—“chewed up . . . cracker, maybe?”
    Kenna examined her shoulder, pulling the arm of her sweater forward to get a better look. “Oh yeah, Paige didn’t want to go to day care this morning. There’s some kid on the afternoon-session kindergarten bus who she finds, wait for it, ‘intolerable.’” Kenna let out the tired laugh of a single mom in love with every detail about her daughter. “Can you believe she actually used that word?” She shook her head and grabbed a napkin off the bar to remove the glob. “We stopped at McDonald’s on the way in. Did you know they still have animal crackers?”
    “Do you feel any guilt feeding your daughter fast-food when your brother owns a restaurant?”
    “Nope.” Makenna looked at her phone again.
    “Well, you should. Do you have any idea what the fast-food industry has done to our society? All it does is foster substandard—”
    Makenna covered his mouth with the hand not zipping through her phone. “Shhh”—she set her phone down again—“no one wants to hear from your soapbox this early in the morning.”
    Logan stuck his tongue out and Makenna immediately dropped her hand, wiping it on her jeans.
    “Eww, you’re gross and still, like, five years old.”
    Logan laughed. “So, who’s the douche bag?”
    “Huh? Oh, right. This,” she picked up her phone and began frantically trying to get something on the screen. “This douche bag left a review for us on Yelp and I quote, ‘the waitresses are hot, but their onion rings,’ spelled T-H-E-R-E, ‘sucked. They were cold.’ Frowny face.”
    “We don’t have onion rings.” Logan leaned over to look at her phone.
    “I know. If you read the rest of this moron’s misspelled review, it’s clear he’s talking about The Yard House. You know, the sports bar?”
    Logan was confused.
    “Please tell me you know what The Yard House is?”
    “Of course I do. I’m just confused why we got their review. And are their waitresses really hot?”
    Makenna hit his arm and Logan laughed.
    “I have no idea, nor do I care. What I care about is that this review brought down our rating. I hate Yelp. There’s no damn filter. Any idiot can go on there and leave crap. I’m okay with the legit ones if you don’t like the food or the place was dirty, but if you’re going to say our onion rings suck and give us one star, could you fucking make sure we serve onion rings?”
    Logan said nothing. She’d been his sister for thirty years; he knew when to sit back and let her rant.
    “Sorry, it’s just that people use these sites, Logan. Some might even pass on giving us a try based on stars or forks or whatever. I e-mailed Yelp’s technical support, but Lord knows how long that will take. It’s the name. People are searching Yard House and stop at The Yard.”
    “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that. They should correct it eventually, right?”
    “Yeah, but it’s not good to have this out there. We already have the one from last month. Remember the creepy toothless guy who left us one star and said he hated that we took over the lumber yard because he used to ‘cop a squat’ under the awning to keep himself and his grocery cart out of the rain?”
    Logan laughed. “I loved that one. It’s printed and up on my fridge at home. Made me almost want to build another awning somewhere. I’m still wondering how a homeless guy got to a computer and if he did, why would he take the time?”
    Makenna’s face was stone. “One star, Logan. We can’t afford one-star anything at this point.”
    He sighed. Never in a million years when he was busting his ass at Margot’s in Seattle and dreaming of his own place did he think these would be the things he would be dealing with.