Chapter 8: Decidedly Pissed

Sara was there to wake her at 8am handing her some more Advil before helping her slide out of bed and into the bathroom, “Breakfast will be ready in 20 minutes and then we can head to your cafe.”

“Thank you Sara,” Kai gave her a genuine full faced smile because as much as she hated asking for help, Sara was one of her best friends and would have her head if she didn’t let her help when she needed it the most. After a shower, making sure to clean around the stitches gently, leaving her top off as Kai limped out to the dining room, “Can you help me put a dressing back on?”

Sara nodded, smiling softly, taking the bandage from Kai’s hand and taping it in place over the stitches. She took the shirt in her hand and helped pull it on without a word, “Thank you.” Moving to the kitchen island and sliding into the stool that had a plate of food infront of it, Kai eat quietly, her mind slipping into some fake corners. She felt broken, maybe not emotionally broken like she was when she left… him, but physically broken. An angel with broken wings would take too long to heal, who was going to want her now? The community wasn’t supposed to be vain, but then again we are only talking about human beings and the type of scar she would have now can be unsettling to people.

“Your meeting is at 9 right?” Sara called from the front door, pulling Kai from her thoughts, “We should probably get going.”

“Yeah we should, it’s with the other managers,” Kai quickly finished the waffles in the plate and Sara started to move towards her, “No I’m good,” Kai shook her head at Sara as she reached the front door and grabbing the cane that was resting against the wall. Sara tried to pin her with a stare but Kai was pointedly ignoring her focusing on putting flats on instead.

“Don’t Sara, I’m still taking it easy okay but I don’t need help with everything.”

“Fine but if you pull a stitch or injury yourself more end up back in hospital I’m calling Preston,” she grabbed the keys to her car and headed outside to start the car, Kai following slowly behind her and taking a seat in the passenger side, “And it’s because he is a friend who cares about you and in this situation he would help you any way you need.”

“I told you I don’t want to involve him,” Kai and Sara argued most of the way to the Castle Hill café but Kai knew that she was fighting a losing battle. This is what happens when you have friends that actually have your best interests at heart, they can be pushy and over bearing, it just isn’t what Kai was used to.

Once they arrived at the gym, Sara sent kai to the back office and went to grab them 2 lattes before joining her in her office. Justin was behind the counter and recognized her.

“Hey Sara have you seen Kai?” he asked handing over two to-go cups.

“Yes she is in today but only for like 3hours before she is on forced bed rest by her doctor,” Sara took the cups and turned to leave.

“Is she okay!” Justin called after her as Sara walked away.

“She will be,” Sara called from the office reception area. She waved at the girl behind the desk who opened the gate for her. Sara wandered down the hall until she found Kai’s office, letting herself in and putting the coffee cup down on the desk. Kai looked up and flashed a smile before going back to the meeting on her laptop.

“Have tested how many units we could turn out but running 18 production hours every day?” Kai was typing a million miles an hour taking notes.

Susan from D.A.R.E., the project lead for the mass production side of things, adjusted her glasses and tapped a neat stack of reports against the table. “Good to have you back, Kai.”

Kai dropped into her chair, exhaling. “Good to be back. Alright—hit me. What did I miss?”

Dave, the longest-serving café manager, smirked. “Other than your phone exploding with emails? A few fires. Nothing too catastrophic.”

Michael leaned forward. “First, the café standardization project—the updated menu rollout is mostly on track. Five locations are already running the new menu, but Tonya’s had supply chain issues with her bakery vendors.”

Tonya sighed. “Yeah. One of my main suppliers decided to double their prices overnight. I’ve been testing alternatives, but consistency’s an issue.”

Kai nodded. “Okay, send me the details. I’ll talk to Chris and see if we can leverage some supplier negotiations.”

Rose jumped in. “Speaking of rollouts, we’ve had a slight problem with training. A few managers are resisting the new service model—too stuck in their ways. Anita’s been handling it.”

Anita crossed her arms. “It’s not just stubbornness—it’s fear. Changing workflow at a café that’s been running for a decade? Some of them think we’re trying to erase their way of doing things.”

Kai ran a hand through her hair. “I get it. We need a strategy that makes them feel involved rather than steamrolled. Can you put together a retraining proposal?”

Anita nodded. “Already on it.”

Susan cleared her throat. “As for mass production—the factory trial runs are progressing, but we ran into a compliance issue with food labeling.”

Kai raised an eyebrow. “What kind of issue?”

Susan sighed. “Australia’s allergen labeling laws. Our original packaging design doesn’t meet the new 2014 requirements—specifically, we need clearer warnings for dairy cross-contamination.”

Brad groaned. “That’s going to mean redoing everything.”

Michelle, who had been quiet, finally spoke. “I already flagged it to marketing. We can adjust without too much delay, but it means pushing back the first distribution date by two weeks.”

Kai tapped her fingers on the table. “Not ideal, but better than dealing with a recall down the line. Make the adjustments.”

Susan nodded. “And one last thing—the shelf-stable cookie recipe needs another round of stability tests. The moisture retention is off, and the texture is degrading too fast in humid environments.”

Kai exhaled. “Okay, options?”

Susan looked at her notes. “Two—either we adjust the binding agents, which might alter the flavor slightly, or we tweak the baking process, which will add production costs.”

Kai’s eyes flicked to Michael. “Cost estimates?”

Michael hesitated. “If we go with ingredient changes, minimal cost impact. If we adjust baking, we’re looking at an extra 8% per batch.”

Kai thought for a moment. “Quality over cost-cutting. If the binding agent doesn’t ruin the flavor, let’s test that first. If it doesn’t work, we eat the cost increase.”

Susan nodded. “Understood. I’ll push for faster testing.”

Kai glanced around the room. “Anything else?”

Silence.

Kai leaned back. “Then let’s get to work.” Closing her laptop she turned to Sara, “1 down and 1 to go.”

“You know you have had four people try to interrupt you while you were in the meeting,” Sara smirked and took a long drink for her coffee, “I told them to go and give you space.”

“You should have told me what if they need me,” Kai was starting to panic, everyone knew better than to interrupt, but 4 was too much. Grabbing the cane she pushed up from the chair gasping as pain shot up her side, her face twisting in a grimace, “I have to get out there.”

“Woah Woah you aren’t going anywhere,” Sara was faster, standing up and blocking kai from making it to the door, “You promised only meetings. Don’t forget I can take you home right now if you aren’t going to take it eeasy.”

The glare that Sara was pinning her with meant business and there was no arguing with her. Kai dropped slowly back into her chair tossing the cane across the room. Leaning back in the chair and rubbing her hands over her face. Trying to stretch out her side before the pull of the stitches was a stark warning that there was still a long way to go to heal. As she looked up again Sara was already holding out her hand with more Advil. Kai didn’t even argue as she took the bottle and downed two pills with a sip of her coffee. Turning back to her laptop, she spotted Tony and Cam at the glass of her office, looking decidedly pissed.

“This isn’t going to be good,” Kai murmured to herself having with her good arm for them to come in. Tony was the owner of the Castle Hill gym and Cam has been her personal trainer for the last 3 years. Sara made a quick look between Kai and the men before retreating to the windows and leaning against them arms crossed, “How can I help you today gentlemen?” she asked them with the biggest smile she could muster.

“Sweet and innocent doesn’t suit you,” Cam’s tone was angry. Even in all the time they had trained and worked together, kai had never known him to be anything except cheerful, jokester or the Energizer Bunny, “What happened to you? You disappear for a week and think no one is going to worry about you.”

“I’ve had Richard calling me every day when he showed up to see how everything was going on Monday and you weren’t here,” Tony looked so worried he might throw up, “You didn’t call or answer your messages. None of us knew what had happened and Sara here wouldn’t tell me anything when I called your house to talk to you. All she said was that you were in hospital.”

“To be fair the two days that you called me, I was under strict instructions not to tell say anything,” Sara held her hands up in surrender, “In case you haven’t noticed she hates people fussing over her.”

“She is sitting right here,” Kai waved her hand in the air again getting exacerbated with the whole conversation, “I own VCafe I can come and go as I please.”

“Well you better come and be here Monday morning 10am because Richard is coming to visit,” Tony huffed staring straight into Kai’s eyes, “And he did not sound pleased on the phone when he called me 20minutes ago.”

“Ugh.. I hate you,” Kai groaned folding her arms on her desk and putting her head down on them, “I don’t want to be dealing with him right now. I have so many other…”

“How bad is it?” Cam cut her off hands gripping the arms of his chair. Kai lifted her head just enough to meet his gaze, “How bad Kai?”

Instead of saying anything I really stood up slowly, using her desk to support her weight. When she was standing pulled up the left side of her shirt and pushed the yoga pants down of her hip, showing Cam and Tony the 12 inch bandage. Both men took a sharp breath in and silence fell over the space.

“What happened?” Pissed off Cam wasn’t talkative but he sure knew which questions to ask.

“One of my teens got himself into a spot of trouble, called me to help him out and instead of walking away clean his… friends thought they could be smart and picked a fight,” Kai was slowly pulling her shirt back into place, watching the rest of the office to make sure no one else was looking, “I got a nice souvenir from the fight and they are probably in jail for 5-10.”

Silence fell over the office so she sat back down in her chair. Now that the truth was out, both men across from relaxed the anger but still had this look in their eye that Kai knew all too well – pity. This is what she was afraid of, people looking at her like she was broken. The next thing they were all going to do was ask her what she needs from them.

“What do…” Cam started but stopped when he noticed the face Kai was pulling.

“Don’t, please,” of all people she hoped that Cam would understand. Not once had she let being hurt stop her, she trained every day regardless and maybe she went to failure those days when she was feeling really bad but she never had excuses, “I promised my doctor I would take it easy and,” she shot a quick death glare to Sara, “My resident task master is making me do it. I need the few hours that she lets me out of lockdown for something to focus on. It helps with the pain.”

“You have to come up with something to tell Richard,” Tony let out a sign, standing up and buttoning up his suit jacket, “He is not going to let you work like this, you know that.”

“Yeah I’ll work on it,” Kai out her head back down in the desk. Tony let saw himself out but Cam was still staring Kai down, “Sara maybe I should go home now. Really not feeling good. Figure I better really take it easy because I want to get to the dojo tonight and before you say anything,” she sat glaring at Sara, “I won’t be training but I need to show up and talk to Marty. And no,” she turned to pin Cam with a stare, “You don’t have to help me out.”

Sara was already by her side, holding kai under the elbow of her good arm to stand up. Handing her the cane she had collected from the floor. It was still hard to accept help from anyone, the guilt that she needs anyone weighing her down; she had never replied on people for help. Sara seemed to understand, disappearing out the door no doubt bringing the car closer. Cam stood as well but waited for Kai to start walking out of the office slowly before following behind all the way to Sara’s car, parked right next to the front door.

“You really need to take care of yourself,” Cam helped Kai lower herself into the passenger seat, his voice was so full of concern it felt suffocating to Kai. All this worry because of her, how did she make them stop?

“I will,” she promised laying back against the seat already feeling like a 12 hour nap even though it was only 1030 in the morning, “See you later Cam.”

She must have passed out in the car because she blinked once and was waking up back home, barely made it to the couch or took her Percocet before succumbing to sleep. Everything else to do with Damian she would worry about tonight.