Soon, Daniel and Harry returned with the food, both chatting happily like they were old friends. They sat down and handed everyone a paper plate with a hot dog.
“So Harry,” Emily began, excited to finally be able to query him and get to know him. “What job do you do? Are you in glass restoration like George?”
Out the corner of her eye she noticed Amy’s expression turn to horror. Emily smirked to herself. It was exactly the sort of question Amy had fired at all of her past boyfriends so it seemed only fair that Emily gave her a taste of her own medicine. And anyway, she was genuinely curious. Amy had pretty high standards when it came to the earning potential of her partners. If Harry bucked the trend of being a high-flier, as Emily suspected, it would be even more evidence that Amy was finally properly in love rather than treating her relationships like a business partnership.
“Construction, actually,” Harry explained. “My firm specializes in sprucing up properties. We mainly modernize old houses before selling them.”
“I could’ve done with knowing you a couple years back,” Emily joked, remembering the hard work of getting the inn into shape. “Do you enjoy the work?” she added, although really she wanted to be nosy and find out how much he earned.
“I do, but I’ve been doing it for a while now and I’m getting itchy feet,” Harry said. “I’m hoping to change jobs. I want to be my own employer, open a business.”
Emily was impressed with his ambition. She couldn’t imagine Amy being happy with a construction worker, but she could certainly see her settling down with an entrepreneur.
“What kind of business?” Daniel asked, curious.
“Well, the dream is to open a restaurant,” Harry said. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment, though. In a place like Sunset Harbor a lot of the business can be seasonal. But things are just starting to change. There are more tourists, and I think we could handle another one.”
Emily’s eyes glittered as she glanced over at Daniel. “Competition,” she joked.
Harry was midway through a mouthful of hot dog. His eyebrows rose as he chewed more hurriedly. He swallowed. “You’re opening a restaurant, too?” he asked, surprised.
Emily dipped the end of her hot dog in a mound of ketchup. “We already serve food at the inn for guests, and the speakeasy is open to the public. But we’re planning to further expand over the summer and have a larger restaurant that serves high-end evening meals, open to the public rather than just guests. Our friends the Bradshaws own the fish restaurant in town so they’re going to give us some advice. I could put you in touch with them if you’d like.”