Semua Bab The Secret Billionaire in Aisle 9 : Bab 91 - Bab 100

The days leading up to the board’s final decision stretched longer than a slow Sunday shift at BuyMore. Callie could feel it in everything. The way Naomi kept double-checking the endcaps even though they were already aligned. The way Marcus paced during his breaks like a caged tiger. The way Brenda had gone unusually quiet during the morning huddle, her normally bright tone tempered by something tight around the edges. Even the regulars seemed to sense the shift in atmosphere. Mr. Toliver didn’t linger to talk about his vintage cassette player. Mrs. DeSantis from aisle five brought cookies and left without her usual banter. Customers came and went, polite but brisk, like they were tiptoeing through a place they feared might disappear. Callie clung to structure. She updated the scheduling template. She ran inventory reports. She audited the shipping log and caught a discrepancy in the headphones category—fifte

There was something different in the air at the BuyMore store that week.The clock still ticked the same. The automatic doors still whooshed open with their usual hydraulic sighs. Customers still pushed carts down the linoleum aisles, searching for discounted air fryers and shelf-stable snacks.But behind the employee badges, under the blue and green uniforms, the staff moved with a quiet, shared purpose.It was the waiting that did it.The waiting—and the unspoken truth that any shift could be their last together.So instead of drifting into fear, the BuyMore team chose something else.They chose to show up.For each other.For their store.For the family they’d built.It began on Monday morning, with Naomi arriving two hours early.She claimed she was there to reorganize the front display tables, but really, she just didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. She ended up sweeping th

The BuyMore breakroom had never been this full—or this quiet.A usually loud and bustling space where laughter, microwave beeps, and coffee machine grumbles harmonized into a familiar chorus was now shrouded in silence, punctuated only by the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.Marcus sat at the edge of the battered old couch, elbows on his knees, nervously tapping a pen against his palm. Brenda perched beside him, scrolling through her phone, though her eyes weren’t really reading anything.Naomi sat at the plastic lunch table, arms crossed over her apron, biting her lower lip. Beside her, Kai had already finished an entire bottle of water and was now drumming his fingers against the empty container like a makeshift tambourine.And then there were Eli and Callie.They stood near the door—Eli leaning casually against the frame, trying and failing to appear relaxed, and Callie with her arms folded tightly, like she was holding he

Trust, once broken, wasn’t rebuilt in grand gestures or dramatic apologies. It was in the little things.In the shared glance across the store floor when a toddler knocked over an entire shelf of headphones. In the unspoken teamwork when inventory boxes needed rearranging in the back. In the way Callie no longer flinched when Eli approached, or how Eli no longer watched her as if bracing for rejection.It was slow. Deliberate.But it was happening.And it started—fittingly—on a Tuesday morning.Callie stood by the seasonal display, re-merchandising a row of Bluetooth speakers that had been hastily stacked by the night shift. The new display scheme, one of Naomi’s “modern minimalist” ideas, called for balance, spacing, and a color gradient.It would have been fine, if the night crew hadn’t decided to stack the purple boxes next to the neon orange ones.Eli spotted her standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding a

The BuyMore store buzzed with the quiet hum of routine—a rhythm that had, over time, become oddly comforting. It wasn’t loud, nor particularly flashy, but it was steady. Familiar. Like the comfortable silence between two people who no longer needed to fill the gaps with conversation.Brenda and Marcus had found themselves nestled into this kind of rhythm.Even as the store itself transformed under Callie’s leadership and Eli’s quiet support, even as the team worked together in newfound unity, the subtle shift in Marcus and Brenda’s relationship had continued to evolve—like two trees growing side by side, their roots entwining beneath the surface.They were official now, sure. Boyfriend. Girlfriend. Partners. But the reality of navigating a relationship inside their shared workplace came with its own growing pains and quiet, stolen joys.This morning, Marcus had arrived earlier than usual, catching Brenda just as she was finishing her final sip of