Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Time slows as the wheels in my head turn. I don’t think it would’ve been Army last night. He’d said “I can wonder if it’s my son he’s playing Daddy to.”
Army already has a son, so wouldn’t he have said “one of my sons” instead?
He starts to walk away, my gaze lingering on his back.
It’s really not a good idea for me to be over there five days a week, eight hours a day.
I hesitate a moment before saying, “I need to help get my brother and sister off to school in the mornings,” I inform him. “Tell Mariette I can be there by seven thirty.”
What the hell am I doing?
He looks back at me over his shoulder. “Okay.”
“I’ll talk to her about my schedule tomorrow,” I add. “And I keep what I earn. Plus the repairs on my car.”
He nods once. “Deal.”
Five days a week. Eight-hour days. That was optimistic of me.
Almost a week later, I still haven’t had a day off. And every day gets longer than the last. I was here for almost twelve hours yesterday, but my brother and sister went to a birthday party at a trampoline place with our aunt and cousins, so I didn’t feel bad about staying late. There just always seems to be more to do here. Every day. Deliveries need to be unloaded, inventory stocked, someone’s sick, someone left early and couldn’t clean their stations, the soda’s out, a tour bus is coming in, my relief needs to be trained … by me. When I just started days ago.
And occasionally, very special customers have the privilege of getting their food delivered to them, which isn’t something Mariette’s does for everyone.
I even helped in the kitchen before the lunch rush today. Pretty sure she almost kicked me out when I asked, “Aren’t key limes just limes?” Twenty minutes later, I left sweating and fully aware that they were absolutely not.
Quite honestly, I love working here, though. I can get a clean fork, refill a drink, remember all the orders for a table of six without writing anything down, carry five plates at a time, and deliver the shrimp bisque to table eight, the beef tips to table one, and the beer to table eleven in one magical and beautiful dance through the room. I’m finally good at something.
“Krisjen!” Mariette shouts through the window between the kitchen and the server station. “I warned you about the roller skates!”
I coast down the aisle, a plate of food in each hand like a pro.
Mariette mutters something in Spanish, and I’m probably glad I don’t understand.
“Where does this go?” the new girl, Summer, asks.
I drop the burger in front of Bud Kyler and take the platter from her in my free hand. “Davey always has the crawfish.” I set it down in front of him and his friend who have stopped here every day this week on their lunch breaks.
He smiles, and I wink.
“You need a refill?”
He nods. “Coke.”
I take his cup, hand it to Summer, and push off, cruising toward the window and skidding left.
“She can move in those skates!” Miguel Padron says.
I race behind the counter, stuff more straws into my apron, and fill a third Coke, grabbing the two others off the soda fountain. “Yeah, they make me faster, Mariette.”
“Let her wear ’em, Mariette!” someone else calls out.
“So she can sue me when she breaks her leg?” my boss spits back.
I drop off the Cokes at table three and twirl around, skating backward. “Actually, I’d be suing Macon, since he technically owns the place, and even I’m not that stupid.”
Hands suddenly grab my waist, catching me, and I jolt, looking over my shoulder.
Macon looks down at me, and the heat from his body instantly hits me.
I gulp, just as the screen door flaps closed behind him. I almost crashed into him.
Tingles spread under my skin, and a jolt hits low in my belly. I stop breathing for a second.
He’s never touched me. Not even a handshake or a brush of his shoulder.
I hold back my nervous laugh and turn around. “I have your lunch,” I tell him.
I start for the counter to grab the to-go box under the warmer where I packaged the bun separate from the meat, so it wouldn’t get soggy, but he stops me before I get there.
“I’m not hungry,” he says. He pulls the mail out of the slot on the wall and starts flipping through. “Reheat it for dinner and drop it off when you leave today.”
So he can just throw it away again?
I slip my hands in my pockets. I didn’t think much of it when I noticed all the uneaten food in the garage trash can last week, but he’s taken his lunch only twice while I’ve been working here. The other times it’s left on the worktable in the garage, untouched. He hasn’t joined the guys for dinner, and I haven’t been taking him anything then, either. Nor has anyone else from Mariette’s that I can tell. No idea if he’s eating breakfast. His brothers are big eaters. What’s going on with him?