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“I think so too! Dad and I worked hard on it,” Hannah said. “But I’m super nervous about actually pulling it off. We’re going to have all hands on deck but there are a lot of moving parts.”
“I’m sure it’ll be great. You guys haven’t disappointed at any events I’ve been to.” Alissa closed the folded menu.
“Thanks.” Hannah hesitated, pulling at the end of her long, dark braid. “I hope you’re right.”
Hannah was usually upbeat, so seeing her so nervous threw Alissa off. It had to be more than just the menu for the luau.
“Is everything okay?” Alissa asked. “Or is it just the menu for the luau that’s bothering you?”
Hannah shifted her stance, a half-smile coming onto her face. “Is it that obvious?”
“Well, usually you don’t get this nervous over The Crab.” Alissa perched on the edge of Josie’s desk. “So I figured I’d ask.”
“It’s kind of silly.” Hannah shrugged. “It’s just about this guy. I was wondering if I should ask him to the luau or if I should wait for someone to ask me.”
“Ah, guy stuff.” Alissa nodded. “That’ll stress anyone out.”
“Ugh, I know.” Hannah’s shoulders relaxed. “I feel like the guy I want to go with won’t ask me even though I want him to. Do you have any advice? Should I go ahead and ask him, or should I drop more hints? Or should I wait for more hints from him?”
Alissa drummed her fingers on the desk underneath her. She was older than Hannah, but in this instance, she didn’t feel much wiser. She and Dane communicated well, but she still found him mysterious at times. Like with whatever was going on after hours. She trusted him, but what if she was missing something? They spent so much time together that she found that impossible, but she never knew.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t been able to figure men out.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t want to lump them all together, but they confuse me too.”
Hannah chuckled. “Oh, no. I thought you’d have some secret insights since you have a boyfriend.”
“Unfortunately, no. I understand him, but not all of him,” Alissa said. “And the men I’ve dated in the past were hard to figure out too.”
“In what way?”
“The guys I dated in the past?” Alissa asked. Hannah nodded eagerly, as if she were waiting for Alissa to bestow some secret knowledge on her. “They were just… not upfront. And even when I asked how they were feeling, they couldn’t put what they were feeling to words sometimes. Maybe it was how I was asking, or maybe it was just an age thing. I’m not sure.”
Hannah’s shoulders slumped for a second until she thought things through.
“I wish there were some key or something to sorting them out.” Hannah’s eyes danced with amusement. “An eyebrow quirk plus a smile equals interest. A shrug and no eye contact equals no interest.”
“Ugh, I wish,” Alissa said. “That would make life a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it?”
Both women laughed.
CHAPTER TEN
“Can we get a BLT on the fly?” Hannah called back into the kitchen as she passed, her arms weighed down by remnants of a table of five’s meals. “There was a seagull incident.”
“Again?” Willis said with a sigh. Despite all the signs to not feed the seagulls, someone always threw out a chip or a fry and got swarmed. It had already happened once earlier that morning when some seagulls flew off with someone’s whole breakfast sandwich, only to drop it right into the ocean.
“Yep, again.” Hannah put the dishes into the sink and washed her hands, looking over her shoulder at the lengthening line. “And we have more customers coming in.”
She hustled back to the front counter. The lunch rush was particularly crazy today, the result of perfect weather and the upcoming weekend. Hannah usually got the chance to breathe, but today it had been order after order, and minor disaster after minor disaster. There were the seagulls, of course, but there were also spills, customers sending orders back for the smallest mistakes, and a chaotic group of tourists who filled the restaurant and changed their minds every five minutes.
Hannah checked the clock. It was only eleven thirty? It felt like she’d gone through an entire day already. She put a smile on her face and greeted the next customer even though she was begging for the rest of the lunch rush to go smoothly. The day couldn’t have gotten worse.
Until it did.
Hannah poked the register’s touch screen once… then again. Nothing happened, so she stabbed it with her finger until it worked. The customer waiting for her to finish the transaction looked at her and Hannah gave them a nervous smile.
"The system’s a little lazy today,” she said. She input the customer’s chip card and finished the transaction.
Whenever the system got slow, she had to turn it off and turn it back on again. The process took a few moments, but usually it worked.
