“I’m good,” I say, though I’m seriously dragging.
I catered breakfast for an office event this morning, made a couple of platters of sandwiches for Clara’s lunch meeting and dropped them off, and now I’m here, helping Faye with the shelter’s annual fundraiser.
It’s a breeze.
The shelter has a full commercial kitchen that the kids run under the umbrella of one of my favorite bakeries in the Bay Area, Molly’s. The menu is slightly stripped down from Molly’s normal locations, but her staff all take turns cycling through, training the teens in skills they can use when they move out on their own or transition beyond state care.
For tonight, Faye and I are overseeing everything.
Faye because she wanted to help and has serious skills in the kitchen (and because she wanted a chance to learn some of Molly’s most coveted recipes).
Me because I have the necessary certifications in food safety.
I pop another ginger candy—still one of the few things my stomach can handle these days—and roll my shoulders. “We’re almost done.”
Her brows drag together. “We have a metric ton of dishes to do. We’re not anywhere close to done.”
Fuck, I forgot about the dishes.
“Eh,” I wave a hand, affecting casualness when all I want to do is cry. Stupid pregnancy hormones. Stupid fatigue. Stupid men who…men. “They’ll go fast.”
“You know,” she says quietly, “you don’t have to do it on your own.”
Don’t I?
Except…that’s not fair. She and Luna and the others have made it clear I’m not alone many times over since they’ve welcomed me into their circle.
I just don’t have the mental energy to think about that right now, mostly because thinking about their circle means thinking about Leo and?—
I can’t.
“I know I don’t.” I force a smile. “Yes, I’m tired, but I want to be here, Red,” I say using Gray’s nickname for her. “We’re in the home stretch and I’m going to rot all day tomorrow.”
“Except tomorrow we have that dinner at Luna’s.”
Which I’m catering.
Damn.
I totally forgot.
Probably because I know Luna only asked me so she’d have an excuse to give me some work (we usually go potluck style for our get togethers). It pricked my pride to accept the pity job, but I had taken it.
I need the work.
Need the money.
And maybe I also forgot about the dinner because it’s the first time we’re all meeting Shannon.
Leo’s girlfriend.
I don’t want to think about why that is.
“Amend that to say I’ll rot all day until the dinner,” I say lightly, even though my stomach is churning. “Because I’ve already done most of the prep for it.”
She studies me in that quiet, piercing way of hers, her eyes seeming to silently call me out for the lie.
I’ve prepped exactly zero things for the dinner.
