Noah barked out a laugh. “My guy. You’ve been with her every second the last few days. She won’t disappear if you blink.” He leaned closer to him, hands paused in mid-wipe on the counter. “If you’re gonna pine, Boss, at least do it with dignity.”
“I amnotpining.” Shepherd glared at him. “You’re fired.”
“Uh-huh.” Noah wiped the bar down directly in front of him. “Maybe one day you’ll say that, and it’ll be true, but today is not that day.”
Lex skipped up to them with a jingling handful of cash she immediately dumped on the still-wet bar. “I’d like a soda, please. A dark one. Extra sugar.”
“Aww, kiddo,” Noah grinned. “You get that for free.”
“I know. I want you also to sort this change and roll it up for me.” She winked. “You’re a good kid, Noah.”
Shepherd laughed. “That’s my girl.”
Noah gave them both a flat look. “Maybe I’ll quit. Huh. How about that?”
The bell above the door jingled. Shepherd nodded at Charlie in greeting.
“Maybe one day you’ll say that, and it’ll be true,” Shepherd said, pushing the change towards his employee, “but today is not that day.”
“Hey, man, thanks for coming,” Shepherd said, putting as much pathetic-ness into his voice as his ego would allow. Which, as it turned out, was quite a bit. He’d have to talk to his therapist about that, once he got one. “Come, have a seat, I’ll get you a drink and a slice of pie.”
“A slice?” Charlie shook his head and gave a light huff. “I’ll take the whole pie. I’m famished. Been working hard all day, you know.”
Shepherd waved to Noah, who had both hands full of coins, and ordered for him and Charlie. Once Noah went away, grumbling and jingling, Shepherd turned on his barstool. “Got everything ready, then?”
“You bet. It’s all handled,” Charlie said. He reached for his coolada with the bravado of a man who didn’t eat cheese out of cans. “You and Ginny ain’t gotta worry about a thing. I’ve been doing this kind of stuff since before you were born.”
“I think we’re roughly the same age.”
Charlie shook his hand from to side. “It’s a metaphor.”
“I don’t think that was a metaphor.”
“So what was it, then?”
Shepherd gestured to Noah for his own drink. “I don’t know. Maybe it is a metaphor. Ginny’s mom told me that my restaurant name isn’t a pun, and that threw me. Grammatically speaking.”
“What? You’re Shepherd and you sell pizza pies. That’s a pun.”
“Right? That’s what I thought. But she was so convincing.”
Noah set down a full cheese pizza and a second coolada with a cold look, and hurried off to the other end of the bar.
Charlie offered Shepherd one of his slices. Shepherd took it. It was hot and greasy, and it folded down the middle. Perfect.
“I met Ginny’s mom, you know,” Charlie said after polishing off a bite. “She scared the shit out of me, and I’ve faced an entire room of armed Canadian gangsters and didn’t break a sweat.”
“Canadian gangsters?”
“They’re more dangerous than you’d realize,” Charlie nodded. “Apologize while shooting your dick off—that kind of thing.”
Shepherd adjusted himself.
“Look, Charlie. Thank you for the hook-up. I mean it. Ginny means the world to me”—that lie burned his mouth—“and she loves her mom.” That lie soothed his tongue.
Charlie waved a hand like he was brushing the praise out of the air. “As I said, her brother’s words moved me.”
Shepherd caught Lex’s eye and gave a little nod. She rolled back her shoulders and then stretched big, touching her toes, touching the air, before skipping over towards them. “Hi, Dad!” she chirped, voice higher than it ever had been. “I love you!”
