“All opposed?” her father asked, reclining heavily in his seat.
Ginny’s hand shot up so fast Shepherd worried it would fly off. He raised his, even though he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to vote or not this time. Deandra raised her hand, and said, “They could atleastbring me a few more martinis for the trouble.”
“The motion passes,” Bradley said, knocking his knuckles against the table instead of a gavel. “The police are not told. Dior and Dion are to apologize to their stepmother and spend the next twenty-four hours being her personal bartenders.”
Ginny cried out to the ceiling. “Fine!” she shouted. “I am leaving this family, and I am never coming back! Good luck, Vincent! Go to hell, the rest of you!”
The stepmother that was married to Bradley—what was her name? Oh, right, Brandy—laughed, sharp and piercing. “That’s what you said last time. Look, I still have it on film.” She reached for her phone, but Ginny slapped it out of her hands.
“Mark my words, Brandy, you’ll be a Kent for another six months tops. Come on, Shepherd. Let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t jumped out of a chair that fast since his twenties. “Good luck to all of you,” he said, stopping in the doorway. “You’re all terrible. But you did a good job with Ginny, and I’ll … well, I guess I’ll see you at the next wedding. Whoever that might be. Maybe mine!” He winked at Deandra. “Maybe not.”
FIFTY-THREE
The lunch rush was rapidly dissolving as cruise-ship customers made their way to their afternoon excursions and locals got back to work. The air still carried the rich smell of tomatoes and garlic, but it probably always would, no matter how many customers came and went. The walls were practically painted in it. Shepherd stretched out his shoulders and looked at the life he’d built, not with careful planning, but by grabbing on to chaos with both hands. Literally. Ginny and Lex were sitting together at the counter, whispering and sharing one of Noah’s new salads. Ginny was wearing aShepherd’s Piesshirt that molded to her chest in a way that Shepherd tried not to stare at when customers were present.
Shepherd snuck the peperoncino before Lex could stab it with her fork. “Hey!”
“You snooze, you lose.” Shepherd planted a kiss on his daughter’s forehead, and she leveled him with a glare that would’ve made Elwin Kent weep.
He bit into the salty treat with a grin. “You two are working hard, I see.”
“We areplayinghard.” Ginny smiled wide, spreading her arms like she was going to hug the bar itself. “I just heard from Vincent. Who just heard from the chief of police. The bikers won’t be bothering us for a long time. Thank God for good old-fashioned South Florida police corruption.”
“I don’t know if I want to thank God for that,” Shepherd said. “Maybe I’d thank the amount of bomb-making materials I was able to plant in their clubhouse before the police arrived.”
Ginny waved a hand. “Pish. Without my family’s connections, they would’ve been out on bond in a few months, even with all the bomb stuff and weapons and meth. That’s the thing about police corruption, babe. Goes both ways.”
Shepherd sighed.
“So,” Lex shouted, “take us to the beach, Dad! Pronto! ASAP! Right this very now.”
“Oh, no,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” Ginny replied. “It’s kinda slow. Let’s close early and celebrate!”
“Yeah, Dad! Live your life for once!”
He shook his head, but he was still grinning. “I don’t close early for the beach, girls. Somebody’s gotta pay the bills.”
Ginny walked her fingers along the counter and up Shepherd’s arm. “We should take a vote.”
“Uh,” he said.
“Yes!” Lex used her hands like a bullhorn around her mouth. “Noah! Chris! Max!”
“Uh,” Shepherd said again.
Chris and Max wandered out from the kitchen, covered in streaks of what Shepherd hoped was sauce.
Noah walked over holding a full bus tub. “Yeah?” he asked, apparently appointing himself their leader.
“We’re taking a vote,” Lex announced. “To either close early and go to the beach or stay working like lifeless capitalist drones.”
“Alexis,” Shepherd warned, but Ginny laughed, and he knew he had already lost.
“All in favor of closing early,” Lex said, raising a hand. Ginny raised hers. Noah and Chris raised theirs.
