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I watched her face fall. “No! Hey!” she shouted, jogging a few steps before seeing they were already out the door and jumping into a car to take off.

She lolled her head back. “Not again.”

Dine-and-dashing. It happened at my restaurant job too.

“I should have known when they both ordered the steak and eggs,” she said, turning to look at the empty plates they left with a sigh.

“You don’t have to pay for it or anything, do you?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just slow and I needed the table. My PI is expensive.”

She went to bus their dishes, her shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry,” I said, getting up to help her.

“It’s okay.”

I grabbed the coffee cups and put the silverware in them while she stacked plates.

“Hey, have you ever been to Little Christmas?” I asked.

“No,” she said, collecting dirty napkins. “Heard of it, though. They do a parade or something, right?”

“Yeah. We used to go up every year. I got a gig up there in a few days.”

“Huh. Sounds fun.”

For a split second I was almost brave enough to ask her if she wanted to come with me.

Almost.

“So you have brothers?” I asked instead, following her to dump the dishes in the bin behind the counters.

“Yeah, two.”

“Older or younger?”

“Older,” she said, plunging a rag in sanitizer.

“And what do they do?”

“They both work for the family business,” she said, wringing out the rag.

“What’s the family business?”

A pause. “It’s pest control.”

“Just… pest control,” I said, sensing there was more.

“Yeah.” She walked back to the table to wipe it down and I followed her. “Sort of,” she said.

“Sort of?”

“It’s just kind of embarrassing,” she said, wiping the table with her back to me. “I don’t like talking about it.”

“What’s embarrassing about pest control?”

She wouldn’t look at me.