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I got back thirty seconds later and stuffed a wad of bills under one of the plates we hadn’t cleared yet.

I stopped busing the table and got the broom and dustpan to do the floor instead so she could be the one to find the money.

She came out a few minutes later. Her eyes were red, but she looked a little calmer.

“Thanks,” she said, still sniffling.

“Yeah.”

She went back to clearing dirty dishes. I tried not to watch as she got closer to the hidden stash, but I peeked through the arm of the high chair at just the right moment to see her lift the plate and pause. The smile lit up her whole face. “Matty! Look!”

“What’s up?” I popped my head out.

She fanned the money. “They left this under a plate!”

I grinned. “That’s awesome. Faith in humanity restored.”

“Why’d they put it under there like that?” she said.

I shrugged, getting up from the mess I was cleaning on the floor. “Maybe as a surprise?”

She smiled down on the money and I watched her, happy because she was happy. Worth every penny.

The bet we’d made before the chaos started was still open-ended. I don’t know if “Jingle Bells” had played next—we had been too busy to focus on anything but the task at hand. Either way, if she didn’t want to go on a Little Christmas date with me, I hoped she’d at least want to be friends.

Because I really, really liked her.

10

RHIANNON

I STARED DOWN AT what had to be at least a 30 percent tip.

I was beaming. “Here,” I said, riffling through the cash. “Take half.” I handed some to Matty.

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s yours.”

“Matty. I would have tipped a buser if I had one. Please.”

“Nope,” he said, going back to the disaster under the high chairs.

“You have to let me thank you somehow. There’s no way I could have done the last two hours without you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, sweeping junkyard potatoes off the carpet into a dustpan. “It gave me something to do.”

I pressed my lips into a line about to argue, when the door chimed again.

It was Laci.

She made a beeline for me.

“Hey,” I said, blinking at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work—”

“Lauren let me out early. Some weird shit’s going on over there—I found him,” she said, plunking her purse on the table.

“What? Who?”

“Tate.”