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I think she’s joking, but I’m not so sure.
“The latte’s for my daughter.”
She glances toward the car.
“But I’ll have a water.”
“San Pellegrino?”
I raise my brow. “How’d you know?”
She shrugs. “Just a hunch,” she says and then she holds out her hand. I think she’s asking for payment, so I fish a twenty from my pocket. “No,” she says. “You have to shake on it.”
“What am I shaking on? A hunch?”
She motions between the two of us. “To keeping secrets.”
I consider her expression for a moment before eventually sliding my hand in hers. “To keeping secrets,” I say.
We shake, and it seems weird but I’m in an alleyway ordering food I’m not supposed to be eating from a girl smoking pot, so weird is subjective at this point.
While I wait for her to return with my order, I scroll through and like a few dozen posts on Instalook. When she returns and hands me the bag, I carefully remove the sandwich from its wrapper. It’s like unwrapping a gift marked fragile. I devour it within mere seconds. She leans against the wall and crosses her arms. She watches me carefully, but I’m too involved with my sandwich to care much. When I finish, I go to stuff the evidence in the bag, and see that she’s added chips to my order even though I hadn’t asked for them. I frown.
“It tastes better with chips,” she confesses, and who am I to tell her any different?
“I haven’t had potato chips in almost twenty years,” I tell her. I’m pretty sure I look like a crazy person, the way I rip the bag open and gorge on them like someone who hasn’t eaten in days. I know because she’s still standing there watching me, although I’m not sure why. I’ve paid her already, and she’s mentioned the shop is busy.
“Sorry,” she says, as though she’s read my mind. “I just wanted to see what you thought.”
“It’s amazing,” I manage, my mouth full.
“Well then—” she half-turns. “I’d better get back.”
I nod, and I keep chewing.
She turns back. “I’m Izzy, by the way.”
“Josie,” I say, in between fistfuls of potato chips.
“Well, Josie,” she says, “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Umhumm.” I agree, but mostly I’m thinking about how I might get back here and get another of these sandwiches.
She turns and takes several steps toward the back door before she stops and turns abruptly. “I don’t do this often, you know.”
I swallow my mouthful. “Make women in alleyways sandwiches?”
“No,” she tells me, glancing back over her shoulder. “Smoke dope.”
I raise my brow. I’d already forgotten. I’m too preoccupied with this new vice of my own to consider any sins she might be harboring. “Oh,” I say, waving her off. “It’s our secret, remember?”
She narrows her gaze. “Funny. You know…I only smoke because it makes me hungry. Now— all I can think of is having what you’re having.”
“Lucky you,” I say. “You work here. You get to have this anytime.”
“Yes.” She smiles, and it’s one of Grant’s. The reassuring kind. The lying kind.
Chapter Twelve
