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“Hi,” he practically shouts as I step up to our table. He shakes his head nervously, squeezing his eyes shut as he presses a tight fist to his forehead. “I meant, it’s nice to meet you, Morgan.”
He cracks an eyelid open and offers a sheepish grin before reaching his hand toward me.
“No worries,” I excuse him. I tilt my head a hitch as we shake hands. “It’s nice to meet you . . .”
I have no clue who he is, but I’m guessing by the way he’s blinking and smiling that he thinks I do. It gets awkward after a few seconds when I don’t say his name, and he chuckles.
“Wow, this is not a blind date, is it?” We’re still shaking hands as it dawns on him, and as my eyes flit to his grip, he lets go and instantly shoves both hands deep into the pockets of his dress pants as he lifts his shoulders to his ears with a wince.
“It is not, but . . . I think we should enjoy breakfast. And itwillbe going on my father’s tab, so please feel free to order literally anything.” I pull my seat out before my date—whose name I still don’t know—can reach my chair, and he’s left with one hand stretched toward my chair by the time I’m sitting.
“I’m failing left and right, aren’t I?” he says, loosening his tie and taking his own seat across from me.
“You were set up to fail, so don’t take it hard. Though, Istilldon’t know your name. Unless I should stick with Mr. Flannery?” I scan the menu, then glance up as he chuckles.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m Paul.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Paul,” I offer, keeping it pleasant. My father has put me in worse situations. The last out-of-town guests he asked me to entertain pulled back the curtain on a lot of longstanding issues between my father and me—namely, how he sees me as an instrument to getting what he wants.
And when I needed a father to defend my honor, all I got was a man chalking things up to “locker room behavior.”
“May I take your drink orders?” Our waiter is a fresh face too. This is a favorite spot of my mom and I, to the point that I have a decent handle on the staff, knowing most by name. I haven’t been here since last spring, though, and apparently I’ve missed some of the service turnover.
Let’s see if this new guy has gotten the memo about me. I lean forward to get his name to up my charm.
“Jensen, I’d love a strawberry mimosa. In fact, make it two. Mr. Flannery is my guest, and he simplyhasto start his day with one of those.” I level the poor kid, who’s maybe only a couple of years older than me—probably the same age as Paul—with my most persuasive smile. I wore my pale pink lip color today, and for whatever reason, my confidence inches up ever so slightly when I wear this color.
“Oh, uh . . .” poor Jensen stutters.
“And we’ll be charging this to my father,” I add, knowing that’s notreallywhat has our waiter stuck. I’m not twenty-one, but Jensen isn’t quite sure whether he should card me. Partly because I’m me, and most people around our age know I’ve been drinking my way through Boston’s social scene for two-plus years. But also because my father owns the land beneath our feet and the walls around everything in this joint.
“We can go with tea or something else,” Paul pipes in.
Aw, Paul. Not good with conflict.
“Oh, I don’t know, I really had my heart set on the mimosa,” I add.
Paul’s cheeks are red, the flush from social anxiety only rivaled by poor Jensen’s neck. I’m about to let them off the hook when dear old dad makes an appearance.
“You. You’re new,” my father bellows over my shoulder. I startle in my seat, but nobody notices. Probably because Paul is now stumbling to get on his feet in an effort to either run away or earn my father’s respect, and Jensen . . . he’s frozen solid.
“I started in May, um, sir?” Jensen’s voice cracks with his words. I close my eyes and touch my index finger to the bridge of my nose in anticipation. Christopher Bentley has a great disdain for weak personalities.
“Why would you say that like a question? Who hired you?” My dad moves closer to our poor waiter before spinning on his feet to scan the restaurant, apparently searching for someone to come running in to haul Jensen away.
“I’m Abby’s nephew, sir.” Jensen clears his throat after his answer. He’s practically leaning forward on his toes, as if he’s dangling on a cliff’s edge waiting for my father to simply push him off. But his answer must hold weight because instead of growing more irritable, my father tilts his head a tick, pulls his glasses down his nose and squints.
“Huh. You look nothing like her,” my father says through a gravelly laugh. “Bring another chair over here.”
My dad motions to the open dining area with few patrons, and Jensen rushes to a four top and quickly carries over a chair. As is his way, my father manages to make a major production of taking his seat and scooting closer to our table. There’s the swinging of his jacket around the tall wooden back followed by the screech of the wooden legs along the polished concrete floor as my father hopscotches the chair forward under his weight. When he finally unfurls one of the rolled-up cloth napkins—mynapkin, to be precise—he cranes his neck to see if our young, terrified waiter is still within earshot.
Jensen is standing two feet away.
My father snaps.
“Three mimosas. Go on.” He waves and again, Jensen obeys. All I can do is laugh lightly and shake my head.
“You are a study in behavioral psychology, I swear. Why people continually perform for you when you treat them like golden retrievers, I will never know.” I reach across the table and take Paul’s napkin, knowing he’s the weakest of the three at this table, and when Jensen returns with our drinks, Paul asks him for another place setting.
