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He might be avoiding me, but at least he hadn’t bailed.
Not yet anyway.
I wasn’t naive enough to believe that Tony would stay put if he grew too uncomfortable. The man could pick up and leave at any time. The notion didn’t seem all that far-fetched. He liked to run. And he did it without warning.
My nerves reappeared and stayed that way all day long. No one had heard from him, and he hadn’t been out on the water or gone out to check on his boat. Apparently, for a fisherman, that was a rarity.
The bell jingled over the door, and I glanced through the kitchen window to see my mother walking in. She was always so put together and beautiful, and today was no exception. Seeing her made me smile. Her eyes caught mine as she weaved through the crowd and made her way toward me in the back.
Wiping my hands on my apron, I moved away from the prep table right as she walked through the swinging doors.
“Hola,mija,” she said in Spanish.
I watched as all the men in the kitchen practically melted at the sight of her. Everyone loved this woman.
“Hola,” I said in response as we gave each other kisses on the cheek in greeting.
“Can we talk for a second?”
My mother never showed up at my job, wanting to chat, so I knew it must be important or time sensitive.
“In private?” I asked, and she nodded.
I waved my hand toward the back door, signaling that we should go upstairs to my apartment, and she immediately started walking.
“I’ll be right back. The fish on the counter needs to go in the oven,” I directed, and the guys instantly moved to take care of things. They seemed to be picking up my slack a lot these past few days. I felt almost guilty.
The door slammed closed behind me, and I followed my mother up the stairs and inside my place, where Snickers greeted us both with meows. My mother bent down to scoop the cat in her arms, her long nails scratching behind my cat’s ears. The purring was instantaneous.
“Is everything okay?” I asked the minute we were alone.
“I actually came to ask you that. I heard Liam and Tony got into a fistfight in the restaurant.”
How had I forgotten that the town’s rumor mill would eventually reach my mother? I hadn’t even thought about it until now.
She continued telling me what she’d been told. “I heard the fight was over you. And they broke a bunch of stuff at the bar and got arrested. Although the bar looked okay when I just saw it.”
“What?” I hoped my tone was as ridiculous as the story she was telling me.
“What?” she repeated, wondering what was so wrong about her information.
“You have bad intel.”
“Bad what? What is intel?” My mother didn’t always know or understand the meaning of certain English words.
“Your information is wrong. Liam did show up last night, but there was no physical fight.”
Verbal, sure.
“Okay. Your Tony and Liam were both there though, right?” she pushed, trying to put the pieces in the right order.
My Tony.
“Yes. Apparently, the two of them know each other,” I said before pressing my lips together.
“No.” Her eyes grew wide with surprise. “How?”
“They used to work together.”
