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Sylvie’s shoulder pushed against mine. “Well, don’t tell her that.”
We both got to our feet and moved toward the kitchen. I grabbed the square bucket from her. “I’ll take care of this. Thanks for your help.”
“Hey—not that side!”
Just as I pushed through the swinging doors to the back kitchen, I crashed into Huck and the tray of pastries he was carrying.
Muffins went tumbling.
Scones flying.
My eyes were huge as I looked into his deep frown, and a thick well of emotions clogged in my throat.
Weren’t out-of-work actresses supposed to be good servers? How am I so bad at this?
I pouted, defeated, and as I lifted my face to the ceiling, I shouted, “I just want to be a cliché!”
Huck’s deep, rumbling laughter was unexpected but broke me from feeling completely sorry for myself. His gentle hand landed on my shoulder.
“Trust me, I wish you were too. How does dishwashing sound?”
I couldn’t help but laugh—at his kind response along with how epically tragic and short lived my first day was. I was fired for sure.
“Just lock me up back here. Maybe people will be safer.”
He shook his head. “At the very least, the scones will be.”
Surprisingly, Huck didn’t fire me.
Instead, he offered to let me stay on and do the work no one else liked to do—dishwashing, general cleanup, and organizing in the back. After years of temp work I could slide in to organize, clean, and thoughtfully do whatever tasks were handed to me, apart from waitressing, obviously.
As it turned out, Huck was averymessy baker, and he and Sylvie went round and round about the disasters he left in the back kitchen. The thought of returning to the Sugar Bowl for another humiliating day ofLet’s See What Else Lark Is Bad Atfelt daunting, but Huck assured me that my tenacity for tackling his disastrous pantry was enough to keep me around.
I had spent the afternoon organizing every shelf and ingredient by expiration and how often it was used. I’d even started a spreadsheet to track what ingredients would need to be ordered. I had plans for labels. So many labels. By the time my shift ended, I was tired and covered in flour, not to mention that there was something sticky under my shoe.
As I crossed the street and headed to my car, I maneuvered past a set of very long legs, which a man had stretched from a bench onto the sidewalk.
As I wound around him, I heard him call out, “Staying a while, then?”
His words stopped me, and I looked up.A King.
I recognized the man from Bowlegs’s funeral—the intense one with all the tattoos. I looked around, making sure he was speaking with me, and when no one else seemed to pause at his words, I nodded.
Am I supposed to be talking to him? Is a Sullivan spy going to be around the corner and sic Ms. Tiny on me?
It was odd, feeling as though my loyalties were squarely in Sullivan territory, and talking on the open sidewalk with a King felt brazen, wrong almost. When I looked up, he was sitting just outside of a shop, King Tattoo. His tattoos covered both arms and trailed from his biceps down to the tops of his hands. His sharp features were fierce, and a shot of worry danced through me as my thoughts immediately flew to Wyatt.
“Um,” I attempted an answer with a smile pasted in place. “I’m new in town, I guess. Enjoying a coastal summer.”
His eyes roamed over me in a lazy, confident way. I was sure women fellhardfor that all-encompassing, attentive stare.
“Friday nights are a good time ’round here. Maybe I’ll see you out and you can save me a dance.”
I laughed politely. “Yeah, maybe.”Maybe not.
I scooted around his legs and picked up my pace toward my car. Something in my gut told me that messing with a King, even for a newcomer, was a very bad idea.
* * *
