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Six
Jonesy
I’m tackling my end-of-shift tasks on Saturday when June flags me down.
“I found two vagrants hanging around outside and put them in your section.”
I swipe my cleaning cloth over table fourteen one last time and break into a grin when I see the pair in the booth.
“Looks like trouble to me.Did you ask Samson if he could spare some leftover risotto?”
“I did, which means you owe me.”She pats my shoulder.“See you tomorrow, cutie.”
“See you tomorrow.”
June shoulders her massive mom bag and hustles toward the exit, leaving me free to saunter over to the table where my best friend is making out with his wife.Gabe and Darby have only been married for a couple of months, so they’re still very much in the honeymoon phase.It’s why I haven’t seen much of them recently, and it’s why they both leap to their feet to hug me.
“Jonesy!”Darby exclaims.“You’re looking good!”Then she steps back to peer at me more closely.“Wait, you’re looking tired.Are you working too hard?”
“Great to see you too.”I glance over at Gabe.“Is she this good at bedroom talk?”
He pulls me into a hug and claps me on the back.“Don’t be an ass.”
“You guys are late,” I say, slipping into the opposite side of the booth from the newlyweds.They promised to swing by during my shift, but here it is, twenty minutes after close.Hanging with them after hours means I won’t be able to fit in a workout before the show tonight, but I can skip this once.I’m thrilled they stopped by even if seeing Gabe triggers a pulse of guilt.
“My fault,” Darby says.“We were putting lights on the trees in our front yard, and it took forever.”
“Well, it sounds like June took care of you,” I say.“Let me finish up and grab the food.”
I hop up, intending to speed through the last of my /wipe-down work, and find Liv wiping down the table I left half-cleaned.
“I can finish up if you want to hang with your friends.”
She wiggles a clean rag and a spray bottle at me.
“No way.You didn’t eat on your break, right?”I steer her toward Gabe and Darby’s booth.“Sit with my friends, and I’ll join you in a sec.Unless you’ve got someplace else to be?”
“Me?The visitor to Beaucoeur who knows three people outside of this restaurant?”
I herd her toward the booth.
“Liv Fielding, meet Gabe Dickinson and Darby St.Claire.There, now you know two more people in town,” I tell her as I press her down onto the bench seat.“Darby’s the coolest librarian you’ll ever meet, and Gabe’s a landscaper with terrible taste in best friends.Gabe and Darby, Liv’s an unrepentant criminal on the run from the Canadian authorities.”
“I am not,” she says haughtily as I spin to wipe down the final tables.Then I head to the kitchen to face down Samson.
“I’m not here to cook for your friends.”He bangs a stack of plates down on the sparkling stainless-steel counter in front of him.
“Not even the ones who planted those incredible Japanese maple trees in your yard last year?”My grin bounces off his scowling exterior, but he stops complaining and hands over a family-style bowl of steaming mushroom risotto.
“Tell him Ansel wants flowering bushes next year.”
“Noted.I’ll clean up when we’re done.”
“You’re goddamn right you will.”He sets the final pot in the sink and unties his apron.“Set the security code when you leave.”
I nod my acknowledgment as I stack the plates and food onto a tray and slide out of the kitchen, grateful to escape with my life.
“Samson says the payment for feeding you after hours is planting fancy bushes for his husband this spring,” I say as I unload the tray onto the table and slide in next to Liv.
