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“Um…” He leans over the counter and looks at me with a fed-up expression. “That and she always wanted to sound like she’s a big city girl. On the other hand, I’m proud of my Southern accent and choose to be more authentic about who I am and where I come from.”
I shake my head, my lips parted, an expression of pure disbelief on my face.
He’s making it hard to find a flaw.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asks, amused.
“Um… Nothing.”
I don’t want to be confrontational today, particularly not after his mixed signals the other day. What does he want from me anyway?
Alex looks intently at me, until I look at him, and once I do, he smiles the smile of a know-it-all. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I… Um…” Going beet red, I struggle for words to say. “I have nothing against you. I just find it hard to swallow this… This whole act of yours!”
Another person comes looking for a hot bowl of soup. He pauses his conversation with me to serve the food and offer it to the humble citizen with a generous piece of bread.
Then he looks at me with an expression I can’t read for the love of me. “So, you think this is just an act?” he asks, piercing me with his blue eyes.
I narrow my eyes toward him and cross my arms.
“I love this murderous look of yours,” Alex says and then begins to laugh at my expense. “Keep an eye out here, okay? I will be right back. I just need to use the restroom.”
I nod. Anything to be away from him right now.
He removes his hairnet and apron and walks away, while I’m left alone with my thoughts. Bella finally takes a break from interviews and comes to join me, looking giddy and full of energy.
“Did you take a lot of pictures?” she asks, skipping her way over to me.
I nod. “Wanna see?”
Bella motions yes, so I take the camera off my neck to let her peruse each of the hundred or so images I snapped.
“Oh, these are good,” she says. “Alex in a hairnet is priceless. We’re definitely publishing this!”
“Exposing billionaires to ridicule, one at a time!” I punch the air with enthusiasm.
Bella just looks at me sideways, confused.
“What did my brother do to you now?” she asks, sulky.
“Ugh…” I’m not going to be confrontational today. “Nothing. I’m the one indisposed today.”
I don’t feel like telling her about my master plan to find his hidden flaw.
Bella tilts her head to the side and looks at me with an ‘oh, really?’ expression. “He told me he thinks you don’t like him.”
I feel my face flare. “And he’s having fun with it, isn’t he?” I ask, my ego hurt.
“Yeah!” She laughs, a good hearty laugh. “This soup smells delicious. I’ve been hankering for some since we arrived here. Can we have some?”
“Um…” I shrug. “I don’t know why not. Almost everybody had a bite already, and what’s in there seems like leftovers.”
She places her recorder in her jeans pocket and puts on the apron and hairnet left over the counter by Alex.
Going behind the counter, she pours herself a bowl, and a second one for me, and we eat in silence, standing there like two working bees in the middle of the hive.
But then… A kid approaches. He’s tall and skinny and can’t be more than fifteen years old. He is pacing around like a gangster, as if mimicking someone he saw. At the waistband of his pants, he prominently carries a small handgun.
