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“She designs lingerie, José,” Chloe deadpans, and I can just barely make out the blush on his face through the low lighting. Piper hides her face behind her glass as she takes another sip of her drink.
“You act like he doesn’t know where kids come from.” Seer leans close to us, and I brace myself for whatever she’s about to add to that sentence. “He’s Catholic, not a priest, Fitzwilliam.”
There’s a sputtering sound and then I feel liquid hit my hand as Piper chokes on her drink, doing an actual spit-take across the bartop in front of me.
“Oh,” she coughs, “G-god.” She hits her chest, and my hand finds her shoulder as she shakes her head, trying to clear her throat. She pulls napkins toward her, trying to clean up the mess as she splutters more. “I’m sorry. F-Fitzwilliam?” Seer doesn’t even look kind of embarrassed as she smiles back at us.
“Fitzwilliam I-don’t-know-or-care-what-your-middle-name-is Westfall.” José’s chest shakes as Seer punctuates her answers with shakes of cinnamon on what looks to be the top of an espresso martini.
“My mom was a big Jane Austen fan,” I try to explain, just loud enough that Piper can hear me.
“It’s still better than Frederick,” Chloe argues. “Poor boy is doomed.”
“I don’t know, I think Francesca takes the win on this one.” Seer shrugs, carrying the martini down to whoever ordered it. Piper looks between everyone like she’s not quite sure if we’re being serious or not.
“Fitzwilliam,” she repeats, looking at me and narrowing her eyes. “Well, clearly that’s all I’m going to call you from now on.”
“Don’t,” I plead, less than playful but not serious enough to be demanding. One of her eyebrows shoots up.
“Bet.”
“I like this one.” José points at her. “You’re welcome back any time.”
“Because this is your place,” Chloe says with an eye roll. “Last time I checked, it was his name on the building.” I grimace, hiding my face in my drink. Shit. Piper was right. I do that a lot.
“His name might as well be on there with it for this one.” I gesture around the room, and when Piper looks confused, I explain. “José helped come up with this place. He and my dad went to hospitality school together.”
“When was that again?” Seer asks, stepping back up to her spot next to José. “Back before landline phones?” Piper snorts into her drink as José takes the rag off Seer’s shoulder and bops her with it, then turns and gestures toward the plates in front of us.
“You kids done?”
Chapter 27
Piper
“Youdon’tevenworkhere,” a voice calls, and the guy who had ushered away Fitz’s unknown “business meeting” friend comes through the back door of the bar.
It had taken me a minute, but I did recognize her - and then very quickly realized that what I’d walked in on weeks before was not, in fact, a business meeting. And the idea that they’d been messing around moments before we’d open the door made my face flush.
I swallow hard, nodding as José takes my plate and hands it to him.
“No, but my children do.” José ruffles the man’s short black hair, and in return, he makes a face, deep brown eyes crinkling, before arguing.
“Not all of us.”
“Half of us.” Seer shrugs, and I look from her to the man in front of me. While the man who’s just joined the conversation looks the spitting image of the one in front of us, minus twenty years or so, Seer looks nothing like José. They must all sense my confusion, because Seer adds “Not by blood, obviously.”
“You’re too pasty to be his kid,” Chloe calls from where she’s pouring a beer from a tap, the glass angled to let the foam level out.
“You’re one to talk,” Seer argues. “You and Fran practically glow in the dark, you’re so white.”
“Jesus,” the newcomer says, adjusting the plates in his arms and extending a tan hand to me. “Sorry about them, I’m Mateo.”
“Piper,” I reply, and I can’t help my smile at the banter around me. I turn to Fitz. “I didn’t realize you had such charismatic friends.”
“I don’t know that I’d call them friends,” he mutters, emptying the last of his drink and setting the glass on the bar in front of him. Mateo plays outraged, settling a hand over his heart. “Ok, maybe you,” Fitz resigns with a slight roll of his eyes.
Interesting. Tattooed and dangerous with the kitchen apron doesn’t strike me as the kind of person Fitz would spend time with on the regular, but maybe that’s just my bias of knowing who his friends used to be.
