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CHAPTER TWENTY
DOMINIC
Espo 2’s grand opening passed in a blur of people and pizza. I was working at full speed in the kitchen from the time the doors opened until they closed. A couple of times Gio prodded me to make an appearance out front, and I took a quick turn around the dining room to make him happy, but then I went right back to the kitchen where I could be more useful.
Melanie stepped out of her usual role and manned the hostess desk to ensure that traffic kept moving quickly. She was charming and friendly, yet managed to be as efficient as possible considering the crowd. I was careful not to look her way often. Staring at Melanie threw me off balance and made me think about things that didn’t need to be on my mind when I was up to my elbows in pizza.
Through the open space between the kitchen and the dining room, I saw Tara arrive with the baby. Melanie took a break from the hostess desk and bounced my niece on her hip. Leah laughed, and I noted how much she’d changed since the summer. I swore to myself I’d make more of an effort to spend time with her when all this restaurant madness had died down. I couldn’t stand it if that little girl forgot who her Uncle Dominic was.
“How’s it going back here?” Gio asked when he stopped by the kitchen around seven o’clock.
I brushed flour from my hands. “We’re keeping up, right, boys?”
“We’re trying,” Tim shouted with a laugh as he hovered beside the ovens waiting for the next batch of pies to cook.
“What’s going on out there?” I asked my brother.
Gio glanced over at the dining room and grinned. “So far, so good. Nothing but smiles and compliments.” He surveyed the activity in the kitchen. “You need my help?”
I gestured to the ovens. “I can deal with these fires. One of us ought to hang out in the dining room, though, to step on any fires out there.”
He grinned. “You’re right. Holler if you need an extra pair of hands.”
Jason made good on his promise to appear. Mercifully he did not bring the twins along, but instead pushed a couple of guys from his work to come down on his dime. My old friend poked his head in the kitchen to congratulate me on a job well done. I was glad he didn’t make any reference to my status with Melanie. I’d forgotten to tell him we were keeping things quiet for now.
For the next few hours, I was a man possessed as I kept the kitchen running at breakneck speed. Laughter and the buzz of conversation filtered in from the dining room, but I kept the assembly line going until Patsy, one of the new servers, stopped in to grab an order from the outgoing tray.
“Is Melanie still seating people?” I asked her. The kitchen wall clock said only fifteen minutes remained until closing.
As soon as I spoke, Patsy shot me a terrified look and nearly dropped her tray. I didn’t know how I’d gotten the kind of reputation where some of the staff thought I was Godzilla. Melanie had lectured me a few times about coming off too gruffly. I never intended to. I knew I didn’t have Gio’s easygoing personality, but I wasn’t the boogeyman either.
“Um, I’m not sure,” said Patsy, struggling to rebalance the tray. “I’ll tell her you asked.” Then she scurried out of there like she was being chased.
Melanie appeared a moment later. She probably hadn’t sat down for more than two minutes since we opened the doors, and her face likely hurt from the incessant smiling as she engaged with the customers, but she looked as gorgeous as ever. My instinct was to grab that girl, kiss her hard and sloppy, and run my hands all over her body. That, however, was out of the question right now.
“You wanted me?” she asked sweetly, smiling as if she’d read my mind. Maybe she had.
“Just looking for a status report,” I said.
“All is well. Gio told us to seat diners up until fifteen minutes after close, at least for tonight.”
I nodded and stirred a vat of marinara sauce. The dishwashers were making a racket in the background. There’d been a few broken plates tonight, but that was to be expected from new workers.
“Man,” Tim groaned, grimacing as he stretched. “My back is killing me. How many pies would you say we handled tonight, Dom?”
“Three hundred and sixteen,” Melanie answered.
I was impressed. “How the hell did you have time to keep track?”
She cocked her head, amused. “Because I’m good at multitasking. By the way, boss, you’ve got flour in your hair.” She smirked and then flounced back to the dining room.
“Is that flour?” Tim asked, peering at me a little too closely. “Thought you were getting gray, Dom.”
“Since yesterday?”
He shrugged. “It could happen. I saw a movie once where this guy picked up a girl at a bar, and while he slept, she sucked ten years of his life force out of him. He woke up with his hair totally white.”
“I saw that movie!” Isaiah exclaimed from his position by the sink. “It was called Succubus Saturday.”
