“I had to put the baby down,” I tell her, glancing around the empty restaurant. We don’t start seating until noon on Sundays, and it’s only a quarter of.
Shelby makes a face. “Uh-huh.” She looks at me pointedly as the phone on the podium rings, like she knows exactly what—exactly who—I’m searching for, and doesn’t know why I’m wasting her time trying to be slick about it. “Good morning. Antonia’s,” she says, all syrup, but she’s staring at me like my hair is on fire as she scribbles in the reservation book, and I stand there and wait for what’s next.
“First of all,” she tells me once she hangs up, sex-kitten purr gone and replaced by her hybrid half-accent—Shelby’s lived all over the country, and you can hear it in her voice. “Super-Sperm Sawyer is in the kitchen with Finch at this very moment. So probably you should start there.”
“Shh,” I hiss, eyes darting toward the back of the house. I open my mouth to explain, although in the end all I can come up with is “He was at church, too.”
“Yeah,” Shelby says all attitude. “I bet.”
I stare at her. “What does that even mean?”
Shelby shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t like his hair. It makes him look like a cancer patient.” Shelby has never been one to reserve judgment. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t know it was going to hit local news outlets so fast,” I say, sinking into an empty chair. I’ve had a headache for the last twenty-four hours and think longingly of the ibuprofen in my purse, though at this particular moment even finding a glass of water feels like an Olympic endeavor.
“Oh, don’t even joke.” She stops, looks at me. “Did you tell my brother?”
I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Bullshit. Reena,” she begins, voice going soft and urgent. If she’s nice to me I’m going to burst into tears. I start to shake my head but here he comes though the swinging doors from the kitchen, and even after all this time the room seems to orbit around him, like he’s got a perpetual spotlight on him everywhere he goes. I think, suddenly: Risen from the dead.
“Ladies,” Sawyer says gallantly. He’s got another Slurpee in his hand, enormous, pink and bright through the clear plastic cup.
“Ladies?” Shelby snarls. Shelby has never been afraid of Sawyer. Shelby has never been afraid of much of anything, so far as I can tell. “Seriously? Two years later and the best you can do is ladies?”
“I was going for casual,” he tells her, wrinkling his nose and smiling, half bashful. His mouth is faintly red with the dye. “Did I overplay? I overplayed.”
“A little bit.” Shelby rolls her eyes. “I’m going to need a drink.”
“Really?” Cade looks up from across the dining room and frowns, but doesn’t actually make any move to stop her. Cade’s always been a little gobsmacked by Shelby. “We’re not even open yet.”
“Bloody Marys!” she says cheerily, heading for the bar. “I’ll make you one, too, Kincade.” She flips up the partition, nudges my brother out of her way. “What about you, Sawyer? Can I offer you a strong alcoholic beverage to help take the edge off being yourself?”
Sawyer and I snort at the same time; he looks over at me, smirking, and holds up his Slurpee like a toast in my direction. “I’m good,” he says, eyes on my face.
“Really.” Shelby’s eyebrows hitch as she reaches for the tomato juice. “What are you, off the sauce?”
“As it were.”
“A bartender who doesn’t drink anymore? How romantic.”
“Yeah, well.” Sawyer nods and slides onto a barstool. “I’m a romantic kind of guy.”
Oh, come on. Cade looks like he’s about to projectile vomit all over the restaurant and, frankly, I don’t blame him. I’m feeling a little queasy myself. I get up and head back to the office to punch my time card, then set about completing as many menial tasks as I can find: folding napkins and stacking glassware, refilling ketchup bottles, which grosses me out to no end. I keep my hands busy. I work. We’re slammed for brunch every Sunday, the wait skyrocketing to an hour or more, and once Shelby opens the doors it’s bread and smiles until midafternoon. When I finally have a minute to glance over at the bar, Sawyer’s disappeared into the teeming crush of bodies, like maybe he was never there at all.
10
Before
“Who with?” was the first thing my father wanted to know when I told him I was going out for a bit after work—a fair enough question, seeing as how I’d spent the last eight months hanging out with no one so much as the pizza delivery guy from Papa Gino’s. He’d been chatting with the drummer in the band and he smelled like coffee and cologne, familiar; it was a smell I thought I’d miss when I left home.
“Allie,” I blurted, not knowing I was going to lie until I did it. “With Allie.”
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him. There was no reason to think he’d say I couldn’t go: Sawyer was his godson, after all, heir to his musical talent in practice if not by blood. Still, he’d have wanted to know the wheres and whys and the what are you doings, and a thousand other things I could only begin to guess. For now it just seemed neater not to say.
“Allie,” he said slowly, slipping one bearlike arm around my shoulders. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”