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I was busy staring at a dude with enough grease in his hair to cook a pan of biscuits.
“Em?”
“Yes. Yes. Go ahead.” I nodded serenely as she walked into the kitchen.
The second she was gone I scrambled to look under the counter. I had to find something long enough to reach the rips so I could make them disappear. No way could I work a whole shift with the entire cast of Grease two feet away from me.
“Jackpot.”
I popped up, threw my body across the counter, and proceeded to stick a long-handled rolling pin into all the rips I could reach. It wasn’t easy—they started running once Biscuit Boy went down. Busy rip jousting like Don Quixote fencing windmills, I was too distracted to notice Lily backing into the swinging door from the kitchen while balancing a wide metal tray of piecrusts. A millisecond before she turned around I popped the last rip, slid back across the counter, and chucked the rolling pin over my shoulder.
“What was that?” Lily almost dropped the doughy circles as she whipped her head toward the noise.
“Rats. I think you have rats. Really big ones.” I held my hands two feet apart as an example and then leaned against the counter, trying to catch my breath. “Huge. You should probably have Abuela check that out.”
Lily raised one eyebrow, put the tray down, and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You’re obviously not okay. Are you going to talk to me or am I going to have to drag it out of you?”
Avoidance. I let out a sigh. “I can’t have feelings for him.”
“Why?”
So many reasons. “Number one: I’m not the girlfriend/boyfriend type. I’m the crazy girl at the lunch table in the cafeteria type.”
“Em, that was a long time ago. That doesn’t have anything to do with who you are now.”
It had everything to do with who I was now.
“Number two: He might be his own brand of crazy.”
“Crazy like he’s a serial killer, or crazy like he attends Star Trek conventions in full costume?”
“That’s only crazy if you dress like a Klingon,” I pointed out.
Lily rolled her eyes.
“Neither one of those.” I pushed myself away from the counter, retrieved my espresso cup, and took a slow sip. “Maybe he has a secret, and maybe it’s too outrageous to believe. But everyone has secrets, right?”
“Not everyone.” Her body tensed, and she twisted the dish towel in her hands. “I don’t have any secrets. My life is an open book. Do you have a number three?”
“Um … yes.” I picked up the sugar dispenser and dumped a couple of tablespoons’ worth into my cup, looking at Lily with my peripheral vision. “Number three: Thomas has his ‘no fraternization’ rule, and Michael seems perfectly willing to enforce it.”
She lowered her shoulders and chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds before responding. “That could be a good thing. It gives you time to get to know him before you decide how you feel.”
“I guess.”
“Take advantage of it. You don’t have to rush things. If he’s worth it now, he’ll still be worth it in a month. Or you could just take advantage of all that pent-up frustration and roll out those piecrusts for me.” Lily walked around the counter and headed for the corner of the café, scooping up the rolling pin from where I’d sent it flying moments before. She rinsed it off in the sink, dried it, and patted it down with flour.
I watched her with my mouth hanging open. “How did you know where that was?”
“What? Um … that’s where I keep it.” A slow flush spread up her neck to her cheeks. “Why do you ask?”
We stared at each other for a seemingly endless moment.
“No reason.”
She held out the pin.
I pushed up my sleeves, took it, and started rolling.
