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His eyes soften. “Thank you.”
With nothing left to say, knowing we’re getting busier by the second, I move to the left. Hoping, maybe, he’ll stop me.
But he doesn’t. Which is just as well.
This isn’t going anywhere.
“Evie,” he says as I step away. “Stop by before you leave. I have something for you.”
10
Tristano
“Everything’s loaded.” Gian drops a red piece of cloth on the table. “Dad sent this over.”
I open it up. Just what I figured.
“He’s something else,” I say. As the last of the workers leave for the night, I toss the apron back onto the table. “I hope you reminded him it was your fault they got left behind.”
Every year at Festa, each of us were in charge of something. I was maybe twelve or thirteen one year and was supposed to make sure the box of red, branded aprons, among other items, got loaded into the van for the opening day. I passed the job on to my brother and got in trouble when they never actually made it to the festival.
“I thought I’d put them in there,” he defends himself.
“Let that be a lesson.” I use our father’s voice. “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
“Boss?”
I turn to see Jen, my newest waitress, reaching under the checkout counter.
“Do you need anything else?” Pulling a purse onto her shoulder, she looks at my brother.
“I’m good, thanks, Jen. See you tomorrow.”
With another not-so-subtle look at Gian, Jen winds her way through the tent to leave.
I give my brother a look.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Jen is a pretty girl and obviously interested in Gian. A bad combination. She’s too nice for my brother.
“What?” He feigns ignorance.
“She’s in college.”
“Graduate school.”
The fact that he knows that isn’t good.
“Plus,” he adds, “they say that older men and younger women work well since girls are more mature.”
“I’ll second that idea,” a voice says from just outside the tent.
I figured she wasn’t coming.
Which would probably be for the best. I blame my pent-up frustrations from the past week, most of them having to do with her, for the way I chased her down like a schoolboy.
I didn’t even stop to think.
