I tiredly pull my Harpy’s cap on over my head and tug my ponytail through the back as I take my place on the register.
“Hey, hey, Will,” calls Marcus from the condiment bar. “Lookin’ kinda toasty. You get some sun?”
“I guess.”
“You’re a little on the late side.”
I check my rolls of coins to see if I need to run to the office for change.
“Hey, I’m thinking of pulling together a betting pool for the pageant. You think you could get me some inside intel when the time comes?”
I shake my head and slam my register shut.
“What?” Marcus asks. “You don’t talk anymore? Strong and Silent back there rubbing off on you,” he says, referring to his self-given name for Bo.
I take one deep breath as I check the to-go bag supply underneath the register. “It’s been a long day. Need some space.”
Marcus mumbles something about PMS and to my surprise, from the kitchen, Bo says, “Why can’t she just be having a shitty day? You don’t need to make up some bullshit reason why.”
Ron lets out a low whistle from his office.
Marcus laughs. “Damn.”
“Maybe she saw your face,” says Bo, “and she knew the day was a lost cause.”
He winks at me from the service window. I whip my head around and smile.
I keep my hands busy in between customers, stocking and restocking napkins and condiments. Bo listens to his music, but with only one earbud in instead of two. Marcus is on his phone all night and, from what I gather, is arguing with Tiffanie via text.
Bekah Cotter, with her long, golden hair and compact curves, comes in with a huge group of friends and they sort of camp out with fries and fountain drinks. Callie’s right. Bekah will enter the pageant, and she’ll probably win. She’s one of those pretty girls you try so hard to hate. But she’s nice and kind of talented. Well, if you count baton twirling as a talent.
Bo’s on dining room duty, and when he makes the rounds with the cordless vacuum, Bekah is quick to pick up some spare trash from the surrounding tables. She says something to him. Nothing I can hear. But he smiles, and it’s hard not to feel like I’ve swallowed a handful of rocks. I don’t get why we call it a crush when it feels more like a curse.
The bell above the door rings, and in walk Millie and her friend Amanda with the corrective Frankenstein shoes. Millie wears a light yellow T-shirt and shorts set with little heart-shaped gems glued to the collar of her top. I wish there was a way for me to tell her all the ways she makes her life harder than it needs to be without me coming off as a bitch.
Her forehead is damp with sweat, but her smile is unflinching. “Oh, hey, Will! I didn’t know you worked here.”
Amanda nods, appearing to be quite impressed. She wears soccer shorts and a T-shirt with a picture of her little brother in his Little League uniform silk-screened to the chest. Like the type of shirt you see parents wear to their kids’ big games.
“I bet you get tons of free food,” Amanda says, and hikes her thumb back toward where Bo stands in the dining room. “And the sights aren’t so bad either.”
I shake my head, trying not to laugh. “Uh, yeah. I do all right.”
They take their order to go, and Amanda hangs back for a little too long to check out Bo as he walks back to the kitchen.
I take my break after Marcus and Bo. When I open my locker to grab my lip balm, I find a red sucker. It’s one of those fancy ones that sit in the wooden stand at the grocery store checkout. I twist my lips back and forth for a moment before sliding it into my pocket, trying hard to play it cool in case he’s somehow watching.