At the bar, she took a deep breath that didn’t quite make it into her lungs. Exhaling anyway, she concentrated on her task. With practiced movements, she pulled a circular tray from the stack and placed two glasses in the middle. Then she reached for the pitcher with cucumber and lemon slices floating with ice in the rich-people water and poured. Once the glasses were three-quarters of the way full, she balanced the tray on her open palm and returned to the table.
In the background, a middle-aged man asked for extra parmesan cheese. She ignored him, reminding herself to chill. Just attend to one table at a time.
She had woken up to a dead alarm clock because the power must have been cut in the middle of the night. This triggered the downhill slide. Her mom had probably run out of money before paying the bill . . . again.
No power meant no hot water, so no shower. To make matters worse, she’d had to make do with yesterday’s uniform since she’d been too exhausted to run the wash. And no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find her white tennis shoes, which forced her to wear boots that had seen better days.
Another patron calling her name surprised Didi out of her head. She tripped as she stepped on the shoelace she kept forgetting to tie, sending the tray lifting out of her hand. She managed to catch the tray by taking a step forward and placing her free hand on the edge. Sadly the two glasses had already spilled their contents onto the blubbering girl with Trust-Fund Boy. The girl screamed and pushed away from the table so fast the back of her chair caught Didi on the hip. This activated a sequence of events that killed her inside. The glasses fell and shattered. The girl yelled for the manager, then spat obscenities no lady should ever know.
Humiliated and close to tears herself, Didi dropped to the ground and began gathering shards of glass and placing them on the tray. Blubbering Girl wouldn’t stop screaming hateful words, adding to Didi’s fast-rising stress levels. Doing her best to close off as much of the noise as she could, she concentrated on picking up what was left of her dignity scattered among the glass and lemon slices. She wasn’t going to cry. Damn it. She totally wasn’t.
When she reached for the largest piece, a hand beat her to it. She looked up into the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. They were so clear she could almost see her reflection in them. She gasped when the tips of her fingers grazed the back of his hand.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly, hating how shaky her voice had become. The corners of her eyes stung.
“You shouldn’t be doing it either,” he replied. “You could cut yourself.”
“But it’s my job,” she insisted, reaching for a clump of cucumbers.
“To cut yourself?”
She pinned him with a withering glare. She’d had just about enough. Her day had to stop getting worse. Or she would explode. Or spiral into a deep, dark pit of despair. Either was bound to happen. She felt it like an itch under her skin.
The corners of his gorgeous eyes crinkled as he whispered, “To be honest, what just happened did me a huge favor.” He glanced up and said loud enough for the girl still looming over them to hear, “It’s just a little water, Amber. Calm down.”
Didi would have laughed if she could have found it in herself to. He had just said the two worst words any guy could say to a clearly distressed female. Something about him being a jerk was yelled. She looked over her shoulder and witnessed pink pumps striding away. She would have breathed a sigh of relief if the stocky form of her manager hadn’t been lumbering toward them.
“Mr. Parker, I’m so very sorry,” he said.
Trust-Fund Brat stood up. Didi followed him with her eyes, because how could she not? Paying attention, she could make out the best details about him. Besides those eyes, his dark tousled hair was combed to one side. When he smiled at her manager and shook his hand, a hint of a dimple appeared. She was pretty sure the combination of navy sports jacket over a simple T-shirt, and khakis with leather loafers cost more than what she made at the club in an entire year. Add sparkles dancing in the air around him and he would cut a dazzling figure. Hell, it was like he had stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue—all pressed and shiny.
“Don’t worry about it, Tony,” he said after pulling his hand away from the manager’s grip. “Put everything on my tab.”
It rubbed Didi the wrong way how he used his money to smooth things over. Sure, she couldn’t afford paying for the glasses and the food that had already been ordered, but she didn’t need someone like Mr. Parker coming to her rescue. Oh, why oh why had he picked her section to sit at today?
Impulsively she pushed to her feet and said, “That won’t be necessary.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled again. “Really. I’m happy to pay. What’s two glasses and lunch? You can even keep the burger and salad.” He leaned in, giving her a good whiff of his cologne—cool, clean, and crisp. Expensive. “You saved me. I owe you.”
Like water from a burst pipe, words spewed out. “You don’t owe me anything. I tripped because I was wearing the wrong shoes. I spilled the water on Ashley—”
“Amber,” he corrected.