“Why?” I ask bitingly. “Because he’s famous?”
“No, dummy. Because he’s nice.”
The little golden bells hanging from the front door jingle cheerily. We both turn to check the entrance and I’m thankful for the break from the conversation.
We have two other people working with us at Mad Batter, the same way the previous owners hired us to work with them. Rona and I work mornings prepping the kitchen, the ovens, the register. Fridays Rona and I are on our own all day, pulling twelve hour shifts, and six days a week we have help in the afternoons from John and Gina.
John is twenty, studying computer science while dreaming of making it big with his band. He’s covered in tattoos and his hair is always just a little longer than I can stand. Gina is the opposite, clean cut and adorable, partying her ginger ass off through her senior year of high school. She’s only seventeen and she drives John absolutely crazy. They’re my favorite show to watch.
He’s at the door now, holding it open for Gina. She blows past him without a word to bounce up to the counter.
“Are they still here?” she asks excitedly.
Rona casts her a sympathetic look. “Nope. They left a while ago. Sorry.”
“Dammit! I got my hair blown out and everything.”
“They told you the cameras would be gone by the time we got here,” John reminds her irritably. He raises his eyebrows at me, his hand on the CLOSED sign.
I nod once. “Yeah. Flip it. We’re ready to open, but I need help with the first batch of bagels in the back.”
“I call register!” Gina cries, throwing her hand in the air and running behind the counter.
John shrugs roughly out of his battered leather jacket. “Do you have to yell everything?”
“I wanted to make sure you heard me.”
“I’m literally five feet away. How could I not hear you?”
“You don’t listen very well.”
“I don’t listen to you very well. You’re boring as shit.”
“My boyfriend says I’m hilarious!”
“Your boyfriend will say anything to get laid!” he shouts back, mocking her.
It’s lost on Gina.
“He’s not like that!” she yells at him, her pale, freckled face turning red with rage.
John calmly slings his coat over his shoulder, heading for the back. “All guys are like that.”
“All guys like you!”
“Yep.” He shoves the swinging doors open wide. “All guys.”
“Asshole,” Gina mumbles when he’s gone.
Rona rubs her hand up and down Gina’s back supportively. “He really is, but he’s a magician with bread so we’ll have to put up with him.”
“I won’t. He sucks.”
“The talented ones usually do,” I warn her, following John into the kitchen.
Three hours later and I’m dead on my feet. I’m starving and tired, sweaty from hours pulling bread in and out of the ovens. I need a hot meal and a cold shower, the kind you take in the summer when the heat is too much and your AC blows out. When you stand under the cold spray and pretend that you’re not living in the sweltering center of the sun.
The door jingles faintly up front. Almost immediately the store’s radio cuts off.
John looks at me knowingly. “Your brother’s here.”
I smile as I pull my apron off over my head, heading for the front. He’s standing at the counter with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a gray t-shirt hanging loosely from his thin frame. My brother is tall. Taller than John, taller than our dad. Even taller than Colt. He’s thin, though, built for tennis, not tackles. He was an amazing player in high school. Varsity every year. State champ two years in a row. You want to think someone with talent like that will go pro, but it’s a tough market. All pro sports are. Just because you’re great doesn’t mean you’re going to get rich doing it, and Michael didn’t.
But he got to watch as Cassie did, and he was proud of her. He watched her career blow up overnight. Watched her become a star. Then he watched her walk away, but her voice still haunts him on every radio in town. That’s how Rona and I got so fast with the dial.
“Hey,” he greets me with an easy grin. “Are you off soon? Do you wanna do dinner?”
“Dude, it’s like four o’clock. No one eats this early but old people.”
“Old people and young professionals who skipped lunch.”
I pause to ask my stomach if I fed it yet today.
Its reply is rancorous.
“I need to stick around for another hour,” I warn him. “We just started a batch of donuts.”
“Go,” Rona insists. “We’ve got it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go!” John shouts from the back.
“No one is talking to you!” Gina practically screams at him.
I raise my eyebrows at Rona, repeating, “Are you sure?”
She snorts. “I grew up with three little brothers. I can handle conflict. Go. Have fun.”
I hurry behind the counter to get my purse. I give her a quick hug as I pass her. “You’re the best. Thank you.”