Al’s offense turned quickly to glee as I shook my head.
‘He’s dead,’ I said, keeping my voice low. ‘Why do you always antagonize her over it?’
He didn’t bother to keep his voice down. ‘That bastard let thousands of my friends die—’
‘Youhadthousandsof friends?’ Willa interrupted with a sly grin.
‘You’re right. That bastard lethundredsof thousands of myfamilydie. I can drag his filthy dead corpse as often as I want.’
‘He also told her that when Mitch McConnell dies, he’s going to move close to wherever he gets buried and urinate on his grave every morning.’
Al shrugged. ‘I am.’
‘And I’ll be sad to see you go, Al,’ I said.
He pointed a finger at me, and his eyebrows pinched together. ‘You’d better not be here longer than you need to. You’re better than this shithole.’
I took a glance at the table by the door; they were all standing up. Al knew what he was doing. The more he cursed and talked down on conservative Republicans, the more everyone wanted to avoid him.
I lowered my voice and bent closer between him and Willa. ‘Hey, as far as shitholes go, this is a pretty nice one.’
Al laughed and Willa almost smirked. ‘For us. Not for you. You gotta go out and start a bakery or open up your own restaurant.’
‘I’ll get right on that, Al.’
He gave a quick glance back as the last table left and pulled a wrinkled orange envelope out of his pocket. ‘To get you started.’
‘Thanks, Al.’ I tucked the card into my apron as George came back into the private dining room.
‘Oh!’ Al stood, acting scared. ‘Little early for Halloween masks, isn’t it, George?’
‘You don’t like it?’ George touched his cheek. ‘I had the shop special-make it to look like you.’
While Ava collected our payment from Luke, I went to Gabe’s car. He stood by the passenger side, waiting for me. His sleeves were rolled up, and the first four buttons of his tux shirt were unbuttoned. It was extremely unfair for me to like such an attractive person and not be able to kiss him.
‘I would like your help with something,’ I said.
‘Shoot.’
‘How good are you at making movies?’
He wiggled his eyebrows at me. ‘Whatkindof movies?’
Very unfair. ‘Notthosekinds. Remember the school I’m applying to?’
‘Boner school.’
‘Sure. I want to make a video to submit with my application.’ Gabe tilted his head at that, suddenly very interested. ‘My plan is to have it be a little like some of my favorite cooking channels on YouTube, maybe five minutes tops? Do you think you could help me?’
I had two reasons for this. One, he wanted to go to film school, so maybe this would be a fun challenge for him that would make me look even more professional when I submitted it to La Mère. Two, it would force us to spend time together. Outside of work. The two of us, sharing something we both loved together. What better way to get him to see that I might be someone he could like more than his ‘complicated’ boyfriend? If it went smoothly, maybe he’d see howuncomplicated I could be. Basically, I just wanted him to think of me the next time he heard Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong with Me’.
You know, as one does.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, beaming. ‘I’d love to help! When does it need to be done by?’
‘End of January?’ The deadline for my La Mère application was the end of February, so the longer we dragged it out, the more time we’d have to spend together.
‘Perfect. I’ll need to see some of the videos you’re talking about so I can get storyboards going.’
