“You didn’t want to wait for Theo?”
“I haven’t eaten a meal since six o’clock Eastern time. I’m starving. We’ll see him later.”
Technically, Aiden wasn’t wrong. They had breakfast at six, but they had sandwiches on the plane.
“It would’ve taken less than two minutes to say hello. What gives?” she pushed.
“Nothing. I spent the last three days with him, and Matt spent the last week with him. He’ll survive without us for one day. If I don’t eat soon, I might pass out.”
“Whatever. Where do you guys want to eat?” Sophie didn’t sound convinced, but at least she was letting the matter go.
Matt opened the passenger door for her. “You pick.” Unlike him, Sophie spent a lot of time in the area, so she’d know what places were good.
“Anything specific you feel like?”
“Up for anything. Aiden?” Matt glanced across the roof at his brother.
“As long as it isn’t moving, I’m happy,” Aiden answered before getting into the back seat.
“There’s a sushi restaurant on Lowell that Chase and I love. Let’s go there.”
While he didn’t love sushi, Matt didn’t mind it occasionally, and he had told Sophie anything was fine.
“Just tell me which way to go.”
When Liv slipped between the sheets the night before, her plans for today had been simple and downright lazy. Unfortunately, the universe hadn’t gotten the memo, so instead of sleeping until her body decided it was time to get up, a deafening clap of thunder woke her at four. The storm then proceeded not only to keep her up with its drum solo and dazzling light show, but also to plunge the street into darkness. Eventually, once Mother Nature grew tired of partying and Liv finished the book she had started—thank goodness her Kindle had a backlight—she fell back asleep. However, the outside world once again decided that she didn’t need a lazy day at home. This time, though, the culprit wasn’t Mother Nature but rather her ringing cell phone. And even before she picked it up, she’d somehow known it was her dad asking her to help at the restaurant. Sure enough, Francine had called in sick.
Thankfully, though, the lunch rush was winding down, and once she returned the credit card to table ten, she could take a break and eat before they needed to get ready for dinner.
“I had a feeling you were here when you didn’t answer my texts.”
Removing the credit card from the reader, Liv turned toward Emma.
“Francine was supposed to work until three, but she called in early this morning, and Nancy just called out too, so I’m stuck here until closing. I lost power last night, and my phone was about to die when I got here, so I left it in the back to charge. It’s been so busy all day, I haven’t had a chance to check it.”
Actually, to say it had been busy was an understatement. Starting with when they unlocked the doors until about thirty minutes ago, there hadn’t been an empty table in the restaurant. No sooner would one party leave than another would take its place. While great for business, the constant stream of customers made it difficult to even take a bathroom break.
“Well, that answers my question about hanging out again tonight.”
“Sorry.”
Emma shrugged as she sat at the bar. “No big deal.”
“I’m on a break as soon as I return this credit card, if you want to hang around.”
“I’ll never pass up a free meal.”
“What do you want to eat? I’ll put our order in before I return this.” She already knew what she wanted. She’d heard nothing but rave reviews about the swordfish dish on today’s specials list. And if it tasted as good as it looked and smelled, she suspected it would soon be a regular item on the menu.
“Any suggestions?”
Her friend knew the regular menu as well as she did, so it was easy to decipher her question.
“I’m going with the swordfish, but the fried pork chops have been a hit today.”
At the words “pork chops,” Emma shook her head. “I’ll go with the swordfish. The last time I ate pork chops, I also had one too many mojitos, and I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. Every time I try to eat pork or taste mint, I get sick to my stomach.”
“One swordfish special coming up.”
