“Do I not pay you enough that you can treat yourself to a nice meal once in a while?” I rephrase the question.
“Of course you pay me enough. I just have… more than myself to think about. And besides, I’m too busy to go out much. Between reservations and commuting, I just don’t have the time.”
“Because of work?” I press.
But Amara just continues to sip her drink, savoring it like she’s not allowed to have another. With that, I signal the server for a second round.
“Work. Friends.” She pauses. “Family.”
I pause. I vetted her before she was hired. I’ve looked into the people in her life. I know she has siblings, but who doesn’t? I didn’t dig any deeper into it.
I make a mental note to do that.
Our drinks come. We sip them more leisurely. Conversion flows a little more freely too. It hits me in the chest that other than Baron, I don’t really have anyone I can just have a meal with and talk about things other than work or my other work. It’s almost… nice.
“So what about fun?” I ask halfway through the drinks.
“Fun?” she echoes. “I haven’t had much time for fun either. Between learning about what you do for fun and suffering the consequences of knowing that information, it doesn’t leave much time for crocheting and pickleball.”
I almost smile. “Do you do either of those things?”
“Nope.”
The fact that she is making a joke about how I’ve basically held her hostage just shows how spicy she really is. I don’t hate it.
But it’s also trouble. And I don’t need trouble.
“Really, though, what do you enjoy doing?”
“Why do you want to know?” She shifts her weight, infusing her jasmine perfume into the air as she does.
“Consider it an icebreaker question,” I say.
“Pretty sure my workplace icebreaker was showing you how fast I can deliver your coffee each morning before even clocking in.”
“I pay you a salary,” I remind her.
She smiles again, as if it’s effortless and she has nothing to lose by giving me that. “Poker,” she says after a moment.
I narrow my eyes a little, tipping my chin up as a motion for her to go on.
“Texas hold ‘em, to be exact. I used to work a night job at a casino. I was only sixteen, but I had a fake ID.”
“You had a fake ID?” I ask, a little surprised. “I never took you for a party girl.”
“I wasn’t,” she says, running her fingertip through the condensation on her drink glass. “I needed a second job to help pay the bills. Well… to pay all the bills, really. And I wanted a cash job, something I could do while my siblings were sleeping. That way, I could hit a grocery store on the way home and there would be food when they woke up.”
“What about school?”
“I was in school.”
“Working two jobs.”
“Graduated early..”
“Why a casino?”
“Because gambling men do two things. They drink a lot, which means high tabs, and they take chances. Needless to say, it paid very well.”
