“Yes!” Priya added. “With a little heart or butterfly.”
“That’s not gay at all,” I muttered while rolling my eyes.
“Hello, gay bar and gay boy.” Priya winked.
“Finn, I swear to God—” Markshook his head.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said quickly. “When he’s done eating, I’ll say something casual and normal and not weird.”
“You promise?” Priya asked.
“Not weird might be a stretch for you,” Mark added.
“Not helpful, Mark.”
Jacks grunted. “But not wrong.”
“Fuck all three of you with a baseball bat,” I snapped.
Priya raised an eyebrow.
Mark grinned.
Jacks cocked his head. “A baseball bat? That’s a little big, even for me.”
“Oh, God,” I said, throwing my towel on the bar and storming off toward the kitchen. I didn’t need anything from the back, but Rodhadto be better company than the three idiots crowding my bar.
Twenty minutes later, I’d eaten an entire batch of fried plantains while listening to Rod describe the process of a perfect sear on meat. The way he talked about cooking reminded me of the unmistakable sound of background music in bad porn. I returned to the front to find Mark seated on the customer side, shoulder to shoulder with a giggling Priya, while Jacks stood, hands on the bar, flexing his triceps like he was being judged.
“Aw, poodle,” Priya crooned. “I’m sorry.”
“Um, okay. What did you do?”
Mark bumped her shoulder, and she giggled again.
“Your boy left,” Jacks said.
My head shot up faster than a midget being fired out of a cannon.
Chase’s table held an empty plate, a drained beer bottle, and a few folded bills.
“He dropped some cash and left,” Mark explained unnecessarily.
“He looked up here,” Priya said. “But he didn’t wait for Mark to go over. He just gathered his papers and left.”
My head fell. I hadn’t planned to take the guy home or anything, but I had hoped to chat a little.
“Guess all he liked tonight was the burger,” I said, sounding even more pathetic than I felt.
“Oh, sweet pea. Don’t be sad.” Priya’s voice dripped with sympathy. “Maybe he’ll come back.”
I stared at the empty table, then shrugged off my disappointment and wandered over to clean the mess. Chase had left forty bucks, almost double his tab. I picked up the pair of folded twenties and shoved them in my apron. The plate had been so thoroughly cleaned I wondered if Chase had licked the sauce off it. When I grabbed the beer bottle, thepaper napkin stuck to the bottom. I pulled it off and started to wad it up when blue script made me smooth it out against the table.
Sorry I had to run. I was falling asleep at the table and tomorrow morning’s going to suck. The burger was almost as great as your smile.
Almost.
Chase
