He didn’t take over.
He didn’t call me fragile.
He didn’t touch the mark on my neck in public.
Every time I caught Nico noticing it, heat flickered through me. Every time that happened, I found a customer doing something wrong.
“Sir,” I called toward a man trying to wave an empty glass over two waiting women, “the margaritas come in order, not by arm length.”
Shay laughed into the service well. “Beautifully handled.”
“I’m a professional.”
By closing, my feet ached, my hair smelled like lime and fryer oil, and the drawer looked better than it had any right to look on day two of a five-day countdown.
I sat at the tiny desk upstairs with the night’s receipts spread in front of me. Nico stood by the window, looking down at the boardwalk and the dark strip of ocean beyond it.
I had let him come back upstairs.
He stayed by the window instead of behind my chair.
“You did well tonight,” he said.
“I always do well.”
“You did better than that.”
I sorted the card slips by batch and refused to soften. “Careful. Praise makes me itchy.”
“I’ll insult the margaritas tomorrow.”
“That would be familiar and comforting.”
His phone buzzed on my desk.
Both of us looked at it.
The name on the screen made my stomach go tight.
SAL TORRETTI:
You said the bar was full. Send numbers before noon. If the place is pulling that kind of summer money, five days may be too generous.
The room went very still.
Nico reached for the phone, then stopped when he saw my face.
I read the message again.
Five days may be too generous.
The mark on my neck warmed under my hair, but my hands went cold.
“He thinks I can pay,” I said.
Nico’s jaw set.
I looked down at the receipts spread across my desk. The paper edges dug into my palm when I pressed my hand over them.
