“You know what they say: It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for . . . all those secrets,” Josh said, taking a monster bite of his bagel.
“Not my Wren,” my father said, giving my hand a squeeze.
Josh mouthed Grayson behind Dad’s back and put a hand over his heart, batting his eyes in an exaggerated way. I crumpled up my napkin and threw it at him.
“Cut it out!” I said, getting up from the table. “All this bonding over bagels was fun, but now I have to go to work. Are you coming with me today?”
“Um, no. Dad and I have a big day of college football planned. Right, Daddy-O?”
My father sighed, but even he wasn’t immune to Josh’s charms.
“I’ll give you a ride when you’re ready, Wren,” Dad said, picking up his paper again.
“Can I drive?” I asked. He nodded.
I ran upstairs to shower and change. With my hair still damp, I put it in a loose fish-tail braid. The easy kid. There were worse things to be, I guessed. I didn’t dazzle like Brooke or light up a room like Josh, but there was something about me . . . wasn’t there? Something that made Grayson seek me out at school, for more than just to thank me. I held that thought as I went downstairs and off to work.
When I arrived at the Camelot, I found Mom in her office. She remained silent, going over a contract on her desk, as I walked in.
“Missed you this morning,” I said, hanging up my coat.
“I take it your brother chose not to come in with you?” she asked, still focused on her work.
“Right. Wanted to bond with Dad over football, I guess.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Mom, last night—”
“Wren, I’m not ready to talk about last night. We’ll get through this, I know, but right now I need to focus on this wedding. It’s deluxe, soup to nuts, so you’d better get to work. By the way, there’s a new waiter. We’re so strapped, I hired him over the phone this morning. Just, you know, keep an eye on him.”
“I’m on it,” I said, heading toward the Lancelot.
Eben was busy with the new hire, showing him how to set up the silverware. I tapped on the edge of the table, and they looked up. My jaw dropped.
“Grayson?”
“Hey, what’s up?” he responded, reaching for another setup. I tried to mask the surprise on my face. It was unsettling to see him here, on my turf, especially after I’d spent the night before creating a mental dossier about him to entertain myself.
Eben spoke. “Are you all right?”
“Um, yeah. I forgot to tell Mom something.”
I practically bumped heads with my mother as she walked out of her office.
“I’m walking down to see Hank. Talk to me,” she said, moving like a missile toward a target. She pushed the Down button on the service elevator and glanced back at me. “Well?”
“Do you know who that new hire is, Mom?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator and it descended with a shudder.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s the guy I saved from choking. Grayson Barrett,” I said.
She nodded as the doors slid open with a clank and jog-walked off the elevator, me trailing behind. “Yes, we did have a conversation about it. Why?”
I didn’t want to get into his past. She didn’t need to know he got kicked out of school for being a term-paper pimp. Or that he usually wore a barbell through his eyebrow. She also didn’t need to know that being around him made me hyper-aware of every cell in my body. The fact that he’d almost died up in the Lancelot should have been enough for him to never set foot in this place again, right?
“I don’t know. I’m just surprised to see him, that’s all.”
She ran a hand through her hair and scratched the back of her head in thought. Her eyes were sleepy, bloodshot. I felt bad for questioning her about hiring him. It’s not like I minded that much. I just needed to wrap my own brain around him being here.
“He seemed nice, polite. Like he needs someone to give him a chance. But I’m so desperate for manpower, I might be blind. Do you think it’s a bad decision?”
Hank came up behind her, red-faced and about to explode. He pointed to an elaborate tray table.
“Cupcakes? I’m supposed to arrange five hundred cupcakes on this monstrosity. Idiots. Sie können mich alle am Arsch lecken! Excuse me, Wren.”
I tried not to lose it.
“What did he say?” my mother asked. I’d taken two years of German at school, but it was Chef Hank who taught me the best slang.
“Something about someone licking his ass.”
She put her fingers up to her mouth, stifling a giggle. It was good to see her happy, even for a brief moment.
“What’s wrong with cake?” he asked. “Normal, layered wedding cake.”
“Cupcakes are in, Chef,” I told him.
My mother placed a hand on my shoulder. “She’s right, Hank. When are you going to get with the program?”
He tried to keep his hard edges but lost them around Mom.
“Fine, but if they fall . . .” Hank said, mumbling the rest in angry-sounding German as he walked away.
“So we’re okay about Grayson? Consider today a trial; if he’s not pulling his weight, let me know,” my mother said, running off after Chef Hank again.
“Yep. Sure,” I answered, wondering how I was going to keep an eye on Grayson and keep my composure at the same time.
Half the room was finished with setups by the time I got back. I busied myself with stacking the cold plates for the cocktail buffet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grayson coming toward me.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked. He had his hands in his pockets, and his usual fringy bangs were more subdued, kind of pushed to the side, dark eyes more prominent than ever. I dropped a plate and grimaced, waiting for the crash. Thankfully it bounced off the carpet. He bent down to pick it up and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re surprised to see me,” he said.
“Well, yeah, kind of,” I answered, putting the dirty plate under the cart. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“Ha . . . Well, I’d rather think of it as strategically putting myself in your path so we can be friends . . . But if you want to call it stalking, okay.”
“Okay, but why here?”
“If you don’t want me here—”
“No, it’s not that. This is probably the last place I expected to see you, that’s all.”
“I could use some honest work—gas isn’t exactly free—and, well, I felt like I might have made the wrong impression the other day in the park. And where else would I get to hang out with you?”
“Hang out? Get ready for a rude awakening,” I said, pushing the cart of plates toward him. “You can start by stacking these plates in rows on this table. Then I’ll think of something else.”
“You’re sort of my boss—I dig it,” he said, flashing that grin.
I pressed my lips together and walked away. That grin was pulling me into the deep end of the pool. The scary part, the part that made me search desperately for some other task I could lose myself in, was that there was a small, insistent voice urging me to dive right in.
I successfully avoided Grayson during the rest of setup. He met me downstairs in the kitchen as we assembled to take the trays of hors d’oeuvres up to the cocktail hour. I got lucky with lobster ravioli. Grayson, on the other hand, was a bit green as the tray of cocktail franks was pushed his way.
“How’s that for karma?” he asked, grabbing the tray.