“Maybe it’s different if you don’t have to make the payments,” Scott said and the three grinned again.
Zach didn’t.
A tall waitress showed up beside the table then, with a fistful of menus. She was dark-haired and cute, if a bit serious. “Hi, welcome to Mulligan’s,” she said. “I’m…”
‘You’re gorgeous,” Jason said, winking at her so boldly that Zach was embarrassed. The waitress looked at Jason as if he was a primitive life form come to torment her.
Jason grinned at her, apparently oblivious to her response.
“Look, we’re in a hurry,” Trevor said crisply. “I’ll have a San Pellegrino with a slice of lime. Do you have fifteen-minute-or-free lunch specials?”
“Yes, they’re right here on the back of the menu…”
“Is one a sandwich?”
“Yes, there’s a chicken club sandwich…”
“Great, fine, I’ll have that but leave off the bacon and mayonnaise and put it on whole grain bread. Salad instead of fries, vinaigrette dressing on the side.” Trevor checked his watch. “Twelve-sixteen. I’m counting.”
“Same for me,” Scott said, shoving the menu back across the table.
“Hey, we can spare a minute to hear her name,” Jason said smoothly.
“Missed your chance,” the waitress said, unimpressed by Jason’s suave charm. Zach stifled a smile. “What will you have? Time’s a-wasting, or so I’ve been told.”
Zach laughed, although this time, he laughed alone. The waitress met his gaze, a wary twinkle in the depths of her dark eyes.
Jason sensed competition and moved closer to the waitress. “Hey, don’t cut him any slack. He’s been in jail this year.”
“Great. A felon in my section,” she said, then pointed her pen at Zach. “You pay cash.”
The other three thought this was funny. Zach didn’t smile and neither did the waitress, though she was watching him.
“I’ll have the club, too,” Jason said, trying again to draw her eye. “But I’ll have the bacon on mine.”
The waitress scribbled then glanced up at Zach.
“What beers do you have on tap?”
She listed about fifteen while Trevor drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Zach picked one from a local microbrewery, flipped over the menu and chose the burger with a salad.
“Thanks a lot, Zach,” Trevor said. “Twelve-nineteen and the order hasn’t gone anywhere.”
The waitress gave him a look that spoke volumes.
“I’m not in a rush,” Zach said to her. “So, don’t worry about bringing everything at the same time if it will hold them up.” She nodded. He smiled but she was already hurrying away.
“A pint of beer at lunch on a weekday!” Scott nudged Zach. “How long has it been, guys?”
“And in no rush.” Trevor whistled through his teeth. “There’s the life of leisure for you.”
“Why couldn’t my daddy have left me a trust fund?” Jason asked the universe in general and the three laughed together.
Zach straightened, not finding the reference very funny. It hadn’t quite been a year since his father had committed suicide and it would be a long time, he suspected, before he could take a reference to that man in stride. “Actually, I don’t have a trust fund…”
“Do the details really matter, Zach?” Scott interrupted him. “You were born on Easy Street and we have to bust our asses to get there. It’s that simple.”
Zach didn’t know what to say, which was something for the guy known in his own family to have an answer for everything. He felt a definite thread of hostility where there had never been one before and began to wonder whether he really could count on his buddies forever.
Or for much of anything.
“I’d forgotten how slow this place was,” Jason groused. He grinned and shook his head. “Though it’s not like we had anywhere to go when we hung out here.”
“What a grubby joint,” Trevor agreed, brushing some crumbs from his seat. “I’d forgotten.”
“Me, too,” Scott agreed. “Who picked this place anyhow?”
“Me,” Zach admitted. “I thought it’d be like old times.”
Scott laughed. “It is that. Gives us a chance to see how far we’ve come, if nothing else.” He perched on the edge of his seat in his navy pinstripe suit and kept glancing down at the upholstery. “Anna will kill me if I send another suit to the dry cleaners this month.”
“Spending more than your wife on dry cleaning?” Jason teased. “That’s a feat.”
“I don’t like how she irons my shirts, so I’m already going there to take my shirts in.” Scott was a bit defensive and Jason went for blood.
“What, you got married and didn’t get a domestic slave out of the bargain?”
“Don’t let Anna hear you say that!” Scott said, then shrugged. “Besides, she says 100% cotton is too much trouble and I don’t like to wear synthetics.”
Trevor laughed. “Maxine won’t even try to iron mine. She showed me the ironing board when I asked her about it, and they’ve been going to the cleaners ever since.”
Jason eyed the pair of them. “Where do you take yours? I’ve yet to find a cleaner who gets it right. It’s the attention to detail that really makes it work…”
“So, wait, who does yours?” Scott asked. “Your mommy?” Trevor started to laugh.
“No.” Jason stared at them, as if daring them to mock him. “I do my own.”
“Let me see the cuffs,” Trevor demanded. Jason slipped one arm out of his suit jacket and let the other two check out his workmanship.
Zach sat back and stared. The guys he’d hung out with would never have been so interested in white dress shirts, let alone how well they were pressed. Obviously, they’d been surreptitiously replaced by aliens and all he had to do to save his buddies was to find the pods.
He glanced under the table. No luck.
Trevor whistled in admiration as he examined Jason’s cuffs. “So, what do you charge? I’ll send you mine.”
“Dream on,” Jason said. “You can’t afford me.”
“What do you mean?” Trevor asked.
“You can dress up corporate practice at a bank, but you can’t take it to dinner.” Jason punctuated his comment with a sneer at Trevor’s cufflinks. They were costume jewelry, Zach had noticed that right away, but funky enough to be forgiven.
Trevor straightened his jacket cuffs so that his cufflinks were partly hidden, defensive in his turn. “We can’t all defend criminals with deep pockets.”
Jason wagged a finger at his friend. “Innocent until proven guilty. Let’s all remember the basics.”
“Where is that waitress?” Scott said, looking across the restaurant. “I don’t have all day to hang around this hole.”
The waitress brought the drinks then and Zach was glad to have a beer. If he drank it fast enough it might dull his sense of alienation. What ever happened to job satisfaction? His buddies seemed to be worried about stuff that didn’t matter.
“So, trust-fund-boy, got a wild adventure to share with us this month?” Trevor asked. The waitress glanced up from putting a dish of lime slices on the table.
“Yeah, something involving gorgeous models, naked except for their designer logos,” Scott teased.
“Fast cars,” Trevor added.
“Private jets!” Jason contributed.
“Bathtubs filled with caviar and champagne on the side,” Scott said wistfully, then shook his head. “Shit, I wanna be Zach Coxwell when I grow up.”
They laughed again and toasted him with their sparkling water.
The truth was somewhat more mundane: Zach had spent the past eight months executing his father’s estate, which had involved enduring a lot of appointments with dry-as-dust officials, copying documents, tallying inventories and visiting notaries. His father’s assets had been distributed in a thousand little stashes and it had seemed that every time he expected to be done soon, he’d found another. His mother ha
d been little help, determined as she was to put her married past behind her, and his brothers had pretty much been ignoring him since his adventure in that New Orleans jail the previous winter.
Which he might have been willing to admit had been a major case of bad judgment, but no one in his family was giving him a chance to admit to anything.
Being the black sheep was proving to be lonely business.
“Maybe you could introduce me to your sister,” Trevor suggested. “Get me on the gravy train, too.”
“Afford some real cufflinks,” Scott muttered, but Trevor ignored him.
“You’re married!” Jason protested to Trevor.
“So’s my sister,” said Zach and the guys laughed. He wasn’t used to people laughing at things he said, not when he wasn’t trying to be funny. He inhaled some beer, hoping it would make him feel better.
The waitress shook her head minutely and left.
“Twelve-twenty-four,” Trevor called after her.
“And you still haven’t given me your number,” Jason added.
Zach began to wish he was sitting at another table. This plan to cheer himself up and find a plan for the rest of his life really wasn’t going well.
Chapter Two
Jen had never been so glad to be getting rid of anyone as the guys at table twelve. What a bunch of jerks. At least she’d avoided the temptation to dump that side of vinaigrette down the front of the first loser’s fancy suit. Her first impression had been the right one: she couldn’t have asked one of them out, much less put up with one of them at Thanksgiving dinner for three or four hours.
She’d have to find another solution.
Maybe she’d knit herself a date. He’d be quiet, that’s for sure.
They could be a close-knit couple, ha ha.
The casually-dressed hunk seemed to be the most normal of them all, but the fact that he even hung out with them told her that they were four of a kind.
After all, they called him ‘trust fund boy’, which meant that he had money, lots of it. He’d eaten a burger and wore a leather jacket, which put him in the carnivore, planet-trasher, methane-dispenser category of men, no endorsement in Jen’s view.
His pals said he’d been in jail, but she gave that less credit. Handsome rich guys never got busted, at least not for long. It had probably been a joke these three had played on him that had gotten him arrested.
With friends like that, a person didn’t need enemies.
But then, they probably deserved each other.
Maybe she’d leave the country for Thanksgiving. Maybe she should date the earnest guy at the natural food store, strap on her Birkies and walk to Chile. She’d never waited tables in South America, after all.
Jen brought separate checks to the table without even asking, because she guessed they’d be expensing lunch individually: splitting the tab from the outset on the computer would save her grief later. Also, Lucy had called it right, these types were always cheap: splitting the check meant that she might actually get some tip out of it.
As opposed to none.
Or as opposed to the very worst case, that of the cash left on the table being short of the total bill. That would mean that she’d get to pay up for them after they were gone. She watched the change and bills hit the table as the three suits bailed and tried to not conclude that their departure was too quick to be a good thing. She waited until they were away from the table, though, sick of the fair-haired guy without a wedding ring hitting on her.
She’d cover the difference to not have to take more of that.
The fourth guy, the comparatively normal one, was left alone to finish his beer. Jen moved quickly to count the cash left on the table while there was a chance of someone ponying up any outstanding difference.
“Catch you later, Zach!” shouted the one who had harassed her about the time.
“Twelve-fifty-one,” Jen muttered as that jerk ducked out the door. With luck, he was gone for good.
Zach laughed. “That’s funny.”
Jen looked at him with surprise. “I didn’t think you’d hear me.”
“It’s okay, I won’t tell.” His eyes danced with mischief but Jen wasn’t interested in making friends.
Maybe she did need a date but for a different reason than satisfying her mother: just being in the presence of a good-looking guy was making her heart beat faster. She could feel it thumping under her knitted prosthesis. It was the peach angora one with the Chinese good luck charm embedded in the stuffing, the first one she had knit.
Maybe this would be her lucky day.
Maybe she should count the money. To her relief, there was enough cash to cover and a ten per cent tip. Not a fortune, but she’d take it. She glanced up to find the last guy watching her. She knew that look. Her mother would have said that the universe was setting her up to make her move.
He was a carnivore. He came from money. He had the same smooth charm as Steve and the same expectation that the world was his oyster. He was a perfect candidate for the Plan.
Too bad her tongue had rolled itself into a knot.
He smiled ruefully. “Guess I was under-dressed for the occasion.”
“It was lunch in a pub.” Jen glanced over him. He was tall and sufficiently handsome that she didn’t think it would much matter what he wore. Anywhere. He’d always look good. Maybe her age, maybe a couple of years older, he still looked like a university student. Maybe he still was, if his daddy was paying. Jen felt a tiny pang of jealousy, knowing she could have happily been an eternal student if the tuition bills hadn’t gotten so scary. “I think you look okay.”
He grinned at that and leaned closer, the sudden intensity of his attention making Jen want to bolt and run. “Thanks. We met in law school and haven’t seen each other in a while.”
Jen’s ears perked up. A lawyer. Plus her mother hated anyone with a trust fund, as she believed such individuals to be incapable of work and unable to understand the realities of life.
Come to think of it, Jen had some issues with that—and the conspicuous consumption it implied—herself.
Never mind the Plan. She heard the ding of the bell in the kitchen, knew the meals for table eight were ready and chickened out. She pointed to the last bill on the table. “If you give me a credit card, I’ll put that through.”
“I thought I was supposed to pay cash.”
“That was a joke.”
“Then why didn’t you smile?”
“Not my style.”
“So I see.” He pushed the bill back across the table toward her. “I’m not leaving yet. I’d like another beer, please.”
Jen glanced toward the door where there was a small line of people waiting for tables. “Well, then, could you move to the bar, please? I’ll transfer your balance.”
His smile faded. “Do you serve at the bar?”
“No. Murray, the bartender, serves all patrons at the bar.”
He lounged back in his chair and gave her a wicked smile. “Then I’ll stay here.”
Jen’s heart skipped a beat. “Why?”
“I like you.” He squinted at the bill, where she’d written her usual thanks with her name. “Jen.”
Jen glanced to the line again and back to him. He followed her gaze, but didn’t budge. “Maybe you’ve noticed that there’s a line of people who’d like to have lunch,” she said, as politely as she could.
“So I see. I think I’ll have a pint of the same, please.”
Jen straightened. “But this is a table for four.”
“So it is. And I’m sitting at it for the moment.”
If he thought his confidence would persuade her to his view, he was wrong. Jen had been raised on a steady diet of Natalie’s insistence upon social justice and his sense of entitlement annoyed her as nothing else could have done.
Who did this guy think he was?
Maybe she’d inherited her mother’s perspective on rich jerks. Either way, she’d had enough of the guys at table twelve.
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Jen braced her hands on the table. “Maybe you misunderstood me. This is a table for four people. Four. No matter how you count it, you are one person. It is just before one o’clock on a Thursday, a very busy period for us which will last through two.”
“So? I’ll pay for the beer.”
“Your friends said you have a trust fund, so let me explain a little bit of waitressing reality to you…”
“Hey, you were listening!”
“This is how I make my living and incidentally it’s not a really great way to make a living. Because every buck counts, I need a full section for every meal. I need to turn tables as quickly as possible and fill them as full as possible or answer to Murray.”
Zach followed her gaze to the bar. “He looks like a barrel of laughs.”
“Here’s your chance to find out. You want to hang out alone and drink, I’d prefer you did it at the bar. Please.”
He gave her a charming smile which did nothing to aid his cause. “The tip will make it worth your while.”
Jen bristled. She knew better than to believe anything a guy like this said. “As if,” she retorted. “‘Don’t bet on the Bruins’. I get that one all the time. Or pennies in the bottom of the water glass. Ha ha. You guys are all such jokers. I’ll move your tab and Murray will pull your beer at the bar.” She pivoted and waved to Lucy, who was seating new arrivals. “I’ve got a table for four here, Lucy.”
“Hey, but Jen…” He stood up, displeased with the situation and made a last appeal.
Jen had to look up, way up, but she wasn’t intimidated. She was mad and the fact that he expected to charm her into giving him what he wanted only made her madder. “Move it. Now. The bar or the door. Your choice.”
She supposed she shouldn’t have been so surprised that he did move. Her mom always said she could be fierce.
She was surprised that he went to the bar, because she’d been sure he’d walk right out the door with her $14.45 plus tip.
But that couldn’t mean he was any different than his pals.
Just more stubborn.
It was too bad that she could relate to that.
* * *
Okay, Zach’s plan was showing serious weaknesses. He’d never had the sense before that he’d been left behind after the train had left the station, but that feeling had been unavoidable today.
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