“She clearly has work to do. Let her do whatever she does with the burners. It sounds hot.” Tyler smirked. “But, babe, before you go, can we at least get your name?” he asked again.
Top marks for persistence.
I stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face them again. “Kayla,” I managed to let out with some volume. “But why do you want to know?”
“So we know what to call the woman of our dreams.” Tyler grinned, and I had the impression that his meaning was pure filth and involved a bedroom. “We’ll be seeing you around, Kayla. The twins and I aren’t quitters by any stretch of the imagination, or there’s no way we’d get to where we are today.”
I really couldn’t shake the fact that they talked in plurals. That it was ‘we’, and ‘our dreams.’ Sure, one seemed absurd to me, but three of them? Or more?
What was their deal? Was this some sort of weird game within a game where they challenged each other to reduce a girl like me to a simpering wreck?
I finally put some distance between us, and they retreated to their reserved booth. I overheard, “Hank, you’re such a fuckin’ cockblock sometimes, you know that?”
“What the fuck, guys, my mother just raised me right.”
I shook my head and smiled. They seemed like a heck of a lot of fun. If only I could get over my negative ideas about myself. But then, I had to put romantic dreams and the possibilities of them coming true behind me and head into the kitchen.
My fear of being slightly behind in my workload was reduced by the presence of my fantastic and competent assistant cook, who was efficiently running orders.
“Becky, I see you have some fries frying and burgers grilling. Need extra hands for anything, assistant head cook?”
She grinned at me. We worked well as a team. It wasn’t a matter of who wore the head chef’s hat when we worked together; it was about getting the job done well.
“Not really. The orders are starting to come in, but they aren’t overwhelming just yet. The good kitchen organization and early prep paid off.”
“If you’re sure, do you mind if I skip out again?”
“No, take as long as you like.”
“If there’s time, I want to go check on my dad; I saw him out there.” My dad didn’t frequent the bar regularly. The Duck wasn’t his only bar, and this one he felt happy to leave in Gill’s hands. “And that whole dating game seemed like uh... um...”
“A shit show? That’s what I expected, but I didn’t see any of it.” Becky continued to clean down surfaces as she spoke.
“Not quite. But if you want to call it that, I’m not going to disagree with you.”
“Go ahead. I got this, for now, Kay. I’ll come get you if there’s a sudden demand for a tsunami of onion rings.”
I rushed past the booth reserved for the stars before they had the chance to make my head spin again.
After looking around the crowded bar for my father in vain, I headed to the office. He might have left already, or he might have disappeared behind the scenes.
As I entered the office, I saw him rapidly typing some things up and scribbling things down.
“Ah, Kayla. What brings you back here?”
“I wanted to check in on how you thought the show went, but now I’m more interested in why you’re dressed up.”
He was dressed remarkably well. Usually, he was a t-shirt and jeans man—like father, like daughter, you could say—but tonight he was in a blazer, a button-up shirt, khakis, and loafers.
His cheeks rose, and his eyes sparkled. “I have a hot date arranged for tonight, Kayla.”
An interesting and pleasant surprise.
“A first date?” I asked.
“Hardly. We’ve been seeing each other for a while.”
“For a while? And you’ve never told me?”
“I thought you’d rather be in the dark about my sexual escapades. Don’t kids dislike hearing about their parents doing that sort of thing?”
I smirked and shook my head. “I didn’t ask about the sexy part. Please spare me the explicit details. But, Dad, I want to know if there’s someone special in your life and making you happy. Just don’t tell me how you’re, uh, giving it to her bent over the bar.”
He stared at me for a moment, and I was suddenly afraid that I had accidentally guessed something that happened with scary accuracy. He owned three bars and had keys to them all, so anything was possible out of hours.
Whatever, I’m sure the busboys disinfected everything, so I didn’t have to think about it too much. Thank God.
And then he smiled. “I’ll keep that bar top suggestion in mind for when we’ve finished with the kama sutra.”
I wish he’d told me sooner.
Dad was the kind of guy who’d keep everything secret if he wasn’t sure how you would react to the news, so I made a habit of confronting him.