1
Sage
“Earth to Sage. Hello. Anyone home?”
My best friend Ally’s voice only vaguely registered behind me. I just needed one more minute. This was a very important task that couldn’t be put off a second longer.
In the Facebook search bar, I typed Moose Masterson. Hmm. Moose wasn’t his real name. What the heck was it? Chewing on my thumbnail, I dug through my memory banks from high school and grinned. Murphy Masterson. Bam! My thumbs blurred over the tiny keys and triumphantly, I waited as Facebook searched for the man who had to be my one true love. Or my one good hookup, which would suffice until I found a candidate for the love stuff.
My results were a big fat goose egg.
Undeterred, I spun to ask Ally if she remembered Murphy’s middle name when my best friend skidded to a halt behind me, far closer than I’d expected. She was carrying a partially full coffeepot, and she flailed as we collided. I tried to steady her, the coffeepot bobbled, and the next thing I knew, I had thankfully not entirely scalding liquid soaking the front of my newly cleaned restaurant uniform.
“Fudge!” I shouted, and approximately half of the restaurant’s patrons turned to look at us. That was only like three people, since we were halfway between the lunch and dinner rush.
Ally was nearly nine months pregnant and as round as the big table in back, but she’d managed to maintain both her footing and her composure. Unlike me. Of course, her new perfume wasn’t eau de java.
I didn’t even like coffee. Well, unless it was as close to ice cream in a cup as possible.
She patted my ample chest with the napkins she was yanking out by the sheaf from the nearest table dispenser. I couldn’t even be embarrassed about extreme nippling right now. Holy crap, that had been hot.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Ally repeated, setting down the coffeepot and shuffling to the next table for more napkins. “Oh God, did you get burned? Thank the Lord you starch your apron to within an inch of its life. It’s probably liquid-proof.”
“Funny. Leave this. I’ll take care of it. Oh, and do you remember Moose Masterson’s middle name?”
She didn’t reply. Guess that wasn’t important right now.
My cobwebbed lady garden could wait until the rest of me had been dried off.
I shook my damp phone and set it on a nearby booth as I untied my soaked apron and peeled it away from my top. Raising my brows, I deliberately wrung out the apron onto the newly polished floors.
By me. Who would be washing them again, since Ally was not in the condition to be doing such tasks. God forbid she squeeze out a football-sized child if she bent over wrong.
This was what I got for looking for love on company time.
“I’ll clean this mess up as soon as I switch to my backup shirt.” Holding my soaked apron far out to my side, I walked between the tables toward the storage room, squeezing out my shirttails with my other hand as I went.
Why the heck not? I’d be cleaning up the floor again anyway.
I swiftly realized why not when Greta, the new day-shift manager, bellowed through the kitchen as I hurried through it toward the break room. “Why is that floor a blooming mess when we’re about to serve our dinner patrons?”
“It’s my fault.” Ally hurried into the kitchen, her hands full of wet napkins. “I spilled coffee on Sage. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Sage, who was very obviously breaking our electronic resource policy during work hours?” Greta gave me a hard stare.
“I’m sorry,” I began, hunching my shoulders.
Showed what I got for chasing a wild hair into certain sex. There was no such thing as certain sex in my world. Wasn’t that why I had endured almost half a dozen near V-destroying misses?
“Get cleaning that mess up. Mitch will be in soon, and we don’t want him to see this place looking like a wreck.”
“On it,” Ally said. “I’ll take care of it before I leave.”
“I don’t think so.” I flew forward to grab her arm, though I’d already started unbuttoning my shirt. But hey, modesty wasn’t important compared to protecting my preggo bestie.
“Like Hades. You go sit down and rest those swollen ankles. Or go back to filling the ketchup dispensers like you were earlier.”
“But—”