Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134830 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Brutal, but not entirely wrong. I’ve seen it before, guys who go through girlfriends like I go through scrubbing sponges. But it’s not as common as Xavier makes it sound. Most of the crews I feed are full of good guys who work a hard, honest day’s labor to take care of their families.
“Xavier, you’re my brother and I love you, but you’re wrong,” I tell him. “Or have you forgotten the people you talked to when you worked at the restaurant?”
He flinches visibly, and I swear his eyes cut left and right as if someone might overhear me mentioning his sordid, pre-car sales work history.
Xavier likes to pretend he never worked at Papa’s restaurant, but he did. As a dishwasher, which is why he knows the citric acid trick.
“I haven’t forgotten. But you also didn’t know the customers the way you think you did. You were a kid, Daniela. They didn’t tell you things on purpose,” he says dismissively.
That’s probably true, at least when I was younger. But I worked in the kitchen, in the office, and waited tables until the bitter end, long after everyone stopped treating me like a child. I know who had a past, who was dangerous, who was cheating, and who was snorting their paychecks up their nose. But I also knew which guys were respectable, kind, honest people who’d give you the shirt off their back even if it left them cold.
“I serve good food to good people. Is that so hard for you to imagine?” I ask. When he scoffs, I continue, “I’ve gotten to know them. And I don’t mean just the crew guys, but also some of their wives, their children. They share their kids’ report cards with me, invite me to their quinceaneras and cookouts, and we swap recipes and ingredients. They’re good people, Xavier,” I say again, wishing he could hear me. Not with his ears, which work fine, but with his heart.
I don’t know when or why he got so pompous, but it makes me not like him very much, which sucks because at the end of the day, he’s my family.
“I don’t want you to struggle. You know that, right? I see how hard you work and want better for you.”
He doesn’t understand, doesn’t see the irony that he wants me to do exactly what I’m doing now—cook and clean—but for only one man, not a business’s worth. But I do. My way, I’m in charge, my own boss, doing things my way. Xavier’s way? I’ll trade Papa’s control for Xavier’s for my husband’s, and I refuse to live that life. I respect Mama and Mara and love them deeply, but I do not want their life.
“Speaking of, shouldn’t you get home? Mara’s probably already fed the kids dinner, given them their baths, and put them to bed.” I mean it to sound exactly how it does, like she’s done more than her fair share. Xavier’s a good father, in the way he knows how to be. He loves his children, takes care of them, and plays with them, but I bet he’s changed less than five diapers in total and couldn’t tell you their favorite food if his life depended on it.
He might be the partner Mara wants, or accepts, but I would never put up with that. Which is why I’m single, and staying that way. No matter what Xavier, Mama, or Papa think about it.
We’re not going to reach any resolution tonight, and Xavier has done what he was sent to do—remind me of what’s expected—so he leaves, heading home to eat the dinner Mara will heat up for him with a smile and a warm greeting.
And I still have my roast to babysit and dishes to wash.
It’s several minutes later when, elbow-deep in an almost-clean pot, I hear a rumbling outside and realize it’s Kyle’s truck. He stayed until Xavier left and probably waited to see if I was going to need him, and is only now pulling away from the curb.
Sometimes, I think Kyle’s one of those good people I was talking about. Other times, I think he’s a bad boy.
Can he be both? I don’t know. Nor am I going to figure it out tonight when my brain is a fuzzy pile of mush inside my skull. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m gonna sleep like the dead tonight.
CHAPTER 10
KYLE
“Whoa there, boss man,” Zeus taunts as I shut off the engine on my bike and dismount. “What’s the occasion?”
“What do you mean, Z?” I pull my helmet off, hanging it on the handlebar, and carelessly run my hands through my hair. It’s getting a bit longer than I usually wear it, so I should probably get a trim before Frogger tries to take a pair of snips to it.