Page 83 of You Found Me

“Your face is going to crack if you keep tensing your jaw like that.” Della handed him a mug.

He didn’t drink on duty. Rule three.

Rule three should have an exception for when duty and family crossed, especially when it involved his dad’s once-a-year private brew. Screw it. His rule could bend. He took a long pull from his Dad’s best cider and tried not to think about the other places he was bending his rules.

She eyed him over the rim of her glass. “Why are you over here when the party’s over there?”

“Working.” he kept his voice low. Nobody was that close, and the noise level out here was high enough to mask everything but an explosion, but they couldn’t be too careful. “We’ve been here long enough. Time to go.”

“We can’t leave yet,” she protested. “Mason hasn’t opened his present, and besides, I said we’d stay and help your dad clean up.”

He suppressed the heavy sigh he felt building deep in his chest. “Why’d you do that?”

“He’s your dad.” Della’s tone was firm and final. It caught him by surprise. “When your dad asks for help, you help.”

His dad probably just wanted a chance to get to know Della better. That had “bad idea” written all over it, but what did it say that his dad was resorting to tactics like that just to spend time with them?

Was it really such a big deal to stay behind and give his dad a hand?

“Fine,” he relented. “I’d pay money to see you carry that tray of mugs again.”

“You won’t have to, actually. Your dad offered me a job waiting tables.” She said it so casually that he almost missed the punchline.

His dad had offered his fake girlfriend a job. A public facing job. His stomach tightened at the thought of that much exposure. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” She had a not-innocent-but-faking-it look on her face.

“Low. Profile.” He practically hissed the words.

“It makes sense,” she said in a reasonable tone. “I’m an out-of-work actress. I obviously need the money. If I said no, it would look suspicious. Besides, your dad needs the help. He had three servers quit this month and he’s not getting any younger, you know.”

“We talked about this. Rule two. You can’t go anywhere without me.”

“Yes, but you didn’t meaneverywhere, did you? I mean, you aren’t going to follow me into the bathroom. Right?”

“You know what I meant.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to come to work with me.” She blinked at him like her plan was perfectly logical and obvious. “It’s a great idea, actually. That way you can spend some quality time with your family, who you’ve obviously been neglecting. Maybe you could help out too. They’d buy that, right? You seem like the helpful type. Do you know how to mix drinks?”

“No. You don’t know how to wait tables either.”

“Hey, I can do it. I can do anything I put my mind to.”

“You almost dropped that tray.”

“I got the drinks where they were supposed to go.”

“You sloshed.”

She wiggled her glass at him. “I didnotslosh. I might have dribbled. A little.”

“You had to dry the tray off after.”

“So? Those glasses were too full. That would have happened to anybody.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So it’s settled. I start Wednesday.” She sounded smug and satisfied.