Love by the Slice (Valentine’s Sweethearts)

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

SHELLY DIDN’T EVEN have to ask. Ezra rearranged the schedule so she wasn’t delivering during Greg’s shifts. The next Saturday night, when they were both scheduled, he kept Greg in the food truck with himself, and he left Lacey to handle the shop.

Other than the one time Greg had Shelly moving pizzas around in the oven, she’d never done any of the cooking. Sure, she’d done some prep, but that had been more along the lines of “Here, open these cans” rather than chopping or mixing. Lacey, on the other hand, had learned everything she could from Ezra and then practiced under his watchful eye. “He called them Sunday pies,” she’d told Shelly last year, “because they were holey . But they weren’t actually full of holes.”

Tonight, the pizza truck was parked at the Juniper Snow Festival, and Lacey was in the rhythm of taking orders for the shop, prepping pizzas, and boxing them for Shelly to deliver. Her tempo was fast, and the orders came in just as fast. Shelly would return to Loveless just long enough to shove more pizzas in the thermal bag and step right back out the door.

The weather was frigid, but the roads were dry. By now, she knew Hartwell inside and out, every back road and every shortcut that even the map apps didn’t know. If Lacey did open a branch in Juniper, she’d better send Greg to that one. It wouldn’t make sense for Shelly to learn all new addresses on all new roads.

Shelly had regulars. She had regulars who tipped well, and therefore she made sure they had a hot pizza on their table the first instant they could, even if that meant sidelining two other customers to deliver theirs first. She also had customers who tipped her a quarter, and guess which ones got delivered last?

Lacey was tracking the Loveless One Hundred, although since it was a Saturday it was more like the Loveless Hundred Seventy Five. Every so often, a message came from Ezra in the pizza truck.

Shelly sighed as she loaded up the next delivery. Ezra and Lacey were so cute together. Those two had been at odds from the start, but then it turned out Lacey really did want what was best for the pizzeria, and Ezra had been able to crush down his pride to make the changes the pizzeria needed. Once they’d respected each other, everything else had come easy.

Respect, Shelly mused, wasn’t how Greg had treated her. She was fun for him, and entertaining, and amusing, but he’d never treated her like someone he cared about.

None of these were addresses she recognized as tippers, so Shelly mentally arranged them in a loop. The last was on the third floor of a three-story building with lopsided wooden steps and a deep groan from every one of the stairs. When she got to the top, the door opened before she could knock, and Rowan bounced out to her. “Hey! You came!”

Shelly laughed. “What, not a sardine and pineapple pizza?”

“Nope. Meatball all the way.” He took the pizza box from her, but his grandfather was standing behind him and lifted it from his hands. Then Rowan reached into his pocket and carefully withdrew three dollar bills.

Shelly flinched. “You don’t have to.”

“I do have to. Granddad says it’s important to tip for pizza delivery.” He handed her the money, and Shelly took it. “It’s my birthday, so we’re celebrating, and this is what I wanted.”

Shelly said, “Happy birthday!”

Granddad said, “Would you like to come in?”

“I’ve got five more orders to deliver,” Shelly said, “or I would. Thank you.” She glanced at the grandfather. “Is everything okay now?”

The grandfather sighed. “I thought about what you said. When the school called back, I went ahead and let them set me up with some people to talk to. Things are going to be a little different.”

Rowan said, “Maybe I can get pizza more often.”

Shelly warmed at his smile. “I hope you can.”

Rowan said, “Tell Greg he was right. Things really did work out.”

Those last five words tanked Shelly’s mood. She drove back to Loveless with a storm cloud over her head and a blizzard in her heart. “Things really did work out” because someone had worked them out for Rowan. She’d called the school. The school and investigated. The school had acted on the results of the investigation. More parties had gotten involved and hooked them up with social services. And then the grandfather had done the hard work of accepting those services.

That wasn’t “things working out.” Sure, to Greg, who’d done none of the work, it seemed like things had worked out. But every single piece of that was work someone had done.

As Shelly read the order tickets back at Loveless, Lacey said, “Did you get stiffed on the tips? You look ready to throat-punch someone.”

Shelly huffed. “I’m still mad about Greg.”

Lacey kept silence as Shelly stacked pizzas in the delivery bag, at least until the moment Shelly was ready to step back out the door, when she said, “Just for my own curiosity—when did Greg stop being a happy-go-lucky guy who made you feel optimistic, and become someone who didn’t take life seriously?”

Shelly snarled, “You’re not helping,” and stalked to her car.

Yes, those were the same characteristics. But Greg should be able to figure out when it was time to be whimsical and when it was time to be serious. You can get on a rowboat in a river and float down the river without rowing. You’ll get where you’re going. On a lake, though? You’ll just stay where you are, bobbing around forever. Try that on the ocean, and you’ll die. In those cases, you lock in the oars and start paddling.

Optimism and lack of ambition was great when nothing was going to go wrong. Greg could say, “Relax,” and Shelly could relax. But now that she knew he would say the same thing even if the world were burning down…? That was the opposite of relaxation. That was knowing he’d drop the ball and never pick it up again. That was knowing she’d never relax again because no one else would pick up the slack.

Which was exactly what Shelly said when she stalked back into the pizzeria after making her deliveries. “He’s the kind to drop the ball and never pick it up again. Like my father. Like Ezra’s father. I don’t need more of that in my life.”

Lacey nodded. “You don’t. But is Greg really like your father? Or is he a guy needs a nudge in the right direction, and then he’ll keep going?”

Shelly said, “You know Ezra’s going to stick around and do hard work because you’ve got his track record. He showed up in Hartwell with a car and one change of clothing. Now he’s built a whole life. What’s Greg built?”

Lacey said, “What’s he had to build?”

Shelly said, “I don’t need this.”

Lacey said, “I’m not saying you do, but there’s a far cry between Greg and a guy who’s going to walk off. Ezra had a track record, but so does Greg.”

Shelly snapped, “Not a great one.”

Lacey shrugged. “Not a great one, but do you think he can improve it?”

Shelly grabbed the new pizzas. “I raised my younger sisters. I’m not signing up to raise a grown man.”

While she drove across town, Shelly ran that conversation back through her head.

Ezra had never met his father. Shelly had met hers a handful of times, and twice, he’d spoken to her directly. Shelly always stayed near a doorway looking at the man who’d given her brown hair as opposed to the red on her mother and older brother. Mom only ever argued with him. Once he’d brought a gift, a few coloring books and crayons. He’d said to Shelly, “Happy birthday,” and a year later, “You’ve gotten tall,” along with another birthday gift of a cardboard puzzle. After that—nothing.

At some point, Shelly had decided Mom was right, and her father didn’t care. He showed he didn’t care by ignoring her existence.

Ezra, by contrast, cared deeply, and he showed it by working. He showed it by looking down the road and solving problems before they happened.

Rowan’s grandfather had ignored potential solutions to his problems. Because of that, Rowan had suffered, but Rowan had known his grandfather cared. In the end, his grandfather had relented.

And now—Greg.

Greg ignored problems. He downplayed them until they showed up five times as large as they had been, and then he let other people solve them.

Shelly couldn’t name the cause. A terminal lack of ambition? A sheltered life where someone else always cleaned up after him? If Greg’s parents had always been on the job, ready to make things happen, then naturally Greg would grow up assuming “it’ll all work out,” because someone always worked it out while he wasn’t paying attention.

Ezra and Shelly had grown up knowing from an early age that they had to pay attention. Always. To everything. Because the thing you didn’t notice was the thing that would bite back at you. The creaky floorboard you didn’t pay attention to was the floor that would later fall through. The faucet handle you didn’t notice was loose was tomorrow’s plumbing emergency.

She couldn’t blame Greg for growing up in a secure home. He was optimistic because life had never given him cause for pessimism. Lacey had asked about Greg’s track record, though, so what about that?

Shelly delivered the first pizza, then got back in the car.

His track record with Loveless was good. He showed up for his shifts. He made pizzas. He maybe comped too many when customers complained, but they did come back. He cleaned up after himself. When the expectations were made plain, he followed through.

He’d gotten through college. He worked for his father’s business even though he didn’t want to stay with that business. He was killing time, in effect, because he had a cushy life. He saw no reason to change it.

Shelly delivered the second pizza, and when she got back into the car, she looked at the third, shivering because she just didn’t want to keep doing this. Didn’t want to keep working hard for a few bucks in tips. Didn’t want to keep wearing out her car and wearing out her life so she could have the bare minimum of food, shelter, and transportation, and further down the road, the hope of getting her younger siblings into the same position she was now. Six months, and she’d have her degree and a job and a way out.

Greg probably was a good person. The only question was whether he was good for Shelly. And, without any drive to change things, the answer was probably, no.