Chapter 7
LEAH
I wouldn’t say that I’m a professional waitress, but I’m pretty good at what I do. For instance, I know better than to put straws on a wet table. I always bring extra napkins to families and am conscientious about when to clear empty plates.
Except today.
I’m off my game. I forgot to bring drink refills, got a couple’s order backward—she ordered the burger and he got the Buffalo chicken salad—and thought I brought a table their bill, but it was in my apron for twenty minutes.
Emerson, my coworker, restocks the sugar packets for the caffeine addicts who are desperate enough to drink our coffee rather than go to a real coffee shop. “Do you need to chill?”
Despite my pride, I say, “Yes. Literally.”
“Take three. I’ll cover you.”
I pass through the kitchen to the walk-in freezer and seal myself inside. I sit down on the upside-down milk crate and reach behind the bin of shredded cheese to our secret gummy bear stash. Aleeyah introduced Heidi, Emerson, and me to this little trick.
We used to call ourselves the Core Four, but only two of us still work here at the Fish Bowl.
Aleeyah got her decorative wreath business off the ground and has a studio in the Old Mill building.
Heidi married her hockey sweetheart, though having heard the story in its entirety during shifts, it wasn’t a love-at-first-sight thing.
More like she fell for her brother’s best friend when he saw that she was all grown up.
Gracie probably has an entire shelf for books with that trope in her shop.
I wonder if she has one titled, My Ex-Best Friend’s Brother Just Emailed Me Back But Doesn’t Know I’m His Secret Adversary and Now He Wants to Expose My Identity. That’s a bit long, but it’s to the point.
Seated on the milk crate, I pop a frozen gummy bear into my mouth.
It takes exactly three minutes for it to melt.
You can’t bite it. Otherwise, you risk cracking a tooth.
But for the first twenty seconds, you’ll want to chomp that cute little bear and crush it between your teeth like all your frustrations.
But as the sugar melts in your mouth, a strange soothing comes next. It helps if you close your eyes, too.
No sooner is the bear gone than I’m refreshed, on my feet, and back on the floor.
A woman with caramel-colored hair sits with her back to me. It doesn’t look like Emerson had a chance to wait on her. A lot can happen in three minutes, including but not limited to a customer getting hangry and then taking it out on you for the rest of their visit.
“Hello, welcome to O’Neely’s—” I start my usual spiel welcoming her to the Fish Bowl and explaining how we specialize in all things potato and corn, including corn on the cob served five different ways, corn fritters, and cornbread, along with french fries, also served five different ways with special sauce.
People also love the loaded potato skin pub pucks, topped with corn and five more things.
Many of the menu items are deep fried, but the Fish Bowl is a reference to a hockey player’s helmet rather than a home for fish.
However, we do offer fish fingers on the children’s menu.
I stop my spiel because it’s Heidi and she’s alone. I incline my head because this worries me. I can think of several other places this busy mom would patronize if she had the opportunity to dine solo during the day.
“Can you sit?” she asks.
I look around. The dining room is half full and everyone is relatively content, though I anticipate the lady with purple poodle curls is going to ask for another straw any time now—she doesn’t like it when too much of her lipstick gets on it.
I ask, “Is everything okay?”
Heidi smiles. “Yes. I just have a special request and it’s time-sensitive.”
I perch on the edge of the wooden chair, ready to hop to my feet if someone so much as drops a fork. “Anything.”
“I’m wondering if you’ll offer figure skating lessons.”
When she first moved back to Cobbiton, she worked here—her uncle’s place—and offered private lessons at the arena.
“Isn’t that your side hustle?”
Her mouth tugs to the side. “I can’t take on any new clients and Badaszek is desperate.”
“The Knights’ head coach is many things, but I cannot fathom that he’s desperate. But wait. Does this mean that he wants one of his players to—?”
She nods. “To sharpen their skills.”
I hold in laughter. I mean, there’s nothing overtly funny about a hockey dude figure skating, except maybe a little bit, or if you have a sense of humor like mine. “I’m pretty busy.” This is true.
Three guys walk in wearing Knights-branded gear, but they’re fans, not players. Emerson tells them to seat themselves and she’ll be right over.
Heidi says, “You’ll make some extra money that you could put toward the Happy Hockey Days fund.”
“I’m pretty rusty. I haven’t flexed my figure skating muscles in years.”
“What about three months ago when you subbed for me during the Ice Maiden’s intermission show?”
“No one was looking at me in that short skirt.”
“What are you talking about? Everyone was ogling your long legs.”
I tuck them under the chair.
“Leah, not only that, I happen to know for a fact that you skate at least once a week.”
I hedge. “But not serious skating. Just noodling around.”
“Landing axle jumps. Don’t deny it.” She arches an eyebrow.
“But I don’t teach.”
Emerson brings Heidi a soda.
I start to get to my feet.
My coworker pushes down on my shoulder. “I got this.”
“You have nine tables.”
The corner of her lip lifts. “I had a work dream last night, but it was like a video game and I got points for all my different server tasks. At the end, I won a trip to the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Who’d want to go there?” Heidi asks, having recently recommended a documentary on all the missing planes and calamities associated with the area.
I say, “But this is real life.”
“Let me gamify it if I want to. Plus, it’s kind of fun.” Emerson bounces a little from foot to foot like she’s gearing up for a boxing match.
“Our idea of fun differs. More like drudgery,” I mutter.
Heidi taps my hand. “Which is exactly why you should say yes. The Fish Bowl isn’t your forever job.”
Only, I’ve been here for the last eight years. Ten? I’ve lost track. All this time, I’ve just been waiting. Waiting tables. Waiting to figure out my future, my life, and my dreams.
Just waiting.
Exhaling with puffed cheeks, I nod along to my thoughts.
“You’ll do it?” Heidi asks.
I squish up my face.
“Technically, you already said yes, and I quote, ‘Anything.’ Anyway, I don’t know Coach Badaszek that well, but I think he just wants Robo to loosen up, to move more fluidly. You can talk to him yourself.”
“Badaszek? No way. He terrifies me.”
“But you’re Leah Smith. Nothing scares you.”
Then something else she said slaps me in the face, a walloping from the ongoing din in my mind that includes making sure to bring table twelve separate checks, restocking the soup crackers, and double-checking my credit card statement for a refund from that weighted, heated blanket gizmo I bought.
It smelled like burning hair when I plugged it in.
Eyes stinging, they’re so wide, I ask, “Did you say Robo?”
“Yeah.”
“As in Hudson Roboveitchek?”
She lifts her hand for a high five. “Way to go pronouncing his last name. I’m surprised it fits on the back of his jersey. Then again, he does have broad shoulders like most hockey players. If you were playing Emerson’s game, you’d get ten points and a cupcake.”
“A cupcake?” I stutter.
She lifts a shoulder. “Yeah. Video games should give out cupcakes instead of coins. It’s cuter.”
Or they could give out little digital darts that you can throw at a digital photo of the Knights new goalie as a bonus level.
“I can’t do it,” I blurt.
She frowns. “But you already said you would.”
“It was a non-binding yes.” I steal a long sip from her soda.
“I can’t do it either and Cara doesn’t want to hire someone from the outside who doesn’t know hockey the way you do. You’re the perfect match.”
I nearly gag on my sip as heat rises to my cheeks.
“We’re so not the perfect anything,” I say hoarsely.
“You’ll get paid NHL money and receive home game season tickets.”
“Chuck already gives me access to all the games.”
“You’re a Knights superfan. Maybe you’ll get your very own once-upon-a-hockey romance.”
I shake my head, really wishing I could curl up on my bed and scroll through cake illustration videos where followers challenge incredibly talented bakers to draw things from their infants to geometric designs on baked goods.
Instead, I get to my feet and tend to a few of my tables, delivering food, closing out checks, and coming up with zero ways to back out of this.
Heidi devours a loaded potato skin pub puck that Emerson dropped off at her table while tapping away one-handed on her phone.
I expect her to have to leave, given her role as the Knights’ Social Media Coordinator, the mother of two, and wife to Grady Federer, defenseman extraordinaire.
But she helps herself to another soda while chatting with our cook before returning to her table with extra bacon and sour cream for her potato skins.
A regular customer couldn’t get away with making themselves at home in the dining room of a hockey pub, but not only did she used to work here, she’s also Stan—the owner’s—niece.
Then the alternate reality video game I’ve suddenly found myself in, like Jumanji, turns into Nightmare Express.
On a gust of autumn air, Hudson Roboveitchek struts into the dining room like he knows everyone is checking him out.
Not me. Instead, my heart racing, I make a beeline for the walk-in freezer.
Before I escape, the cook calls, “Leah, order up.”
I shouldn’t look to see if Robo overheard that above the clamor in the restaurant, but I do. It’s a mistake because it sends a rush of animosity through me that makes my gears grind to a halt.
Gliding into the Fish Bowl like royalty returned from a siege-works campaign, Hunter’s brother peruses the room. His attention hops over table six, consisting of the eager puck bunnies with dye jobs. Then again, thanks to Valentina, I no longer sport my natural color either.
Tall and athletic with a posture that reveals the rippling muscles of his back, he turns slowly, dripping with charisma that draws all eyes to him.
His chiseled features and sharp jawline are the envy of men. Those objectively perfect lips, and the smirk in his heavy gaze, are the longing of women.
Then, before I can escape, a pair of rich cocoa-brown eyes meet mine.
I’ve been spotted, so I do what any logical person would do. I duck behind the life-size tin knight dressed in a Nebraska Knights hockey uniform, guarding the jukebox.
My head and heart hum loudly because I’m certain Hudson Roboveitchek saw me.
… again.
It must be this guilty conscience or something that has me all fluttery and flustered.