15. Nadia
15
NADIA
I mostly put off Max and Camryn when I get home. I return their worried texts and promise that Dalton is keeping watch over me.
Camryn in particular feels distraught because she feels the group pressured me into drinking. Max wants to wring Luca’s neck for continuously bringing me margaritas and a second shot.
But they don’t know where I live, so it’s not hard to dodge them until Sunday when I arrive at the deli for a shift.
When I walk in, they’re both there waiting as the rest of the staff preps the restaurant to open for lunch.
Camryn rushes forward to throw her arms around me. “When I realized how long you had been gone, I was beside myself. I should have gone with you.”
“It’s fine. I was in a big hurry to avoid puking in front of all your friends.”
Max growls low in his throat. “I’ve already had words with Luca about how much liquor he forced on you.”
I pull back from Camryn to stare him in the eye. “He didn’t make me drink them. And he didn’t make me take the first or second shot.”
Camryn holds my wrist. She doesn’t seem to want to let go of me, as if it might happen all over again. “Our group runs fast and loose. I should have been more attentive.”
“You were exhausted, if you recall.”
“Well, no more dive bars for us,” Max says. “The last thing I wanted when we invited you was for you to get peer pressured into binge drinking.”
“I’m fine. I’m a grown adult.”
The other employees skirt us, but I can tell they are taking far too much interest in our conversation. Jeannie arrives with a bin of chopped pickles, and I take that as my opportunity to get to work.
“What needs chopping?” I ask her, watching as she sets the bin into the refrigerated sandwich line.
“We need carrots and cabbage for the pickled slaw,” she says.
I follow her to the kitchen as she continues listing items. “And I’m going to need more pickle quarter slices in regular, spicy, and garlic.”
“I’m on it.” I shove my purse into my locker and pull out my apron. A quick glance through the window in the door between the restaurant and the back shows me that Max and Cam haven’t left their spot by the entrance.
Hopefully, that conversation is over.
I head into the walk-in fridge to grab a stack of carrots, then wash them and don a pair of gloves.
As I arrange the vegetables on the chopping table to be prepped, I wonder if I should have asked Max not to tell his dad or mine about the bar incident.
Probably he won’t. To him, he looks as at fault as I am.
And besides, we’re not kids. Nobody needs to be running to Daddy.
I take out my frustration on the carrots, chopping the tops and running a peeler down the sides. I’m not even a college student anymore more. I pay my own bills, meager though they are. If I want to spend my MBA on slicing carrots, it’s my MBA to use as I like.
Who says I need to always overachieve? Maybe I enjoy prepping vegetables!
I do, actually, getting into a rhythm that quickly fills a bowl for the slaw. I slide the scraps into the compost at the end of the wood block and return to the fridge for the cabbage.
I know I’m not meant for a job like this. It’s not what I went to school for. But it’s honest work, and necessary. And Max can rely on me when he needs to be out.
Although maybe my reliability score dropped substantially after Friday night.
I slice through the cabbage. I’m not a fan of the pickle slaw, but I don’t mind making it. It goes on the pickled roast beef, a monthly special dubbed “The Beefy Pickle.”
Now that’s a name for one of my romance novels.
And somehow, that line of thought takes me right back to Dalton.
Jeannie takes a spot opposite me at the table, setting a bin of garlic pickles onto the surface with a thunk. “I’m going to start quartering.”
She’s the kitchen manager, only a couple of years older than me. She is doing what she’s meant to do, having graduated culinary school. Like my cousin Anthony, she likes to create new dishes for the deli.
But despite her age and the adorable smattering of freckles that make her seem approachable, she’s an unyielding stickler when it comes to food prep. Get the size or texture wrong, and she’ll make you start all over, no matter how many people might be lined up waiting for slaw or potato salad or the pickle of the month.
“Watch that cabbage,” she says. “Between one-eighth and one-sixteenth of an inch. You’re getting wide.”
“Gotcha.”
Point made.
A voice rings out from the restaurant. “Doors!” It’s Margo, the weekend manager. She’s letting us know the deli is officially open.
Jeannie and I chop in companionable silence as Vera and Frank move the last items from the fridge to the line. Jeannie’s already sliced all the bread they baked this morning.
It’s quiet for a while, and a quick glance shows that the first customers have arrived. I don’t do much out there if I can help it. I prefer the sanctuary of the chopping block.
The kitchen door swings open, and Max comes in, followed by, of all people, Hex.
“Strange man in my kitchen!” Jeannie protests, holding her oversized butcher knife at both the men. It’s almost comical, the freckled woman in her low white hat, and the two giants she’s threatening.
“I’m sorry, Jeannie,” Max says. “I know you don’t like non-employees in here.”
“Wash up or I’ll cut off your hands!” She waves the knife at them, and both Max and Hex scurry to the sinks along the wall.
I bite back a smile. Jeannie is a force of nature.
When the two men are clean and dry, Jeannie looks up from her pickles. “What brings you two in here?”
“It’s for Nadia,” Max says.
I look up. Me?
“Whatever for?” I ask.
“I feel like I should have noticed you were in distress,” Hex says, holding his outrageously bear-like hand over his chest. It rests on the words, “Pound or get pounded” on his T-shirt.
“How would you have known?” I ask. Dang, this guy is huge. He’s wider than the chopping table. Jeannie pays him no mind now.
“We were talking when you left in such a hurry,” Hex says.
Right. I had been. I forgot that he and Luca were having a Nadia pissing match.
“It’s fine.” I wave my knife as if to push away the thought. “I think I’ll revert to my weekends at home for a while.”
Max nudges his arm.
Hex clears his throat. “I was wondering if you’d give me the honor of a date. No drinking necessary. Unless you want to. I mean, in moderation.”
Jeannie stops chopping to look at me.
Oh, gosh.
“Hex, I mean, wow, you’re great, but I want to lie low for a while. If that’s okay. I think I should, you know, take a breather from going out.”
Jeannie bites her lip like she’s trying not to laugh at the big lug trying to be contrite.
“Not a problem,” Hex says. “I shot my shot.” He turns to Jeannie and says, “I apologize for disturbing your very clean and organized kitchen.”
Dang, the jolly giant can be a gentleman.
Jeannie frowns at him. “Fine. Now the two of you get out of here!” She picks up her knife again.
But Hex is watching her with amusement. “Do you always threaten bodily harm on people?”
“Only when their un-aproned, unapproved, sweaty bodies are near my prep space!”
“I also cause bodily harm to people.”
That stops Jeannie in her tracks. “Really?” She turns to Max. “And you let him ask out your cousin?”
“It’s not like that,” Max says.
“Out!” Jeannie says, moving her knife closer. “Out of my kitchen, you brutes!” She shakes her head.
“We should go,” Max says. He pushes Hex out the door.
As soon as they’re gone, I start laughing.
“What?” Jeannie asks.
“You scared off over four hundred pounds of solid muscle.”
“And I’d do it again.” She glances at my cabbage. “Stop chopping! Nobody’s going to eat that much slaw in a day.”
I shake my head, but I move the cut cabbage to a bin and pick up the extra heads to return to the fridge.
This has been the wildest afternoon.
But the funny thing is, the main thing I want to do is tell Dalton all about it.