Chapter 12 #2
Elias leaned toward Soyer, getting close enough that it had Soyer narrowing his eyes at him.
“I’d not steal those cherries from you, Mr. Bennet.” He puppy-eyed me again. “But I was thinking, Amory, could you maybe make me another vanilla milkshake and serve me like you did your lover? With the same blushing smile and all of that?”
I put a hand on my hip. “Fiancé. And I don’t know what you mean.”
“He can’t,” Soyer told Elias. “And you don’t need another milkshake. You need to get your behind to where you’re supposed to be.”
Elias pouted. “Don’t I get to have any fun at all?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elias’s Ben get up and approach our corner of the counter. Rae, meanwhile, went to help one of my tables, which made me feel slightly bad, but I didn’t want to just walk away from Soyer.
Ambrose came to a stop at the corner of the counter, close to Soyer. Elias was behind Soyer and making big, innocent eyes at Ambrose.
“Turns out my phone’s on silent, and it’s never on silent,” Ambrose said.
“Ohhhh.” Elias twisted in his seat while Soyer took a sip of coffee. “Technology is ever so fickle. It’s terrible when modern machinery breaks down on you. Tell him, Mr. Bennet. Tell him how annoying modern devices can be.”
Soyer picked up the dessert fork I’d put next to his plate, his eyes trained on the tines as if he were examining each one. “I told you before that I have no interest in being a cog in your machinations.”
“A cog? A cog. You’re selling yourself short, Mr. Bennet.”
“Hmm.” Soyer looked from the tines to me.
I took that as an invitation and said, “Elias, you realize I can’t serve you if you upset my boss?”
Ambrose, arms still crossed, grinned like a man who’d bet on a winning horse.
“Amory! Amoryyyy! Are you threatening me? Did I not design your menus?”
I shrugged. “That’s right. And I’d never threaten you. I’m just pointing out that I have to do what my boss tells me, and if he thinks you can’t have milkshakes…”
“Now there’s an idea,” Soyer said dryly.
Elias gasped and slid off the chair. “Very well. The lot of you are as Shakespeare’s witches, conspiring under moonlight and evoking dark familiars. I’ll go, but I’ll return. Amory, text me.”
He walked out of the Moonlight, his head held high as he returned my wave goodbye. Ambrose didn’t move, his hard eyes finding mine.
“Thanks for that. Have a good night.”
“Right. You too.”
But the tall man was already heading after Elias on silent feet.
“Isn’t the peace and quiet just lovely?” Soyer said after the two of them were gone.
“Elias isn’t so bad.”
Soyer tried a bite of his pie. “Whatever you say, Amory.” He put his fork aside. “I’ll finish this, and then we’ll head home. How does that sound?”
“But—”
“Ben would be able to take the rest of the evening off.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I was feeling bad about him having to spend every night here when I knew he was in the process of getting his relationship with the writer off the ground.
“Hmm, but Thaeros is new.”
“So they are. Thaeros?” He beckoned them over. I’d expected them to cower more, to go out of their way to show respect, but Thaeros kept his chin up.
“Mr. Bennet?”
“Any problems finishing up Amory’s shift for today?”
Thaeros looked at me, but I wasn’t sure what to read in his beautiful face.
“Not at all. Like you said, it’s straightforward. I’ll just need to know how to close up, where the keys are, all of that.” He inclined his head in my direction. “And if there’s anything else that needs doing, Amory.”
I scratched my head. “Well, the saltshakers—”
“I refilled them earlier.” They said that casually, not at all in a smug way, but at the same time, I was pretty sure I hadn’t misread that demonstrative look at the near-empty saltshaker back when we’d sat at the writer’s table earlier.
“Right. Thank you.”
Soyer’s dark eyes settled on me. “Thaeros, Amory will write out a list for you to go through, and Rae should be able to answer any questions. Leave us.”
With a nod, Thaeros retreated, and Soyer patted the chair next to his, the one Elias had abandoned. “Come sit with me. And don’t say you can’t. It’s an order, strictly boss to employee.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed Elias’s dishes. “All right. I’ll just put these away in the dishwasher.”
“You are aware that Rae could do that? Fuck, even Ben knows where the fucking dishwasher is.”
Which, of course, got Ben to slide off his chair. “Of course, Mr. Bennet. Let me take care of this.”
“But—”
Ben whisked the milkshake glass and Elias’s extra cream saucer out of my hands in short order and hurried back to put them away, leaving me standing there. I turned to stare at Soyer, who looked very pleased with himself, licking the tines of his fork and pulling out the chair for me.
“Wasn’t that nice of him?”
I sighed. “You’re the worst, you know that?”
“I don’t care as long as I have you.”
Which…I got a little melty then. A little emotional too.
It was the aftereffects of what the witch had done all over again, but it wasn’t bad, not when Soyer was here, when he was patiently waiting for me to sit down next to him, when he put an arm around my shoulders and fed me some of his cherry pie.
I really had missed him.