Chapter Eight
Eight
On her way to an event on Wednesday late afternoon, Avery got a text from Luke.
Luke
You around tonight? I feel like I haven’t seen you forever—dinner?
Avery couldn’t help but grin. They hadn’t seen each other for weeks, but they both knew why. He and Margot were so happy, they were both walking on big fluffy clouds and had eyes for nothing and no one but each other.
Margot must be busy tonight , she typed and then deleted. Margot probably was busy that night, but Avery didn’t want Luke to think she thought he was abandoning her or whatever to be with Margot. She really was happy for him.
It would be more fun to gently mock him about Margot in person, anyway.
Avery
As long as you can wait until 8 or so when i’m done with work. conference cocktail event tonight
Luke
Sure, 8 works. sushi?
Avery
Great, i’ll text when i’m leaving the event
Luke caught up to her outside the restaurant right after she parked.
“Hey,” he said as he pulled her into a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
She returned his hug and kissed him on the cheek.
“It’s great to see you, too,” she said. “Margot busy tonight?”
He looked embarrassed, but he still couldn’t wipe the happy smile off his face.
“How’d you guess?” he said, and she laughed at him as they walked into the restaurant.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been blowing you off,” he said as soon as they sat down. “It’s just that I—”
She held up a hand to stop him.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“You’ve had a hard time lately. I don’t want you to think that I’m not—”
“Luke. My friend. I know you’d be there for me if I needed you. You know I know that. You and Margot are deep in love, you want to be with her all the time, I get it. I love this for you. Really.”
His face relaxed back into his dreamy smile. It would be annoying if she didn’t adore Luke with her whole heart. And she hadn’t seen him this happy in a very long time.
“Okay. Thanks. And…yeah, we are. I mean, I am, and I think she is, too.”
Avery laughed.
“You ‘ think she is, too’? Taylor told me that Margot got distracted halfway through a winery tour the other day and brought them back to the tasting room like thirty minutes early. It wasn’t until Taylor asked her why it went so fast that she realized and brought them back outside; they had to pretend it was a planned thing and give the guests a mid-tour glass of wine so they wouldn’t realize what happened. Does that sound like the normal Margot Noble?”
Luke’s surprised smile at that was frankly adorable.
“What? Okay, no, that is…not like Margot.” He suddenly looked up at her. “Wait. Taylor told you that? I didn’t realize you guys really knew each other.”
That was an opening if she’d ever heard one.
“We didn’t. But we talked for a while at the anniversary party, and we’ve been hanging out a lot more since then.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Luke said. “Taylor’s great.” Then he paused and narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s that look on your face? Is something going on with you two? Don’t get me wrong, I really like Taylor,” Luke continued. “But from what she’s said, she seems to, um, date around a lot, and I don’t—”
Avery patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t want me to get hurt? That’s very sweet, but unnecessary. Don’t worry, nothing’s going on between the two of us, and I am very aware that she breaks a lot of hearts. No, it’s that—” Luke was the one person who would really understand why she was doing this. She could tell him everything. “Okay, let me back up.”
Luke’s eyebrows were sky-high now.
“I’m listening.”
“Are you ready to order?” the server asked. They both jumped; clearly neither of them had heard her approach.
“Let’s order now,” Avery said. “I’m starving, and this story might take a while.” They both glanced at the menu and ordered far too much food. When the server walked away, Avery started again.
“It began when I ran into Ms. Cunningham at the winery party. She said something about how she hears from my mom about how I’m doing and she’s so proud of what an upstanding citizen I am and how I was always such a well-behaved teenager blah blah, and all I could hear when she said that is that I’ve been boring my entire life.” She held up a hand when Luke tried to interrupt. “I know what you’re going to say; let me finish. I had a little too much wine after that and told Taylor that I was tired of being boring, and I wanted to flirt with people and get hobbies and make more friends and do things that weren’t related to work, but then I said I had no idea how to flirt. Then she asked if I wanted to know how to flirt with men or women, and I said both, but especially women, since—”
“Since you’ve had enough of men for a while, I get it,” Luke said.
“I was going to say since I haven’t had a lot of experience with women, but your version works, too. So, long story short, Taylor is teaching me how to flirt.”
“Are you kidding?” Luke looked at her. “You’re not kidding, oh wow. This is very unlike you, I’m impressed. How’s it going?”
“It’s going well?” She stopped to think about that. “At least, I’m having fun with it. Well, I am now. It won’t surprise you that I tried to talk Taylor out of this for a while at first, but she wasn’t having it.”
Luke grinned at her.
“No, as a matter of fact, that doesn’t surprise me at all. About either of you. Tell me more. How has she been teaching you how to flirt?”
Avery had been a little worried that Luke would be weirded out by all of this, but she should have known that all Luke cared about was that she was happy.
“First we went to a bookstore event with an author I like, where she made me talk to other people there, and then we did queer salsa dance lessons, where I had to ask people to dance.” Luke was very clearly fighting back a smile, so Avery threw him a glare. “Stop laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” Luke said, with almost a straight face. “It’s just that the tone of your voice when you said that you had to ask people to dance…I mean, you have to admit that was a little funny.”
Avery tried not to smile and completely failed.
“I will admit it was a little funny,” she said. “Anyway, we’ve done four total, and they’ve gotten less terrifying each time, which is nice. Oh! And did you know there’s a community garden right by my apartment? I found out about it from a woman I met at the bookstore, and now I’m sharing a garden plot with her there, and we’ve planted a bunch of vegetables and stuff. Some flowers, too.”
Luke smiled at her, with no laughter in his eyes this time. She knew how worried Luke had been about her since her breakup; she could tell how glad he was that she was doing something so out of character for herself, something just for fun.
“That’s awesome, A,” he said after the waiter dropped the food off at their table. “I can’t believe this all happened in the last month. You’re learning how to flirt and how to garden? So, what else has Taylor taught you? I feel like you’ve gotten a flirting expert to give you the secrets here; I want to know them, too.”
Avery waved a chopstick at him before grabbing a piece of a spicy tuna roll.
“You don’t need to know any of them, you have no need for flirting. You’ve got Margot.”
Luke grinned at her.
“Yeah, but I need to keep Margot.”
Avery smirked at him.
“Didn’t we just talk about how you’re not in any danger of losing her?” She shrugged. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, though I’m getting more comfortable. Every time I try to talk to someone, or someone starts to talk to me, I still feel like a deer in the headlights. I don’t freeze up quite as much anymore, but it’s kind of embarrassing.”
She was pretty sure Taylor would have had a lot more fun at trivia night without having to babysit her. She was grateful to Taylor for bringing her, and yes, some of Taylor’s friends had definitely been checking her out, which was gratifying, but still.
“I’m sure you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. Do you want me to ask Taylor? She’ll tell me.”
“Luke.” Avery glared at him.
Luke laughed at the look on her face.
“Don’t worry, I was kidding. But seriously, remember, you’re not being graded on this, there’s no test or anything, this is just for fun, okay? I know how you get sometimes.”
This was the problem with Luke. He knew her too well.
“I promise, I’m trying to remember that. I’m trying to have fun, something that is very un-me. Let’s hope I can stick to that.”
Thursday afternoon, Taylor got a text from her old boss, from the restaurant where she’d worked before moving to Noble.
Jenny
Any way you can work a shift tonight? three people called out sick and we’re fully booked. I promise i’ll give you the easy tables
Taylor laughed. Jenny always said that; sometimes she actually meant it.
Taylor
Sure but I can’t get there until just before 6 probably
Jenny
I’ll take it
By 5:55 p.m., she had an apron on, and Jenny was frantically running down the specials.
“I think that’s it,” she said after a few minutes. “Anything else?”
“I’ve got it, don’t worry,” Taylor said. “If I have questions, I’ll find you.”
“I owe you one for this,” Jenny said.
“Oh, don’t worry, I know.” Taylor grinned and tucked a notebook and pen into her pocket. “And I’ll hold you to that.”
The restaurant was packed, but Taylor quickly fell back into the rhythm of it all. She’d waited tables for years, and while she much preferred her predictable schedule at Noble and her consistent paycheck, she had kind of missed the chaos of a packed restaurant, the frantic rush of the servers and hosts and cooks, the ballet of the way they all moved around one another, the guests’ obliviousness to all of it. She quickly memorized the specials, and managed to rave about them even though she hadn’t tasted them. To be fair, she’d eaten a lot of this restaurant’s food, so it was easy to speak with authority.
She delivered a round of drinks to one table that was clearly a first date, and a struggling one, at that. She wished she knew the backstory on this couple, because they both seemed so shy that she had no idea how they’d ever managed to make it on a date with each other. She had to do what she could to make the date a good one, for both of them.
“Have you decided what you’d like to order?” she asked them. “Does either of you need a recommendation? Though you picked two of my favorite wines on the menu, so you probably don’t need me.”
The woman smiled at her, and the man sat up straighter. A compliment always helped.
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said. “Actually, I was deciding between the kale and lemon pasta, or the Early Girl tomato and burrata pasta. Do you, um, have a recommendation?”
“I was deciding between both of those, too,” the man said.
Taylor beamed at them.
“Those are two of our best pastas, but the tomato one is really special; the tomatoes are so good this year. But if you’re interested in sharing, I’d say get both.”
They both hesitated.
“Um, I’d be happy to share?” the man said. “But if you don’t, we can just—”
“Oh no, that’s a great idea,” the woman said. “Thank you.”
“Is there an appetizer that you recommend as well?” the man asked her. “We’re both vegetarians, so nothing with meat.”
“I eat everything, but some of my favorite items on the menu here are vegetarian. Are you in more of a salad mood or a cheesy mood? No judgment either way.”
They both laughed a little, like she’d meant for them to do. She lingered at the table for a while, chatting with them about the menu and asking them a few questions about themselves. By the time she walked away, they were talking to each other, both wearing tentative smiles. There. That was her good deed for the night.
About an hour later, she stepped up to a table of two women who’d sat down a few moments before.
“Hi, I’m Taylor, I’ll be your server tonight, and—Hey!” Erica grinned up at her. She was with a blond woman with soft, beachy waves in her hair and a pale pink cardigan over her shoulders.
“Hi, Tay, I was wondering when you’d notice us. What are you doing here? You remember my friend Sloane, right?”
So, this was the Sloane that Erica kept talking about. Taylor did vaguely remember her from Erica’s housewarming party. Vaguely.
“Hi, Taylor, good to see you,” Sloane said. “I didn’t realize you worked here.”
Was that judgment there from Sloane? Like wow, she didn’t realize that Taylor worked at a restaurant , she thought they were on the same social level.
Okay, she didn’t have to be so defensive, Sloane was probably a perfectly nice rich lady.
“Hi, Sloane, nice to meet you again,” she said. “I’m just filling in. I used to work here, and occasionally I’ll get an SOS from my old boss when she’s in a crisis. Do you two want drinks to start? Any questions?”
“Just sparkling water for me,” Erica said. “But we definitely want to start with the tomato and cucumber salad, can you put that in for us? I’m famished.”
Taylor raised her eyebrows.
“You? Famished? No, really?” She grinned at the look on Erica’s face. “Yeah, don’t worry, coming right up. Sloane, anything to drink for you?”
Sloane smiled a bland smile at her. No wonder she hadn’t remembered meeting Sloane, she was so…colorless.
Was she being unfair?
“Just sparkling water for me, too, thanks,” Sloane said.
“Great, I’ll bring the big bottle.”
Taylor flashed a smile at both of them and went back to the bar to put in their drink order, and then to the kitchen to put in the salad, and an extra order of bread for Erica. She flew around the restaurant delivering drinks and salads and charcuterie platters and pasta, all the while trying to shake off the weird, uncomfortable feeling it had given her to see Erica and Sloane together.
Why did this bother her? It wasn’t like Erica didn’t have other friends, they both did, lots of them. Erica had even gotten married the year before, and Taylor had never had an issue about that. She liked Sam, she was happy for Erica, she was happy for both of them. Was it just that she found Sloane boring, someone not worthy of being friends with Erica? Was she worried that Erica would turn into someone like Sloane? No, that was impossible. It was a little weird to her that Erica was suddenly so buddy-buddy with someone Taylor thought she barely knew, but Sloane was probably giving her advice about babies or childbirth or how to get your toddler into the top preschool. It was fine. And when Erica and Sloane left, she gave them both hugs goodbye. See? Fine.
Later that night, she dropped the check off at the table with the shy couple, and they both thanked her for her help and told her they loved their meals. And when they walked out the door together, she saw their hands brush against each other’s in a way that she was certain was not accidental. That was a job well done. She couldn’t wait to tell Avery about this.
It was wild to think about how much Avery’s flirting had improved over the past month, and just how much she’d relaxed during that time. After seeing how tense and nervous she’d seemed walking into the book event, Taylor had worried about the success of this little how-to-flirt project. But Avery had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few weeks. Taylor hadn’t needed to tell her to flirt with everyone at trivia this week, she’d done it without being ordered to. Avery had even flirted with her a little, although that may have been accidental.
Oh, this gave her an excellent idea for what their next flirting date should be. Taylor laughed to herself. This should be fun.