Page 60 of Driftwood Daffodil

Not to mention if I did mistreat a customer then Daryl would tell Victor, and I might lose my job, which would make Maw Maw kick my ass. And I didn’t want the hassle of looking for a new job. Finding another insane boss who didn’t care howcompetent his staff were, was about as likely as Gio deciding to be nice to me.

How weird would that be?

A nice Gio Mancini? Talk about a world ending event. I could ring a bell and walk around with one of those signs saying, the end is nigh. Veda would hide under the table – because she hid from everything.

Maw Maw would be that church lady praying for everyone’s salvation while the world burned down around her. There would be children crying in the streets, and dogs with no home to go to. This dinner would probably be fine. I was pretty sure the devil gave Victor his menu choices.

An asshole Gio Mancini was definitely better for everyone.

My chest heaved with a sigh as Gio and Atlee flopped down in a booth to the left.

Damnit. That meant I had to be civilized. What kind of bullshit was that? Did I piss someone off in a former life or something, because no one prepared me for this kind of responsibility. But someone had to save the world.

“Order up,” Daryl called out while tapping on his tiny bell.

I hated that stupid bell – which was one of the many things supplied by our so-called cook. Victor didn’t like spending money on shit. I had to argue for three weeks for new dish cloths. And by new I meant unstained.

“Order up.” He repeated with another ding.

One of these days I was going to shove that thing up his ass. Today however I had other assholes to deal with.

Lucky me.

I grabbed the plate and walked over to booth number two.

The portly man smiled when I deposited it on his table. “This looks good.”

I waved him off, “yeah, yeah, whatever.” Then slowly made my way across the dinner to the glare at the assholes booth number seven.

Atlee of course grinned,prick.

“Hey, Nova.”

At least he wasn’t staring at me like he could already picture my grave. Unlike some people… Gio.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Really? That was the opening Atlee was going with?

“I don’t know if you understand how following someone works. But… you tend to end up in the same place as them from time to time.”

Normally I wouldn’t think a person my age could be that daft, but someone was walking around that school misspelling whore, so…

Atlee reached across the table and smacked Gio’s chest, “told you she saw us.”

Did Gio think otherwise? Given their reputation I figured big daddy Mancini would have a stalkers handbook or something.

“I’m digging that uniform by the way,” Atlee added with a wink.

Seriously? “You would be the first.”

This dress was stiff, itchy, and probably made in the fifties. Not exactly what I would consider sexy.

“You know, Gio and I are big fans of Cookie Monster.”

The only thing stranger than that statement, was Gio’s response.

“Do you want to get punched?”

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