Page 23 of The Broposal

“No,” I said quickly, and Kenny raised an eyebrow like he was suspicious, which made my heart practically combust. He was kind of right, but I had no idea why. The last thing I wanted to do was make Kenny feel bad for being himself.Hewas not the problem in this situation.

But… maybe I did have a problem. Maybe Kenny was somehow both at the center of it and the only imaginable cure.

No, maybe not. Definitely not.

Maybe I was just homophobic.

CHAPTER EIGHT

KENNY

Maybe it was because I didn’t get laid last night, or maybe it was already written in the stars, but I could tell it was gonna be a bitch of a day. One of the only upsides was that Han and I would be sharing a shift, so we could carpool. Tatiana said it was a miracle we never got sick of each other with all the time we spent together, but I couldn’t imagine a world where I didn’twantto be around Han. Even if he sometimes accidentally cockblocked me.

I really did love my job, but the downsides to this particular day won out. First, there was the stress about a potential thief stealing money from the restaurant, which I was supposed to be keeping my eyes open for.

Today was also one of those days where I had too much energy for the amount of work I had to do. To add insult to injury, it was raining, which made the shift slower than usual. The customers who did come in all seemed to be in a bad mood, which wasn’t great for tips.

After topping off the drinks of the single patron I was serving, I wandered back to the drink dispenser, where a few other servers were lingering. The only one of us who seemed truly busy was Tatiana. A couple of guys at one of her tables kept snapping their fingers at her, and it seemed like they were calling her over for every little thing. I was glad it wasn’t my table, but I felt worse when she left the table and Daniel came back instead. They must have asked for the manager. I tried to ignore them and focus on my own customer, but one of the guys started making a scene.

“I want my money back!”

Daniel pointed to the man’s plate, “I’m sorry, sir, but you ate the whole thing. If you didn’t like it, we could have traded it out for something else, but since you ate it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I won’t accept that. Give me my money back, or you’re stealing! I’ll call the cops and tell them you robbed us.” He puffed out his chest, pointing at the bar leading to the kitchen. “And I’m willing to bet you’ve got more illegal shit going on here than just stealing my money.”

My chest tightened. Would they really call the cops over some food they didn’t like?

“Sir, we have nothing to hide,” Daniel insisted. Why was he egging this guy on? It was like he had zero intention of protecting his cooks, or Tatiana for that matter. Or was he just trying to call their bluff?

But it was too risky to bet on them bluffing. The scene flashed before my eyes. The cops would show up. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about the “stealing” allegations, but the customer would want some kind of retribution. He’d tip off the cops about his suspicions, and they’d storm the kitchen. Han would get taken away.

I couldn’t let that happen. I rushed to the kitchen. I needed to get Han out of here, but I didn’t see him anywhere. He must have been on his break. I hurried to the breakroom and found him standing alone, on his phone. I grabbed his arm and pulled him in close.

“Go home,” I whispered, trying not to sound too freaked out. “Get an Uber, and I’ll tell Daniel I let you off early.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone might call the cops.”

Han’s eyes widened, but he didn’t hesitate to rush out the back door without another word. I wanted to cry as I watched him leave. He was safe, but my work wasn’t done. Luckily, Han was the only undocumented cook in today, so with him gone, all I needed to worry about was Tatiana. Cops showing up for a call about a Black girl stealing from these guys couldn’t end well. I rushed to meet the angry customers and try to calm the situation.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” Daniel was saying again when I reached them.

“Assistant manager here. We’ll refund you.” I waved a hand to silence Daniel when he tried to interrupt. I was definitely crossing a line, but I didn’t exactly have another choice. “We don’t have to disrupt everyone’s dinners, all right? Your refund is on me. Do you want us to remake your plate?”

“I don’t want your disgusting food,” the customer spat out, but he seemed to be cooling down.

Daniel couldn’t be mad at me for using my own money to refund these guys, so it was all I could think to do. The men handed me their receipt, and I unzipped the pouch tied around my waist and took out exact change from today’s tips. Bile rose in my throat when the man touched my hand to grab themoney. It wasn’t fair that people like him could get whatever they wanted by making threats. That kind of thing should have been illegal. Then again, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that the law benefited people like them and not people like Han or Tatiana.

I kept the thought to myself, but I knew in my heart that Daniel was a totally incompetent manager. If I’d been in charge, things wouldn’t have escalated. If it wasn’t for me patching up all of Daniel’s fuckups, he would have driven this restaurant into the ground ages ago.

No matter how scared I was for Han when I thought the cops might have shown up, I couldn’t forget that this was the first wake-up call I’d personally experienced. Han had to deal with scares like this all the time. With everything he’d done for me, all I wished was for some way to fix this for him.

When the restaurant finally closed for the night, I made it a point to check the money. I couldn’t be too careful since someone had apparently been stealing. And while I liked interacting with people, it was relaxing to sit down to count money and run the numbers. The lack of noise was always soothing, and I didn’t have to worry about anything but the task at hand.

This time there was no such enjoyment. Dread filled my chest as I counted once, twice, three times. Each coming up short. My suspicions had been confirmed. Juan had been fired for nothing. And if I wanted to keep from following in his footsteps, I’d have to figure out who the thief was.

CHAPTER NINE

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