Page 25 of Love By the Slice

Which was exactly what Shelly said when she stalked back into the pizzeria after making her deliveries. “He’s the kind to drop the ball and never pick it up again. Like my father. Like Ezra’s father. I don’t need more of that in my life.”

Lacey nodded. “You don’t. But is Greg really like your father? Or is he a guy needs a nudge in the right direction, and then he’ll keep going?”

Shelly said, “You know Ezra’s going to stick around and do hard work because you’ve got his track record. He showed up in Hartwell with a car and one change of clothing. Now he’s built a whole life. What’s Greg built?”

Lacey said, “What’s he had to build?”

Shelly said, “I don’t need this.”

Lacey said, “I’m not saying you do, but there’s a far cry between Greg and a guy who’s going to walk off. Ezra had a track record, but so does Greg.”

Shelly snapped, “Not a great one.”

Lacey shrugged. “Not a great one, but do you think he can improve it?”

Shelly grabbed the new pizzas. “I raised my younger sisters. I’m not signing up to raise a grown man.”

While she drove across town, Shelly ran that conversation back through her head.

Ezra had never met his father. Shelly had met hers a handful of times, and twice, he’d spoken to her directly. Shelly always stayed near a doorway looking at the man who’d given her brown hair as opposed to the red on her mother and older brother. Mom only ever argued with him. Once he’d brought a gift, a few coloring books and crayons. He’d said to Shelly, “Happy birthday,” and a year later, “You’ve gotten tall,” along with another birthday gift of a cardboard puzzle. After that—nothing.

At some point, Shelly had decided Mom was right, and her father didn’t care. He showed he didn’t care by ignoring her existence.

Ezra, by contrast, cared deeply, and he showed it by working. He showed it by looking down the road and solving problems before they happened.

Rowan’s grandfather had ignored potential solutions to his problems. Because of that, Rowan had suffered, but Rowan had known his grandfather cared. In the end, his grandfather had relented.

And now—Greg.

Greg ignored problems. He downplayed them until they showed up five times as large as they had been, and then he let other people solve them.

Shelly couldn’t name the cause. A terminal lack of ambition? A sheltered life where someone else always cleaned up after him? If Greg’s parents had always been on the job, ready to make things happen, then naturally Greg would grow up assuming“it’ll all work out,” because someone always worked it out while he wasn’t paying attention.

Ezra and Shelly had grown up knowing from an early age that they had to pay attention. Always. To everything. Because the thing you didn’t notice was the thing that would bite back at you. The creaky floorboard you didn’t pay attention to was the floor that would later fall through. The faucet handle you didn’t notice was loose was tomorrow’s plumbing emergency.

She couldn’t blame Greg for growing up in a secure home. He was optimistic because life had never given him cause for pessimism. Lacey had asked about Greg’s track record, though, so what about that?

Shelly delivered the first pizza, then got back in the car.

His track record with Loveless was good. He showed up for his shifts. He made pizzas. He maybe comped too many when customers complained, but they did come back. He cleaned up after himself. When the expectations were made plain, he followed through.

He’d gotten through college. He worked for his father’s business even though he didn’t want to stay with that business. He was killing time, in effect, because he had a cushy life. He saw no reason to change it.

Shelly delivered the second pizza, and when she got back into the car, she looked at the third, shivering because she just didn’t want to keep doing this. Didn’t want to keep working hard for a few bucks in tips. Didn’t want to keep wearing out her car and wearing out her life so she could have the bare minimum of food, shelter, and transportation, and further down the road, the hope of getting her younger siblings into the same position she was now. Six months, and she’d have her degree and a job and a way out.

Greg probably was a good person. The only question was whether he was good for Shelly. And, without any drive to change things, the answer was probably, no.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EZRA AND GREG had divided up the pizza truck duties so they could operate like a machine. The truck had its own wood-fired oven, which must have caused some licensing authority to have heart failure when they realized it might be driving around with live flames inside. When you were putting pizzas in or yanking them out, you could get warm, but the rest of the truck was wide open to the winter, and it was frigid.

A personal sized pizza stayed in about seventy seconds to get the cheese all melty and the crust crispy. Ezra or Greg could take an order, assemble a pizza, shove it in the oven, take the payment, and finish up just in time to get it out of the oven again. They’d slide it into a tiny cardboard box printed with “LOVELACE,” and up would come the next customer. They had two lines working at the same time, and only rarely did they get in one another’s way.

Both lines were six people deep, but they stayed at it. When they’d gotten the line down to two deep, Ezra said, “If you’d worked this hard for Shelly, she’d still be with you.”

Greg said, “We’re doing this now?”

Ezra could assemble a pizza in seconds. It took Greg a little longer, maybe because Ezra slung pizzas full time and Greg was part time. “Now,” Ezra said as dough became dough plus sauce plus cheese plus pepperoni. He shot it into the oven, then turned back to the customer.

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