Page 13 of Beyond the Stroke

“I didn’t almost get arrested. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

She moves aside so I can punch my orders in.

“Yeah, I know, but man, I wish I could have seen what that woman did. I mean there had to have been something that made her think you two were going at it on a bench in broad daylight.”

I won’t admit it to Darcy, but while most of me was relieved to get that damn tail off, Rory’s hands on my hips, then my ass, sparked other feelings. Tingly ones that had no place in that moment. Because who gets turned on when a man is helping them out of a stressful situation?

The way his massive body had hovered over me, one knee on either side of the tail for leverage. The heat of his bare chest warming my back.

As I type, I catch her studying me. “What?”

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively at me.

“No,” I lie. “And I’m sorry I told you.”

“Okay, but seriously. If you weren’t doing anything wrong, I don’t understand why you left.”

While Rory had been assuring the nosy woman and the club’s security officer that nothing indecent was going on, I’d grabbed my backpack and the mermaid tail, and snuck away.

“I was tired of the entire situation. After nearly drowning, then not being able to get the mermaid tail off, I needed to get home to Edgar.” I leave out the part where I had an asthma attack and only took a half of a puff because I’ve been rationing my medication.

“How is that adorable creature?” she coos, her pink ponytail bouncing as I follow her to the kitchen.

“He’s doing great.”

Edgar is recovering from a dental extraction for a tooth abscess he had. He was in so much pain, I’m relieved that he’s feeling better. Even though it required me to use money that I had allocated for my asthma medication, I don’t regret taking care of him first.

“Order up,” Mick calls as he places two plates on the counter under the warming lamp. Robby, another server, swoops in tograb them. Mick pauses in front of me, holding up a ticket for table six. “Summer, no substitutions.”

“It’s not a substitution, it’s an add-on. She doesn’t want to waste the crab cake, so leave it off and give her the hush puppies instead,” I explain.

Mick shakes his head and waves me off. “I can’t stand around and argue with you all day.”

Mick and Alice are the owners of The Salty Pirate Café, and while Alice is a cheerful, boisterous woman, who claims to be a direct descendant of an infamous pirate, Mick, her husband, and the cook, is more likely to pass for a surly swashbuckler.

Kale and Royce are the line cooks, assisting Mick with the lunch rush.

Kale grins at me. “Watching you two argue is one of the best parts of my day.”

Royce laughs. “For real, man? I’d say getting a smile out of Summer is the best part of mine.”

“Because they’re practically impossible?” Kale laughs.

“Keep it up, guys, and I’m going to encourage all my tables to order the gator tail today.”

Their groan, and Darcy’s peal of laugher, reaches my ears as I pick up a water pitcher and head back out to the dining room to refill my tables’ water glasses.

Three months ago, when I drove into town, I had zero waitressing experience. That’s to be expected growing up in a house where I was instructed to ring a bell if I needed assistance with anything. And I meananything.

My mom said success meant never having to lift a finger. If you could pay someone to do everything, you’d made it.

At five, I’d thought it was thrilling I could order the housekeepers to clean up my messes instead of having to do it myself. By thirteen, I’d realized I was living in a golden birdcage.

It was the opposite of raising your child to leave the nest and become a contributing member of society.

I’d sneak into the kitchen with Bess, the lead housekeeper, and beg her to show me how to cook things. Francois, the actual chef, refused to let me help. He was too afraid his gig as our family’s private chef would be at stake.

But that was another lifetime.

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