Page 3 of A Favor Owed

“Hi, Cliff,” I say, heading to a booth.

Brady sprawls out across from me in the booth, puts his cap on the seat next to him, and runs his hand through his short, wavy hair.

“Hey, sweetie,” Kelsey, one of the waitresses, greets me when she comes by to take our order. She takes one look at my companion, and her hip juts out as if he’s pulled a string. “Hi, Brady.”

“Hey, Kelse.”

Kelse?Kelse?He’s on a shortened-first-name basis with my coworker?

“What can I get you two?” she asks, turning her head slightly to shoot me a questioning look that has nothing to do with my drink order.

I lift one shoulder as stealthily as possible, trying to convey that I have no idea what I’m doing here with this guy, but whatever it is, it’s not important.

“The usual,” I say.

“Sambuca on the rocks with three beans,” she says. “Guinness for you, Brady?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Kelsey leaves to get our drinks, and Brady looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Only an Italian girl would drink sambuca in a place called Finnegan’s,” he says.

I feel a twinge of panic and wish my hair was down so I could hide the flush spreading across my face. But it’s in two French braids that I pinned up to avoid heatstroke. “I read about it once in a travel magazine,” I say, the lie coming to me easily. “I tried it in college and fell in love.”

“Not Italian, then?”

“Nope,” I say. I’m Sicilian, so technically that’s not a lie. Separate island, separate dialect. Die-hard Sicilians will deny they’re Italian all day long. “So, what’s with you?” I ask, dragging the conversation away from anything me. “Are you running an underground keg business or something? How does the entire world know you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m just social or something, I guess. How are you able to work here and go to law school at the same time? Isn’t there a rule about first-years working?”

“I’m in school part-time,” I say. “That rule applies only to full-time students.”

“Right,” he says, regarding me intently. I see now that his eyes are a soft moss green flecked with blue, gentle and intelligent in a way that’s completely foreign to me. The men in my world look at everything with eyes hard with calculation, appraisal, and threat. Women sometimes earn a look of affection and often one of lust. But this? This is the way regular guys look at regular girls. I haven’t had much personal experience with it.

Kelsey drops off our drinks.

“Slainte,” says Brady, raising his Guinness.

“Prost,” I retort, clinking my glass against his. He laughs slightly and shakes his head, like he and I are both in on some joke. My secrets are no laughing matter, however; and he definitely isn’t in on them.

I use our time to soak up New York. I ask him everything—what his favorite deli is and what he orders there, where he likes to get pizza, even which subway route he takes to NYU from his family’s house in the Woodlawn Heights neighborhood in the Bronx. He patiently answers everything with a look of mild amusement.

“I take it you miss New York,” he observes, moving on to his second beer.

“Not really,” I say. I’m nostalgic for New York, but I don’t really miss it. I fell instantly in love with California—the sun, the palm trees, but most of all the distance from my family.

“Wish I could say the same,” he mutters, taking a sip of his beer.

“You don’t like it here?” I ask.

“It’s great if you’re into sushi or vegan stuff and shitty pizza. But no, I’m a New Yorker, born and bred, live and die. Nothing compares to it. What about you? Where are you from?”

“I’m from here.” Technically not a lie, I suppose. The new meisfrom here.

“Yeah, you sound like a California girl,” he says.

I take a sip of my drink to conceal my pleased smile. I’ve worked on hiding my accent ever since my first week at my high-priced, snooty high school, when I overheard some girls making fun of it in the bathroom.

“So trashy,” one of them said.

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