Page 31 of The Edge of Summer
My jaw drops. “Oh my God, what happened to you?”
She grimaces as she pinches her shirt and pulls it away from her midsection. “The garbage bag tore,” she explains. “I have unidentifiedjuicesall over me.”
“Holy hell, Clara,” Luke curses with a wince. “That’s disgusting.”
She glares at her brother. “Gee, thanks. As if I don’t already know that.”
“Go home and shower,” I say, patting her—thankfully dry—shoulder. “I’ve got the bar covered.”
Most of the other waiters working today are new summer hires, and they, like me, haven’t been trained on the bar. I learned rather quickly that that is Clara’s domain—she only relinquishes control to a very specific set of people. But desperate times and all that. No way can Clara finish out her shift drenched in garbage juice.
She arches a brow, clearly not convinced. “You know how to bartend?”
“Well…not exactly. But you’ve said yourself that customers love me. They can learn to be patient while I figure it out.”
I’ve been to enough parties in my life to know the basics. I’m sure it’s not that hard. Clara, however, does not seem to share my sentiments. She turns pleading eyes on her brother.
“Can you stay?” she asks. “I know you probably need to get to the station, but Ireallywould like to shower and I don’t want to put this all on Delilah.”
At this, I laugh. “What, you think Mr. Fire Chief will be better at slinging drinks than me?”
Luke crosses his arms, unimpressed. Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him impressed, so maybe that’s just his face.
“I know how to make drinks. I worked here in the summers when I was in college,” he says indignantly.
Clara ignores me as she directs her pout toward her brother. “Pretty please?”
That look is the embodiment of a younger sister’s guilt trip. Sophia does it well, but Clara has perfected it. I can tell the exact moment that Luke decides to give in because his whole body locks, strung tight with the knowledge that he’ll be stuck with me until she gets back.
“Fine,” he eventually grumbles.
I clap my hands together. “Now that’s the spirit!” I say sarcastically.
The chilliness of his answering glare would put the polar ice caps to shame. I simply smile in response. Clara blows Luke a kiss, mouths athank youin my direction, and then she heads out the back door.
Now that it’s mid-afternoon, the restaurant has died down considerably. Things will start to pick up again as it nears dinner, but for now we have a comfortable lull.
I turn to grab my glass of water and when I spin back around, I find Luke flicking open the button on his shirt sleeve. I unabashedly watch as he deftly rolls the fabric, exposing his forearm. He then repeats the process on the other side. I want to say the sight doesn’t affectme, but that would be a goddamn lie. I’ve tried to ignore it, but Luke Bowman is undeniably a very good-looking man. And I am a weak, weak woman.
“Alright,” I say. I set my water back on the counter and then plant my hands on my hips. “Where do we start?”
Luke sends me a questioning look. “We?”
I nod. “Yes,we. You’re going to teach me how to make drinks.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. This only pulls my attention to his arms even more. “I don’t recall agreeing to that.”
“You agreed to help your sister. Teaching me would be helping her.”
“Helping her would be ensuring that you don’t destroy her bar.”
Now I cross my arms in defence. “Despite what you seem to think, I’m a fairly capable woman,” I say quietly. “Not everything I touch turns to ashes, you know.”
Is that what he thinks? That I’m going to wreck his family’s restaurant like I wrecked my car? If he was Mitchell, the automatic answer would be yes. He never trusted me—not really. When Luke sighs, I can almost feel the resignation settle in his bones.
“Okay,” he says, just like the day he came to help with my leaking sink.
The drink orders start off easy enough—just a couple pints of lager. They soon morph into mixed drinks and I begin to realize that bartending is perhaps harder than I thought. Luke is true to his word, walking me through each drink step by step.
