Page 8 of Reckless Girls
He almost always has a notebook with him, too, and as Luxwatches him now, he pulls it out from the canvas bag slung over the back of his seat, tucking his hair behind his ear as he opens it up, a stubby pencil in one hand, a dark beer at his left.
“He asked about you tonight,” Cam says from behind her, and Lux turns, frowning.
“Bullshit.”
Cam laughs, shaking her head. “No, for real. Okay, he didn’t say, ‘Hey, where’s Lux McAllister, my future wife,’ but he did ask if ‘the redheaded waitress’ was working tonight.”
It’s silly, probably, to feel such a flush of pleasure at such an innocuous comment, but Lux blushes the whole way back to the kitchen, her pulse leaping around crazily as she sets her tray on the counter near the sinks.
Cam is right behind her, and nudges Lux’s foot with the toe of her sneaker. “Go talk to hiiiiim,” she sings, and Lux is already waving her off.
“And say what?”
“Say you heard he was looking for you.”
“Yeah, guys love it when you talk like you’re in a Western from 1956.”
Cam laughs again. “Fine,” she says. “Tell you what. He’s in my section. I’ll pick up table eight in yours, and you can have him. Deal?”
Lux almost tells her no, and later, much later, she’ll think about this moment in the kitchen at the Cove, the smell of fried fish around her, steam rolling over the industrial sinks, the clatter of silverware, the cooks bantering back and forth in Spanish. It doesn’t feel important then, doesn’t feel heavy or loaded. It’s just the chance to talk to a boy.
How can a thing as small as that change your entire life?
“Deal,” she says to Cam, smiling and reaching out her hand to shake on it.
GOLDENBOY LOOKS UP WHENshe approaches his table, and his smile slices through everything.
It seems stupid, to feel so happy just because a cute guy is smiling at her, but Lux has learned to take these unexpected moments of joy where she can find them.
“Did my waitress tell you I asked about you?” he asks, ducking his head, grinning a little sheepishly. His eyes are a warm brown, his hair longish and curling around his earlobes, and it shouldn’t be so charming, this human golden retriever thing he’s got going on, but it is.
It really, really is.
“Maybe,” she says with a little shrug, and he winces, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.
“Great. So there goes any chance of you thinking I’m actually cool, right?”
“Oh yeah, right out the window.”
His smile deepens, and Lux sees that he has dimples because ofcoursehe does.
“Well, shit,” he says with a sigh. “See, I was gonna do this whole thing of chatting with you, asking interesting but not invasive questions—”
“Naturally,” Lux replies, her cheeks hurting with how hard she’s trying not to burst into a giddy grin.
“And then,” he goes on, “at the very end of the meal, I was going to very smoothly ask for your number. But since that’s blown to fuck now, I’m just gonna skip to the end and tell you I think you’re gorgeous, and I’d really love to take you out sometime.”
Lux’s heart is beating hard, and her stomach is basically a butterfly garden at this point. Still, she’s having too much fun to givein quite so easily. “You don’t even know my name,” she reminds him, and he points at her name tag.
“I do now. Lux. Which actually makes how uncool I’m being even harder, becausegoddamn,that is a very cool name. I knew you were out of my league.”
He leans back in his chair, and Lux notices the way his T-shirt stretches across his broad chest.
“I’m Nico,” he says, and she puts a hand on one hip.
“That’s also a cool name.”
“It’s a nickname for Nicholas.”
