Page 62 of Austin
“How long do you think this process will take? Before you know?”
“No telling.” That was the hell of it. “It depends on how I stack up against the other candidates. What my references say about me. A lot of things play into it.”
“Want to wait tables?”
“Funny. Ha. Ha.”
Whitney sipped her wine, watching Kristen over the rim of her glass. “No. I don’t mean it as a joke. We need a sub at FlintWorks. Just until our college girl, Macy, arrives in two weeks. You’d earn a little cash, and it would keep you busy.”
“You’re serious? Knowing my history? Six days waiting tables, then fired?”
“If it doesn’t work out—”
Kristen’s eyes went wide. “What? You’d fire me?”
Whitney shrugged. “I’d pretty much have to.”
Kristen gave a sniff. “Well, I wouldn’t mind the cash.” And she wasn’t a total newb at serving drinks…plus, she’d be fully clothed.
“You’d have to work the crappy shifts.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it.”
Whitney laughed. “Want to come down to FlintWorks and meet my boss tomorrow?”
Kristen pretended to consider for a moment, even though she’d already made up her mind. She could conduct her job search around FlintWorks shifts. It would do her good to get out. More than that, she wanted to get out, which was very out of character. Her time with Austin honestly had done her some good. That was the part of their relationship that she was going to focus on…not the twinges of regret about never having sex with him again. Never laughing about stupid stuff in the wee hours of the morning.
“Kris?”
Her attention snapped back to her twin. “Yes. Definitely. I’m all about meeting your boss.”
“Just don’t embarrass me.”
“What would it feel like to have your twin embarrass you?” Kristen asked.
Whitney peeled a sticky note with a phone number off the clipboard sitting on the counter between them and stuck it onto Kristen’s forehead. “No. Idea.”
*
Waiting tables atFlintWorks was very different than serving drinks at the Silver Bow. For one thing, her body was fully covered. When Kristen looked down, she saw the bright blue FlintWorks staff shirt, rather than her breasts threatening to escape lace-edged red satin. And she wore running shoes instead of fishnets and bootie shoes. Her feet were happy. She was happy.
After breaking in on Sunday afternoon, she had a crazy patchwork schedule. An afternoon followed by an evening, followed by a lunch shift, followed by another evening. No rhyme or reason, because she was filling in here and there as needed, but she didn’t mind. It wasn’t as if she had anything else on her agenda, other than the continued job search and her prospective interview in Reno.
Her cousins, Shane and Cody Marvell, had stopped by toward the end of her first shift and invited her to the ranch to help with the spring fencing repairs. She declined their kind offer, but enjoyed catching up with her rowdy cousins after she’d clocked out.
“You’re into numbers, right?” Shane’s question jerked her back to the present. “Accounting and stuff like that?”
“Yes.”
Shane dropped an arm over the back of his chair in a casual gesture. “Can you help me with my taxes?”
Kristen’s jaw dropped. “You know taxes are due on April 15th, right?”
Her cousin gave her a charming smile. “I filed for an extension. I want to write off some of my rodeo expenses, but I don’t want to pay penalties later. A lady friend of mine barrel races, and she just got nailed. Wasn’t pretty.”
“I’m not a tax person per se…but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Maybe you could help me, too,” Cody said.
