Page 47 of Wicked Prince

Guess this is a uniform kind of place. Oh, well. At least I don't have to worry too much about what to wear to work.

"Um, hi," I say, approaching the bar once he's done helping a customer who already looks three sheets to the wind. "I'm here for the job interview?"

He looks up for a split second, then turns back to the glasses he's piling onto a round tray.

"Yeah, Gia's in the back," he says, nodding toward a pair of stainless steel doors behind the bar.

"Right. Thanks," I say before I walk into the kitchen. I feel like an intruder right away, but the chef behind a huge vent fan hanging from the ceiling doesn't even pay me a second glance. The smell of smoke in the air is so thick I have to hold my breath.

Something tells me this place has to pay off the health inspector.

A moment later, a middle-aged woman approaches from a door on the other end of the kitchen, her gray-blonde hair styled in an angled bob that frames her plump face. She looks pleasant enough, and she smiles as soon as she sees me.

"You must be the new waitress," she says brightly, her personality a stark contrast to her curt text messages. At least, I assume she's the one I was texting with.

"That's what I'm hoping," I say, forcing a smile even though I still feel like something that just got scraped off the payment. I extend a hand to shake hers. "I'm Amelia."

"It's nice to meet you, Amelia. I'm Giovanna, but everyone just calls me Gia," she says, glancing over at the surly man who's paying more attention to his phone than whatever's sizzling on the stove in front of him. "This lively fellow is Paul. You'll mostly be working with him."

He gives me a vague grunt of acknowledgment without looking up from his phone. Something tells me Paul and I aren't going to become best friends anytime soon.

"So, do you have any previous experience in the service industry?" she asks.

"A little," I say, hoping that's not something she plans to grill me on. "But I'm a fast learner."

That seems to satisfy her, shockingly enough. She nods and motions for me to follow her out of the kitchen and toward the other end of the bar. "We need someone who can be here every weekend night from six to close, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays three to nine. Is that something you can handle?"

"Yes," I say quickly. "That sounds fine. I'm a student, so mornings and early afternoons are a little difficult, but I'm yours anytime after three."

"That's what I like to hear," she says, taking out a binder from under the bar that looks like it's been there for a decade. She places it on the counter and opens it up to pull out a single sheet of paper. "Just fill this out. I have to go help these folks and I'll be right back."

With that, she walks over to greet the group that's just walked in by the empty hostess stand, and judging from the way she embraces the woman at the front of the crowd, they're regulars.

I turn back to the application, which looks simple enough. There's a spot for references, which is kind of a concern, but I scrawl the name and number of my supervisor from my job throughout high school and hope he's still around.

When Gia comes back, she glances at my application. "Oh, finished already?" She peers over the page and I can't read anything in her expression. She finally says, "That'll do it," and puts the paper back into the binder before snapping it shut and putting it back under the counter.

"Great," I say, lingering awkwardly for a second. "Um, when do you think you'll have made a decision about the position?"

"Oh, honey, you're the only person who's applied," she says with a chuckle. "You're hired."

"Really?" I blink in disbelief. "I mean, that's great. Thank you. When should I start?"

"Come in around five on Wednesday," she says, already looking at her phone. "That'll get me time to get you set up with a uniform and show you the ropes."

"Okay," I say, feeling a huge weight lift off my chest even as another one settles. "That sounds great, thank you so much."

"Don't thank me until you've dealt with the dinner rush," she says dryly, patting my arm. "Oh, and the gig comes with all the free mozzarella sticks you can eat."

As Gia walks off, I glance over at a basket of greasy mozzarella sticks sitting across from a drunk patron who's passed out at the bar and try not to grimace.

Happy as I am to have a job, I don't think that's a perk I'm going to be taking advantage of any time soon.

ChapterNineteen

AMELIA

Ispend most of Sunday night lamenting the fact that it's too late to transfer out of my classes and into ones I can count on Lorenzo not being in. Home economics might be a pretty old-school course, but it is Bainbridge, where mob culture has never really left the ‘50s. It wouldn't usually be my cup of tea, but it's practically a guarantee Lorenzo wouldn't be there, so it has oodles of appeal all of a sudden.

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