“What happened?” Hannah asked.
“We met my sophomore year. I knew I was gay, but I hadn’t done the whole coming out thing. She was the first person that made me want to, though.” She paused and sipped her beer. “She was in the mechanical engineering program at the University of Chicago but was on my campus for a lecture series, and we literally bumped into each other. We went for coffee and were together for about nine months after that.”
“And then?” Hannah asked.
“She transferred to a school in Michigan when she decided to change programs, and UC didn’t have what she wanted. The transfer wasn’t a big deal, and we were dating long-distance when the shooting happened.”
“What?” Hannah looked at Alyssa again.
“The Amstel Central University shooting,” Alyssa explained.
“Oh, my God!” Hannah realized. “She was-”
“Killed. Yeah,” Eva responded. “She was one of four that day.” The day Eva was referring to was the day a disgruntled student opened fire in one of the small campus buildings.
“I had no idea. I’m so sorry, Eva,” Hannah said.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I’ve moved on. I obviously still think about her and what might have been or what she would have done with her life.” She finished her beer and pushed the bottle toward the middle of the table just as their appetizer arrived. “Anyway, I’m just going to miss that place. I feel lost now. What do I do tomorrow? Where do I go? I have nowhere to go.”
“Hey, look,” Hannah motioned to the door as she patted Alyssa’s arm. “It’s that girl that hit on Rachel when she visited last time.”
“Oh yeah, it is,” Alyssa realized.
Eva decided the change in topic was a good idea because she was getting more depressed and turned her head to see Ember walking toward the bar.
“She gave up when Rachel told her she had a girlfriend.”
“Barely,” Alyssa replied. “She still asked for her number.”
“But she didn’t really expect to get it. It was all bravado. She left her alone.”
“I guess. Rachel was tempted to just give it to her,” Alyssa said. “It’s a good thing she loves Steph because that girl is hot.” Hannah shoved her lightly. “What?” Alyssa said laughing. “I love you. Hello, I’m the one that proposed. I’m just saying she looks good and Rachel joked about it.”
“That better be all she did. I like Stephanie.” Hannah turned to look back at Ember.
“Her name is Ember,” Eva said.
“You know her?” Alyssa asked.
“I met her today at a bar.”
“So, this is the second bar you’ve been to today? I guess it has been a pretty terrible day for you,” Hannah said.
“Hey, you never told me how that date went last night,” Alyssa remarked. “The other hot doctor.”
“She just wanted to hook up,” Eva answered without turning back to face them.
Her eyes remained focused on Ember who was no longer wearing the casual t-shirt from earlier, but instead wore a pale blue princess cut button-down shirt and somewhat tight khaki pants with what looked to be black tennis shoes. Her hair was still pulled back but now looked neatly in place.
“She just wanted to hook up?” It was Hannah’s voice, but Eva wasn’t answering the question.
She was still staring at the stranger she’d turned down earlier today and had been thinking about in between moments of worry about her future. Had Ember been flirting with her? Had she asked her out, but not directly? What had she meant about how she used to be like Kayla?
“Earth to Eva.” Alyssa tossed a fried jalapeno in her direction.
“Hey!” Eva turned to face them. “What?”
“What’s going on with you?” Alyssa asked.
“Nothing. I just… I don’t know.” She held her face in her hands.
“Um… she’s…” Hannah started but stuttered and Eva looked up.
“Hey, Scout.” It was Ember’s voice.
Eva stared at Alyssa and Hannah who were looking between her and the woman now standing behind her left shoulder.
“Scout?” Hannah asked.
Eva turned to see Ember standing there.
“It’s either that or Elizabeth Bennet and since you had a crush on her, I thought that would be weird,” Ember responded and smiled.
“You could call me by my actual name.”
“Where’s the fun in that, Scout?” She winked at her. “Funny running into you again today.”
“Yeah, does a member of your family own this place too?” Eva turned around entirely in her seat.
“Almost.” She pointed at the woman behind the bar. “Big Brother Zack is engaged to Grace back there.” She looked back at Eva. “Grace’s dad owns this place. They met at a small business owners’ meeting a few years ago, and they’ve been together ever since. We call his place and this one the dueling bars in my family.” She glanced in Hannah and Alyssa’s direction. “You two look familiar.”
“You hit on my best friend once,” Alyssa responded and took a sip of her wine.
Hannah leaned into Alyssa’s body and whispered something in her ear that was probably a reprimand, but Eva couldn’t hear it.
“Oh, sorry?” Ember asked and then looked back at Eva. “How are you doing, with the job thing?”
“I’m here drowning my sorrows, obviously,” she replied and motioned to her empty beer.
“Hold on.” Ember held up her index finger at Eva, walked back toward the bar and spoke to the woman she’d identified as her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Grace handed over a bottle and Ember walked back to their table. “There. Now, you can keep drowning.” She smirked and shrugged at the same time. Eva found it utterly adorable. “And now, I have to go. I have to get to work.”
“The restaurant?”
“Yeah.” Ember looked at Hannah and Alyssa and then back at Eva again. “If you get done here drowning your sorrows, maybe you can stop by later.” She lifted one corner of her mouth in an almost shy smile. “Dinner on me. Well, technically on my parents, but free either way.”
Eva smiled as she looked down at the ground.
“I think we’ll be here for a while,” Alyssa replied for her. “We just got our food.” She motioned to the appetizer platter they’d barely touched.
Ember nodded in Alyssa’s direction in an unspoken understanding.
“Right,” she said. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around then.”
Eva looked up, but Ember was already walking toward the door of the bar. She turned to face Alyssa.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because she hit on Rachel even after she found out Rachel had a serious girlfriend. She’s probably just one of those girls,” Alyssa answered.
“You don’t know that, babe.” Hannah placed her hand on Alyssa’s. “She seems nice.”
“Now she seems nice,” Alyssa retorted. “I just don’t want you getting your heart broken. You don’t do one-night stands, and you’ve already had one woman pulling that crap on you this week.”
Eva just shook her head. “Let’s eat this and order more. Then, I’ll figure out what the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
CHAPTER 4
Ember made her way toward the small Italian restaurant that had been in her family for three generations. She passed Samantha, the bartender, who was mixing something in a blender for one of the customers, and waved. The hostesses at the podium were paying more attention to their cell phones than to the actual guests in the lobby, but she didn’t feel like scolding the teenagers again tonight. She nodded in the direction of the servers as she headed into the kitchen. She heard her father yelling in Italian at her cousin Michael, who was the head chef.
“Hey, mom,” she greeted her mother who sat in front of the old desktop computer in the claustrophobic back office.
“Hey, honey,” her mother replied. Francine Elliot, who took on the role of the accountant of the restaurant, had
a strong Italian heritage with the deep skin color and dark hair to match. Zack and November had gotten the combination of the Italian from their mother and the German from their father and ended up with skin somewhere between her caramel and his pasty white. They both had his light eyes. They’d gotten the ash-colored hair as a combination of their father’s light brown, which was now graying, and their mother’s dark hair, which had remained, but with the help of a box of color as of late. “Your father is yelling at Mikey again.”
“Because Mikey is nuts and dad is a control freak.” Ember sat in the other chair in the office. “You can head out if you want. I’m here now,” Ember told her mother.
“I’m going to take the money to the bank, and then I’ll be back to get your father. If I leave and just expect him to come home, you know he’ll stay here until closing.” Francine grabbed a bank bag and stuffed cash inside.
“That’s true. I’ll try to get him to leave Mikey alone if I can.”
“Thanks.” She stood.
“Hey mom, I was wondering if we could talk again about the expansion plan,” Ember asked and leaned forward in her chair.
“Honey, your dad told you no.”
“Dad needs to retire,” Ember replied.
“And when he does, these decisions will all be made by you and Zack, but for now-”
“Mom, Zack has his bar, and he and Grace will run Windy’s when her dad retires. He doesn’t want the restaurant.”
“You and he can decide what you want to do when the time comes. If he wants to give you his share, that will be his decision. For now, your father likes things the way they are.”
“Mom, this is your restaurant.” Ember stood up and was a full four inches taller than her mother, making it appear as if she was hovering over her. Francine backed out of the room and walked quickly toward the back door. “Mom, your father started this when he first got to America. You told me the whole story about how he came from Italy with nothing in his pockets and built this place with his own two hands and met grandma and then she came on board with the recipes. Technically, it’s your family business.”
Francine turned back before opening the door to head outside.
“Your father is my family, November Celeste.”
“The middle name is out. I’m in trouble,” Ember replied as she held the door open for her mother.
“Tell your father I will be back in ten minutes, and we’re going home. You can take this up with him at dinner on Sunday if you really want to. Are you bringing anyone?”
“No, mom. I am not bringing anyone to dinner,” Ember gritted through her teeth.
“Honestly, November, you are thirty years old. When is this whole date every girl in the world phase going to end?” her mother asked. “Your father and I would like you to find someone in this lifetime, you know?”
“Oh, I know.”
“Good. You’ve never brought anyone over, and now that Zack has Grace and they’re about to get married, I think it’s time for you to start trying to find someone, honey. At least find a date for the ceremony. You shouldn’t be there alone, but don’t bring one of those girls that you just… you know.” Her mom gave her the patented big eyes and lean-in mother stare that meant she was talking about sex but couldn’t talk about her daughter having it with another woman because it would be improper.
“Mom, I’m not doing that anymore. I told you. I’m trying, okay?”
“Okay. I trust you.”
“Enough to let me make plans to expand the restaurant?” Ember tried with clasped prayer hands.
“Your father, Ember. Talk to your father.” Francine turned and walked toward the bank.
Defeated, Ember closed the back door and headed through the kitchen.
“Dad, leave Mikey alone. He’s the chef,” she said as she walked past her still arguing father and cousin. “And Mikey, calm down. You honestly think he’s going to let you try molecular gastronomy with Old Italian recipes? Come on, man.” She patted her dad on the shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be in the office. I want to take a look at the books before-”
“You’re up front tonight,” her father told her. “Your mother has already taken care of the books. We need you in front.” He seemed upset at first, but then he softened as he looked into her eyes. “We need the pretty faces up front, so my ugly mug won’t scare away the guests.” He held her face in both hands and kissed her cheek.
“Sure,” she replied and backed up to head into the front of the house where she’d be running the floor.
As she helped busy servers run food to tables and check in with their customers, she couldn’t help but think about Eva Dash, the woman with the superhero name. Ember was rarely so taken with a woman, but those eyes in combination with that dirty blonde, somewhat unkempt hair just got to her. She could tell after spending just a few moments with Eva that she’d want to take her to bed. That was the typical response when face to face with a beautiful woman, but she’d decided to put that part of her past away. Her mother was right. She was getting too old for sleeping around and going on dates she knew would lead nowhere. She wasn’t the type of girl that always needed someone in her bed. She was the kind that could go weeks, months, and years without sex if she had to. She’d always been able to take care of herself in that way. She liked picking up women in bars though, and she’d been continually flattered when many of them wanted her to go somewhere more private, which was very clear code for sex.
She rarely turned them down in the past, until the past three months when she had only turned women down. She’d still gone to the bars with some of her friends or alone, and women had hit on her, and she’d flirted back, but every time it started heading in that direction, she’d put a stop to it.
Her moment of realization that she needed to change her player ways, as her friend Charlie had always called them, came when Kayla DeWitt flirted up a storm with another friend, Hailey. Hailey met Kayla at a bar one night and thought they hit it off. Kayla said all the right things to get her into bed and then never called her again. She watched Hailey cry and question what she’d done wrong to make Kayla not want her anymore. It happened to another of her friends and Ember began to question her own actions.
It was true that she’d typically been a one and done kind of woman, but she’d always been upfront with the women she slept with. She felt it was important to let them know where she stood. It wasn’t always a conversation about this just being a hook-up and nothing more. She liked the women she slept with. It was never just for the sex, but she’d been clear up front that if they slept together, it didn’t mean they were dating. She’d had some women that she stayed with for more than just a few pleasant sexual encounters, but her longest relationship was only a few months, and that was over a year ago. She hated women like Kayla DeWitt because they gave women like her a bad name. In Ember’s opinion, there was nothing wrong with a casual encounter, if both parties were available and on the same page. But she would never knowingly be a third party to a couple, and she’d never try to manipulate a woman into sleeping with her or make her think that there would be anything more than just sex.
She felt her anger growing as she thought about Eva sitting at the table she was currently standing in front of, while grinding pepper into a woman’s salad. She’d been impulsive when she saw Eva sitting with Kayla in the lobby and then later at the table. She had thought about pulling Eva aside or waiting for her to go to the bathroom and talking to her then, but the restaurant was packed for the romantic holiday and she never saw the chance. Instead, she’d grabbed a beverage napkin from the bar, scribbled a few words, and then approached. She’d waited for Kayla to be distracted and dropped the napkin into Eva’s lap. It wasn’t until she’d stood in the doorway looking back to gauge Eva’s reaction that she thought her words might have been ambiguous. They definitely could have been misinterpreted. Maybe Eva would think Kayla was a spy or something.
She couldn’t believe it when Eva had wa
lked into Zack’s bar. She thought she’d never see her again, but then she was standing right in front of her looking incredibly adorable in that argyle sweater with her bag slung over her shoulder. It was easy to identify her as an academic and part of that was because of her look, but the other part was because of Big Brother’s location. It was next to three campuses and benefited heavily from that location every Thursday to Sunday.
The rest of the night went on as usual. Her mother returned and took her father home, Mikey ran the kitchen, and she took care of things up front. She loved the restaurant. She loved that it was her family legacy and that she would take it over someday, but she also wanted to make it new and exciting for herself. She’d been coming to the restaurant since she was old enough to walk. She worked as a hostess, and after that, she waited tables until her dad said she was ready to help manage the restaurant. She’d been doing that now for nearly ten years, and almost everything was exactly how it had been when she’d first started. The only major difference was the new computer system to input orders, that is, if you didn’t count the difference that mattered more. She was restless. She was thirty years old and hadn’t gone to college because she never saw the point. She’d known she would take over the restaurant with her brother.
Now though, she was regretting that decision and was hoping for something more from her life. She’d thrown out the idea of adding more locations to Gio’s. She’d looked over the books and knew they were doing very well given their prime location, the fact that they owned the building outright, and the modest salaries her parents took as owners.
They could afford to expand, but every time she brought it up, her father balked, and her mother made it his decision. Her mother was from the generation that deferred to their husbands, so despite the fact that she was technically the owner and her father was merely an owner by marriage, he was the one that would have to approve any changes. He was stuck in his ways and wanted to change nothing about what he and his wife had going on with the restaurant.
Ember wanted a new restaurant because it would bring in more revenue and also give her something new to focus on. She liked the business side of running a restaurant more than the people and food. She knew she could run the new place her own way if her father ever gave her permission to do so.
The Best Lines Page 4
