“There we go,” he says softly. He closes the cupboard but doesn’t move back right away.
“I need, like, eight million cigarettes,” Lou moans. The sound of her voice startles me, and I quickly duck under Sam’s arm and hurry out to the front. Dex and Andy refill and swap out the condiment bottles while Asha sits on top of the counter, legs dangling. It would seem inappropriate, except there are no customers left except this old guy in the corner booth, eating a plate of scrambled eggs with coffee. Breakfast at night. People are weird.
“I thought you quit,” Dex says to Lou.
“It’s a process.” She comes up to him and links her arm through his, leans her cheek on his shoulder. “Besides, I deserve a relapse. Tonight was brutal.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be fun to count the drawer,” he points out. Lou rolls her eyes.
Asha kicks her heels lightly against the counter. “Chelsea really helped. It would have been way worse without her,” she says, and I shoot a surprised look her way, a little embarrassed.
“I noticed,” Dex says, and then to me, “Thanks for jumping in.”
“You pretty much saved my life,” agrees Lou. “Or at least my sanity, if nothing else. Too bad we can’t have you around all the time.”
Dex twirls the ketchup bottle around in his hand, considering. “Maybe we can.”
Wait—what?
“What do you say?” he asks me. “Want to be our new dish girl?”
The thing is, I do like this place and everyone who works here—well, okay, so maybe things are kind of complicated when it comes to Andy—and they all know about the no-speaking deal, so obviously it isn’t a concern. It really shouldn’t be, since as far as I can tell, the duties of a dish girl don’t require much verbal communication, anyway. And maybe it would convince my parents that I’m not only sane but responsible. That I’m displaying maturity. Something they’re always saying is oh so important and that I’m oh so lacking.