When I Fall in Love(26)
But she hadn’t worked as a waitress without cultivating a few skills. She zeroed in on a woman sitting with two towheaded boys playing with their prawns, ketchup slathering their cheeks. Next to them, a small pile of used napkins signaled defeat. Grace swung by the condiment table, grabbed a handful of supplies, and headed their way.
Walking by, she feigned nonchalance, then said, “Oh, my, you look fresh out of napkins.” She held out the offering.
The mother looked up at her. “Thank you, that’s so kind.”
“Not at all. I’m just waiting for my—” she glanced at Max—“friend to get us some lunch. I’ll get more napkins.”
“We’re nearly finished. Would you like our seats?”
Score. Grace retrieved more napkins, then helped the mother gather the debris. “Are you tourists?”
“Oh no. The kids and I just love the shrimp. It’s worth the drive. We live in Pearl City. My husband is stationed here. I’m from Iowa.”
“Minnesota.”
“I should have recognized the accent. It’s nice to meet a fellow Midwesterner.” She propped one of the boys on her hip. He reached for her shell necklace and played with it.
“How long have you lived here?”
“About six months.”
“And . . .” Grace checked on Max’s progress. “How was it? Moving to Hawaii?”
The woman caught her other youngster before he could run away. “You can do anything as long as you are with the one you love.”
Right.
The woman had followed her gaze to Max. “He’s very handsome.”
Grace stood, flummoxed for a moment. “We’re . . . just friends.”
“Well, Hawaii is an easy place to fall in love,” the woman teased. “Have a great time.”
Uh-huh.
Grace slid onto the bench and set the napkins across from her to save Max’s place as she watched the woman walk away.
Fall in love. Right. It was enough that she was here in Hawaii, so far out of her comfort zone that she couldn’t even see it on the horizon. She wasn’t going to be so stupid as to let her heart fall for a guy who lived for adventure only when he wasn’t traveling all over America playing hockey. Max, with his big life, was exactly the wrong kind of guy for a small-town girl.
But it didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. Just like he and Owen were friends.
“What are you thinking about?”
She looked up as Max set a basket in front of her. Then stared down at the fresh shrimp bathed in garlic and lemon butter, the two scoops of rice and a wedge of lemon, and answered, “Lunch.”
“Indeed.” He sat across from her, setting yet more napkins on the pile between them. “Enjoy.”
If it killed her, yes, she planned to. She picked up a shrimp, refusing to wrinkle her nose.
“I usually peel off the shell, then pinch the shrimp at the tail, and pull. That way you get all the meat.” He demonstrated, shooting hot sauce across the table. “Oops.”
When she tried it, garlic splattered on her hands. “So it’s messy.”
“But oh, so good.” Max finished off his first shrimp, licking his fingers. “Now, tell me, what was so scary about summer camp?”
She didn’t expect that. Just like she didn’t expect to like the shrimp, especially with the flavors of garlic and lemon, the butter that dripped from her fingers. “Wow. That’s delicious.”
He nodded, a silly grin on his face. The fact that he’d managed not to get hot sauce on his chin seemed unfair. She felt bathed in butter.
“There’s more food adventuring in your future, if you’re ready.”
No, she wasn’t ready, not at all.
But maybe that was the point. If she waited until she was ready to taste life, it might pass her by.
“It all started with the fact that I didn’t have a swim buddy.”
He peeled and ate another shrimp. Frowned.
“See, we had a cabin of odd numbers. I think one girl didn’t show up, so when it came time to choose swim buddies, I was left out. Which meant that they had to double me up with another pair. Unfortunately, the girls came from the same church, and I swear they made a pact to destroy my camping experience. From the first day, they hated me. They threw my shoes in the lake, put sand in my sleeping bag, and banged my bunk from below in the middle of the night. The last straw was when they put my swimsuit in the chimney and covered it with soot. I couldn’t swim after that—it was filthy.”
He had stopped eating. “I have this insane urge to track down those two girls and hurt them. Please tell me that you didn’t let them get away with it.”
“What could I do? I called myself a coward and vowed to never go back. But it set the mood for camp for me, and even though the next year I had a swim buddy, I had already decided I would hate it. And then I discovered the kitchen staff.”