Pull it together, Walls. “Sure thing,” I mutter, hefting the pitcher a bit higher and heading over. My heart is beating too fast and my face is too warm. I reach toward the first glass I see, which is Bethany’s, but the angle is weird with the booth so crowded and my arm tenses and shakes. Be careful not to—
The pitcher tips and, before I can right it, spills.
An entire pitcher of ice and soda.
Onto Clayton.
Carville’s.
Lap.
Bethany shoves Spencer out of the way before leaping from the table with a shrill, piercing squeal. Shock gives way to anger as her gaze settles on me. Meanwhile, the others—Tricia Whitman, I register dimly, and Trevor Cheng—react just as quickly, scrambling up with a series of expletives and shouts.
Clayton’s face twists and contorts, his green eyes widening. But he can’t stand up because he’s too far into the booth next to the wall.
“Oh shit! I am so sorry.” I turn and grab a stack of napkins off a neighboring table, not bothering to ask permission from the people sitting there. “That was totally my fault. I just…” I come at him with the napkins, trying to help soak up the worst of the damage.
His eyes widen further.
A beat too late—way, way too late—I realize I’m now clutching a fistful of soggy napkins in the very near vicinity of Clayton Carville’s junk.
“Oh my God.” This cannot be happening. It just…I refuse. “I’m…” I pull my hand away like it’s on fire, except it’s actually the rest of my body that’s burning. “I was trying to…I…”
The usual hum of voices, the jostling of ice cubes in glasses, the scrape of knives against plates, all of it has stopped. It’s a silence that’s only broken by the sloppy thud of soggy napkins when they fall from my hand. “I’m just going to…” I gesture vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. “Yeah. Okay.”
I don’t bother waiting to watch his expression change—I don’t think his eyes could get any bigger now, lest they fall out of his head entirely and go rolling across the linoleum—before I turn around and book it toward the relative safety of the bussing station. Never have I been so grateful for that cheap polyester tablecloth hanging from its three-dollar tension rod. The smell of stale garlic and olive oil is permanently infused into the fabric, but for the moment, it offers a spot to disappear.
I lean on the narrow counter next to a tub of dirty dishes, digging the heels of my hands into my eyeballs. I can probably hide out back here until Clayton and his friends leave, right? They can’t possibly stick around that much longer. I dig my phone out of my back pocket and text Ruoxi about what happened, but I can tell by the way there’s no delivery confirmation that she’s got her phone turned off already.
And just like that, I am officially out of friends.
Finally I hear Bethany’s voice up at the register.
“We’ll, ah, comp you those sodas,” Nonna assures her.
Then I hear the jangle of the bells over the door as they all head out into the parking lot. I let out a long, shaky breath, scrubbing my soda-sticky hands through my hair before finally pulling back the curtain—
And nearly crash right into Clayton, who’s just coming out of the bathroom with an enormous wet stain covering his entire crotch.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, holding both hands up to show I’m unarmed. “Really. For spilling on you and for”—What, Rachel? Nearly jumping to third base in your place of business with a stack of Sysco two-ply napkins?—“all of it.”
“It’s fine,” Clayton says with a shake of his head. “Really, don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I’ll worry about it,” I assure him. “Like…for the rest of my life, probably. I’ll be moldering away in the nursing home, and I won’t know my own name or how to feed myself, but I will remember this.”
Clayton laughs, though I’m not actually joking. “Honestly,” he says, “I’ve had an entire cooler of Gatorade dumped on me at games before. This was nothing.”
“Well.” I duck my head, wiping my palms on my cheap black work pants. God, why does he have to be so gracious? Why can’t he just be a dick so I can move on with my life? “Thank you.”
I’m expecting him to go, but instead he looks around the restaurant for a moment, taking in the dessert case full of tiramisu and cannoli, and the black-and-white photos of Venice, and the community bulletin board in the foyer with its flyer for dog walkers and a local kids theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. “So you work here, huh?” he asks.
“Yup,” I say, leaving out the part where this isn’t actually the first time I’ve been his waitress. He came in with his parents and sister one Sunday night halfway through junior year, all of them sitting at a four-top near the TV and ordering a plain pie and Caesar salads. They fought, I remember suddenly, his mom and dad hissing at each other in low voices I couldn’t totally make out no matter how long I lingered, wiping and rewiping nearby tables. Somehow I’d totally forgotten that until right this minute, like it never properly synthesized with all the other information I carry around about Clayton inside my head. “My parents own it.”
Clayton nods. “That’s cool.”
“It has its moments,” I agree. “I mean, today I dropped a full pitcher of Italian soda on a guy from my high school, so…”
He laughs again then, his voice gravelly and the tiniest bit hoarse; that’s two genuine laughs out of Clayton Carville in one conversation, for those of you playing along at home. I’m feeling pretty freaking pleased with myself until he opens his mouth again. “You know,” he says, and his tone is so, so easy, “next time, you should think about coming to the party instead of watching it from across the creek.”
Oh, just kill me. I open my mouth to deny it even as I’m flushing red and blotchy all over, but what the hell am I going to say? He saw me. “Busted,” I admit, covering my face with one hand. “I’m sorry. God, you must think I am such a basket case.”
“Nah.” Clayton shakes his head. “That’s not what I think.” Then, before I can even begin to try and figure out what that means: “Hey,” he says, “you know my buddy Spence? The guy who was just here with me?”
“The one who’s probably waiting for you outside right now?” Wondering why you’re wasting time talking to Westfield’s most awkward recent graduate?
“Yeah, him.” Clayton smiles. “He’s actually having some people over tonight, if you want to stop by.”