Sandbridge Box Set

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

From the way he was glaring, D’ante was about ready to throw the night’s last customers out, preferably through the wide windows that overlooked the porch. Kat had stopped coming in to ask them if they wanted anything else at least fifteen minutes earlier, and Andy knew for a fact Jason had already shut down the kitchen. Andy and D’ante pointedly wiped down the tables and swept the floor. Finally, the customers got the hint (or just got tired of them dragging the benches and chairs around to sweep under the tables) and left.

“Finally,” D’ante groaned. He all but flung their mostly-empty glasses and completely-empty dessert plates into a bus bucket and gave the table the most desultory swipe with the rag Andy had ever seen. “I got these,” he told Andy, “if you’ll finish the sweeping. Lock the back door on your way out, would you, then come up to Scooter’s place? We got a little after-work thing, for having survived another Memorial Day without killing anyone. It’s a tradition.”

Andy tried to laugh, but he was too tired to put much energy into it. “I hope it’s a tradition that involves booze,” he told D’ante. “Lots and lots of booze.” He slumped against a table to breathe, no longer required to be alert and fresh for the customers.

“Yep! Kat’s had the vodka in the fridge since this morning.” D’ante bent with a groan to grab a dropped spoon off the floor and tossed it in the bucket, then ducked into the kitchen. “One last shake of those tail feathers; sooner you get there, the sooner I can get my booze on and raise a toast or three to the newly-engaged couple.”

That was a thought worth smiling about, at least. Kat had pretended to be exasperated that Jason had taken so long to get around to it, but the bright flush on her cheeks had lasted all the way through lunch and well into dinner. And every time Kat had come into the kitchen, Jason’s neck and ears had turned bright pink. They were adorable.

Andy finished the sweeping, dumped out the dustpan and all but threw everything into the closet. Last one out, he cut the dining room lights and made sure the front door was locked. He shuffled through the kitchen, tossing his apron on its hook, and set the lock on the back door before slipping through and tugging it shut behind him. He leaned on the door to make sure the latch had caught; the damp salt air had warped the frame a little. Andy made a mental note to add that to the running list of handyman-type jobs to do.

The air outside was warm and humid, but it smelled of salt rather than grease, so Andy paused to take a few deep breaths before he headed around the side of the building. He stopped at the base of the stairs that led up to the second floor, where the residences were, and then sighed. He was going to have to lift his leg high enough to put a foot on the step. Multiple times. How was life so unfair?

“Ah, stairs,” he sighed, “my old enemy.” The inside lights were glittering around the edges of the window-blinds, shadows of people moving behind them. They would be waiting for him, because they were like that, he’d found. “Right. I can do this.” He used the railing liberally, practically hauling himself upward hand-over-hand. It wasn’t until he was standing in front of the door that he realized this was Scooter’s home; that he was going to see it for the first time.

He shouldn’t be nervous about that, should he? Nah. What was there to be nervous about?

He still had to take a couple of calming breaths before he knocked.

Someone threw the door open and Andy was half-blinded by a series of camera flashes and cries of “Surprise!” and “Happy birthday!” Spots dancing in front of his eyes, he found everyone clustered in a semi-circle around Scooter’s kitchen table, which was piled with brightly wrapped presents and a cut-crystal trifle bowl that held—was that tiramisu?

Andy blinked to try to clear the spots, looking in dumbfounded surprise from face to face—there were so many of them! Scooter, Kat and Jason, D’ante, Melissa and Elaine were all grinning fit to burst. Just behind Elaine was a guy Andy only vaguely recognized as Elaine’s brother. And it was Raneisha who’d opened the door—what the hell was she doing here; it was after midnight and she had school tomorrow—

It hit him, then, that they’d done this for him. Not a post-holiday tradition, and not to toast Kat and Jason’s engagement, but…“Oh God.” It was Kat’s doing, of course, because she was the one he’d slipped up and mentioned his birthday to. Except that it had been D’ante who’d brought around one of his mother’s homemade pies, and Andy had rather nostalgically mentioned his own mother’s tiramisu. And everyone knew D’ante could barely make toast, which meant the actual creation of the dish had to have been Jason’s work. And—“Oh, God.” He was going to f*****g cry, wasn’t he, exhausted from two long, hard days and now this…

“Are you surprised, Andy? I was surprised! You didn’t give us a lot of time to plan, but I think we did okay!” Raneisha tugged him further into the room so she could close the door. “Mom said I could come, special, but you have to open my present first, because we still have school tomorrow and it’s already super late.” Raneisha practically danced over to the table and grabbed one of the packages, bright red with gold ribbons, and handed it to him. She bounced up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You’re my favorite. I’m so glad you decided to move here.”

Andy pulled himself together enough to hug her without fumbling the gift. “Me, too, ‘Neisha.” He looked over her head at the others, and smiled for them. “Me, too.”

He opened her present—candy from her mom’s store, of course, including Andy’s favorite chocolate-covered coffee beans. “These are going to be stone cold necessary tomorrow,” he said with a laugh, and hugged her again. He tore open the package and poured out a small handful for her. “Those are to get you through school tomorrow. Go on, then, you shouldn’t have stayed up this late just for me.”

Elaine nudged her brother—Arthur? maybe? “Walk her home, i***t,” Elaine hissed at him. Arthur rolled his eyes at his sister, but separated himself from the cluster of people and followed Raneisha out the door.

Kat waited until they couldn’t hear Arthur stomping down the steps anymore, then broke the seal on a bottle of vodka so authentic that the label wasn’t even written in English. Melissa was waiting with a tray of shot glasses, into which Kat poured liberal measures. Everyone grabbed one, and Kat raised hers. “First, to the birthday boy,” she said.

“To Andy!”

The vodka was smooth, barely sharper than water, and danced lightly over his tongue before lighting a blowtorch in the back of Andy’s throat.

Andy’s eyes watered. It might not have been entirely the vodka’s fault.

“And next—” She refilled the shot glasses with easy grace, not wasting a drop. “—to my husband-to-be, who has finally worked up the nerve to ask to marry his mail-order bride. Now, he must only find me a ring.” She waved her bare hand around, tellingly, which led to some cat-calls and muttered commentary.

“To Jason!”

Andy managed to join in on the chorus for that one, a half-breath late. The vodka went down even easier the second time, and it seemed his head was already spinning.

The bottle went around a third time and this time it was Scooter who raised his glass. “To a successful Memorial Day and a good season!”

“To Dockside,” Kat said, raising her glass again.

“To cake,” Jason said, exasperated, pushing aside an offer of a fourth refill. “I don’t know about any of you, but I want sugar and caffeine.” Jason handed Andy a spatula, heavy enough to be real silver, and gently pushed him in the direction of the table.

Andy could barely remember his dinner break hours and hours ago, ten minutes hunched over the staff table wolfing down a burger that had been sent back for having too much onion, and he was hungry enough that he was sure the tiramisu would taste great no matter what. But it went beyond that—it was fluffy and perfectly balanced and those were definitely not store-bought ladyfingers, or cheap instant coffee. It practically melted in his mouth. “Oh God,” Melissa said, echoing Andy’s thoughts, “I think I’m having a mouthgasm.”

There wasn’t enough liqueur in the tiramisu to be intoxicating, but Kat passed around more vodka, and Andy let himself melt into its warmth, not as an escape, but because he felt safe, and—and happy.

Kat brought him a gift and brushed aside his attempt at a protest with a kiss on each cheek. D’ante pulled his head down and made ridiculous loud kissy-noises on the top of his head. And apparently after that, they all decided that was the thing to do; Andy didn’t think he’d been kissed or hugged so much in the last year.

Elaine giggled hysterically when her card exploded glitter everywhere, and then pulled Andy’s head down (Elaine was tiny) to kiss his forehead. Jason’s hug was oddly gentle, like he was completely aware of how much stronger he was than everyone else around him, and he patted Andy on the back a few times. “Glad you stuck around, Andy,” he said. “Happy birthday.” Melissa, on the other hand, squeezed so hard she lifted Andy right off the floor.

But among the books and movie tickets and—had Elaine really given him a mix CD? That was kinda weird—it was Scooter’s present that stood out: a surfboard of his own, red with black racing stripes. And Scooter’s kiss hadn’t landed on Andy’s head or cheek. Instead, Scooter had taken hold of Andy’s jaw and drawn him up into a very soft kiss on the mouth. As far as kisses went, Andy had participated in more passionate ones, more skilled. Scooter didn’t even open his mouth, just let his lips mold against Andy’s for a moment, then pulled back. But it left Andy shaken and aching nonetheless, and if the others were jeering or teasing, he couldn’t hear over the pounding of his heart.

“Happy birthday,” Scooter said in his ear, a warm breath that made a shiver run down Andy’s spine.

Maybe it was just the exhaustion and the vodka letting Scooter bend his rules for a moment—but if it was, then Andy was going to take full advantage, and cherish every sweet second. He caught Scooter’s shirt by the collar and leaned up for another soft, gentle kiss. When he pulled back, Scooter was looking at him with wide, dark eyes, full of wonder. “The happiest,” Andy told him, in all honesty.

Scooter smiled, like Andy’s happiness truly mattered to him. “Good,” he said. “And many more.”