“About that.” I sucked in a breath and blurted the rest of my sentence out without taking another one. “I lost his card. I’ve tried looking his number up, but there’s no mobile listed, and I don’t really want to call his office. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t know who I was to return my call anyway.”
“You lost his card?” She released a low, injured-sounding moan. “How?”
“I don’t know. It was in my car. I was looking at it when I was speaking to you on the phone after I left the open house, but then I put it somewhere and I can’t find it.”
“You’re hopeless.” Another moan, then she smacked a hand against the steering wheel. “But the show must go on and a house must be found. I’ll come with you tomorrow. We’ll find another one of his open houses and just talk to him there.”
“I already checked the website and there are no more open houses listed under his name for the rest of the month.”
“Damn it.” She bit her upper lip. “Okay, then you’re just going to have to call his office. It’s not such a big difference, right? He’s a professional. He probably returns all calls to his cell and his office.”
“I don’t know. It feels like there is a difference. Let me think about it. Like I said, I think I’ll take the rest of this weekend off anyway. Give myself a little time to adjust again before I continue the search.”
“I love how kind you are to yourself,” she said as she parked outside the massive basketball arena. “But I don’t know where you find the patience to give yourself time when you know you need it. I’m not even the one moving and I can’t wait until it’s time.”
I rested my head against the seat and laughed. “It can be frustrating, but it’s worth it. Anyway, what do you need me to do to help tonight?”
“I’m going to get set up, but there’s a lot more people here than I expected.” Her eyes tracked from one side of the huge field that offered additional parking to the other. “Do you know the arena itself has parking, too? This is just the overflow, which means it’s packed in there.”
I whistled under my breath. The field extended far beyond the well-lit edge of it near where we were parked, and there wasn’t a free space in sight. “It’s going to be busy when the game lets out. That’s for sure.”
“Yeah.” She rolled her lips into her mouth and narrowed her eyes as she thought. “Okay, this is what we’re going to do. There are a couple of items on my regular menu we won’t be able to offer. I just don’t have the inventory to do it and it’s better not to offer it from the get-go than having to explain to customers who have been waiting in line that we don’t have it.”
“What if we just sold out regularly?”
She shrugged. “That’s different, but it’s still a pain. We know tonight that we won’t be able to offer a few things, so better to get rid of them altogether than to spend so much more time explaining that we don’t have them.”
“You’re the expert here. I’ll get the board out. You just tell me what needs to come off.”
“Thank you. You’re saving my life here.”
“It’s nothing you wouldn’t do and haven’t done for me.” I smiled and hopped out the door before either of us got emotional.
Beth and I extended the awning of her truck and opened up the window. Then we wiped down all the surfaces and prepped the ingredients we could. Once that was done, I set out a variety of sauces on a plastic table outside while Beth did a few last-minute checks.
The game had already let out by the time we were done, and people were starting to leave the arena. They looked like ants pouring out of a nest, crawling everywhere and covering every surface I could see.
“Hey, let me know which items to take off the board,” I said as I hoisted the second of two black boards that went outside the truck. There was another board on the inside, but Beth had already handled that one.
Loud music coming from the arena and starting up in many of the cars around us drowned out her answer. After making sure both boards were standing up around where I knew she’d want them, I headed back to the truck.
“Sorry.” She smiled. “I tried yelling, but I guess my voice just didn’t make it all the way to you.”
Plucking one of the paper menus from the stack on the counter, she crossed off several items with a pen she had tucked behind her ear. “There you go. If you could take those off, that would be great.”
“You got it.” I took the menu and headed back to the boards.
Her regular menu was written on them in her loopy, neat handwriting. I held up the paper she’d given me and erased the chalk lines containing the items we wouldn’t be selling.
“Elsie, is that you?” a smooth baritone voice that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else said from behind me.
I spun around to see that I had been right. Taydom was standing there with a foam finger in one hand and a heavily painted fan at his side.
Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
His eyes crinkled with amusement as he took a few steps closer to me. “Fancy meeting you here.”
God, please don’t let me make a complete fool of myself again. I didn’t know if my prayer was going to work, but it was damn sure worth a try. I really, really didn’t want to look like a complete idiot in front of this guy again.
I did have some self-respect and I desperately wanted to cling to it.
Chapter 10
Taydom
Elsie looked surprised when she turned around, and not pleasantly so. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had looked at me quite like she did at that moment, with a mixture of shock, alarm and, worst of all, distress.
I, on the other hand, felt pretty damn lucky right then. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping out with the food truck,” she said, her voice wobbly. “You?”
“I came to catch the game.” I stuck my thumb out and jerked it over my shoulder. “You know, just like all those other thousands of people over there.”
She frowned, then rolled her eyes. I thought I caught the beginnings of a smile, but she wiped her face smooth too fast to be sure. “Oh, right. That’s what all these people are doing here. I was wondering what was going on.”
My brows rose. Smart, cute, and funny. “What can I say? We have these gatherings sometimes where we all come out to watch some grown men chase after a ball. It’s considered to be fun by some people.”
“Quite a lot of people, I’d say.” She didn’t try to hide her smile this time, and her entire face lit up with it. “You want a hot dog? I can help you skip the line.”
“Only if you have it with me.” I felt Andrew’s disbelief at my side but I didn’t look at him. This was a chance to fix my rookie mistake, and I wasn’t passing it up.
Elsie hesitated for a beat, then shrugged. “Sure, why not? Let me just check in with Beth. I’ll be back.”
Andrew waited until she had at least turned around to step in front of me. “What the fuck, dude? Why are you trying to pick up girls at the food truck? I thought we were going out for that.”