Anthony wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. “I’m great, and hell yeah, it’s been too long. How’ve you been?”
“I’m good,” she said as she pulled away to look at him.
“Well, you look great,” he said, sizing her up.
“Thank you, so do you. So, what are you up to these days?”
“Just working and trying to keep out of trouble. How ’bout you?” He eyed her with a smirk, taking her in again from top to bottom. “You must be married now, right? No way a hot thang like you hasn’t been snatched up yet. Damn, girl.”
She smiled, about to respond, when someone behind her cleared his throat loudly. She turned around to see Orlando searching for something behind the counter. He’d been upstairs on a call earlier, and she hadn’t even heard him come down. “Did you get a chance to make those copies I asked you to?”
“I did.” She leaned over the counter, surprised he hadn’t seen them. They were right in front of him, and she pointed at them.
“I’ll need more than these.” He picked them up and glanced up at her then behind her at Anthony before bringing his hardened stare back to her. Danica wondered about the call he’d taken upstairs. Had that put him in this odd mood? But then her thoughts were back to Anthony.
“Oh.” She turned around, feeling a little rude. “This is my friend Anthony from high school.” Motioning to Orlando, she introduced him to Anthony as her new boss. “It’s only my second week here,” she explained with a smile. Anthony smiled at Orlando, who was obviously in an uncharacteristically foul mood because he’d barely cracked a smile, but didn’t say a word before going back to searching for more behind the counter.
Turning back to Danica, Anthony smiled. “I work right up the street,” he said. “Maybe we can grab a drink after work one of these days?”
“Dani.”
Danica turned back to Orlando, who again didn’t look up because he was too busy with something on the counter, lips pressed a bit tightly. “When you’re done here, I’m gonna need you to make a few phone calls for me.”
“Of course.” She turned back to Anthony, stretching her lips, eyes wide because clearly Orlando’s phone call, whatever it was about, hadn’t gone well.
“I’m just here to pick up my car. If I can get my keys, I’ll let you be,” Anthony said, obviously interpreting her boss’s mood as him being none too pleased with her socializing on the job. Danica came back around the counter. After figuring out which were Anthony’s keys, she handed them to him. “I’ll call the shop and get your schedule,” he said, leaning in over the counter to hug her good-bye. Only, Orlando leaning in between them to grab a binder kept her from being able to, so she waved instead with a smile. “We’ll plan on getting that drink and catching up.”
“Sounds good,” she said, smiling big. “It was so nice to see you again.” As Danica grabbed one of the papers Orlando needed more copies of when Anthony walked out, Orlando turned to her with a probing stare.
“Your boyfriend didn’t strike me as someone who’d be okay with you having a drink with another dude, especially one who ate you up with his eyes the way this guy did.”
Danica froze because Orlando hit it right on the nose, and she knew why he’d be making this comment. Ted had been his usual asshole self the day they’d come in, and there was no way Orlando had missed Ted’s blatant possessiveness. Thankfully, Nine walked into the lobby just then with Alonso, another one of the shop’s young mechanics, before Danica could start pathetically spilling her guts about why she was free to have a drink with a male friend now.
“We got De La Hoya,” Nine said, clapping his hands loudly.
“No shit?” Orlando said, suddenly snapping out of his foul mood because he smiled big now.
“Just got off the phone with Beast. Nineteen seventy-six Cadillac Eldorado convertible. He wants all the upgrades and money’s no object. Ciao!” Nine did a little dance. “Break out the tequila!”
“Shit.” Orlando chuckled. “Too damn early for that and it’s Monday.”
“Man, you’re getting old.” Nine started to fake-punch Orlando in the gut as he walked by him. “I remember when we used to party no matter what day of the week it was. No matter what time.”
“I got a kid now I gotta get home to, ass.” Orlando said as he flinched back, avoiding Nine’s fake punch. “And unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of a wife to help me out all night.”
It was only as Nine and Alonso made it past them and into the computer room that it dawned on Danica and she turned to Orlando. “Is everything okay with Oreo?”
Orlando turned to her, looking confused. “He’s fine. With my mom. Why?”
Closing her eyes, Danica took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her alarmed heart. “You seemed weird there for a moment, and I thought it might be because of the call you’d been on, but then it hit me just now. Maybe it was something about the baby that had you upset.”
His confused expression morphed into a sweet one as he gazed at her in that way that had begun to melt her too often now. “He’s fine. And uh . . .” He cleared his throat, glancing away before looking back at her again. “Yeah, those conference calls can get annoying.”
As the relief seeped in, Danica smiled. “What calls did you need me to make for you?”
Once again, he wore a confused expression, and then, as if it seemed to come to him, he shook his head. “Nah, I found what I needed. No worries. Just get me those copies but no rush.” Orlando went back to work out in the shop, and Danica busied herself getting those copies made for him.
About an hour later, Byron ambled into the lobby to start his afternoon shift. He slowed when she smiled at him, peering at her strangely. “I know you from somewhere. Every time I look at you, I have to do a double take, but I can’t place you, and it’s bugging the shit out of me now.”
From the first day Danica had met Beast’s younger brother, she also thought he looked familiar, but she figured it was because he resembled his famous brother. Only now that he was saying she looked familiar, the way he was eyeing her because of it, made her nervous. “I used to work at the Super ShopMart just a few blocks up,” she offered with a shrug.
“Nah.” He shook his head, walking up to the counter and leaning his arm against it as he continued to peer. “You ever hang out at Echo Park?”
Trying her best not to be too obvious about her sudden unease, she shook her head as both Nine and Orlando walked into the lobby. “What’s going on, Byron?” Orlando asked. “You just get here?”
“Yeah, I start at one.” Byron glanced down at his watch before looking up at Danica again. “Were you ever in a gang or hung out with the Echo Park Locos?”
Nine laughed as he came around the counter. “Echo Park Locos? What is this the eighties?”
“They’re still around, ass,” Byron retorted but smiled.
“Does she look like she’d hang with those losers?” Nine asked as he opened and sifted through one of the drawers. Danica shook her head, reinforcing what Nine was implying but dared not look at Orlando.