The Tourist Attraction (Moose Springs, Alaska #1)(4)
“You know, most fur aunts and uncles bring their fur nephews back when the day is done.”
“She likes him better than the rest of us.”
Easton sipped his soda, ignoring Graham’s chastisement as successfully as Graham was ignoring his line of customers. People were used to this sort of treatment at the Tourist Trap. From what the reviews online said, apparently Graham’s lack of customer service was part of the appeal. Since Graham was all for giving the customers what they wanted, he ripped off a third of the hoagie, stuffing it into his mouth.
“Oh man, that’s good. Ash?”
“Yeah. She knows you’re sick of burgers.” Easton shrugged his shoulders. “And it’s not my job to help you with yours.”
“Shame on you. What kind of friend do you call yourself?”
“The kind that thinks you should hire an extra cook.”
Grabbing his air horn from beneath the counter, Graham smirked at his childhood friend. “Naw. There are plenty of bodies in here to help with the work. Push that trash bin into the middle of the room, will you?”
There was nothing like the piercing violence of an air horn screeching through an enclosed space to make everyone wince. With a sigh, Easton stood up and went to the end of the counter, where a fifty-five-gallon trash can with a construction-grade liner waited. Aiming a look of long suffering at Graham, Easton dragged it to the center of the room. The song on the jukebox ended, and everyone was too busy staring at Graham in surprise to put on another one.
This was just how Graham wanted it.
“All right, you dirty people,” Graham called out to his customers. “Time to clean up. No more food until you throw your crap in the trash.”
He lobbed a wet dishrag to a woman in diamond drop earrings, then a second to Lana and a third to an annoyed-looking Easton. Graham gave them all a cheerful wave as he added a stack of clean rags and a little red bucket of sanitized water on the counter between customer plates.
“Wipe your tables, folks, because I’m not the maid. If you don’t like it, the door’s right over there.” Graham pointed toward the entrance, just past a life-size cedar moose bust mounted on the wall. Far more impressive work than any he’d ever successfully carved, the moose’s rack alone was over five feet across. “Don’t knock yourselves out on Frank the Mounted Moose’s magnificence as you leave.”
For some reason, they laughed, as if this was all part of the fun.
While Easton grunted at the customers to throw their crap away, generally terrifying them with his presence, Graham used the rare moment free of expectations to finish his sandwich.
A soft clearing of a woman’s throat was meant to get his attention. Graham ignored her.
“Excuse me.”
“No more drinks until the room is clean.” Graham kept his focus on the hoagie. “Grab a rag, and we’ll get there faster.”
“Actually, I was hoping to just have a glass of water.”
There was a lot of money in this room—and didn’t it disgust him that he could identify an Armani suit on sight—but when Graham glanced up from his sandwich, the woman in front of him looked normal. She was wearing a worn Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and torn jeans, traveling clothes most likely, and her brown hair was twisted up in a messy bun. Actually messy, not those artfully staged messes the stylists got paid to create in the resort’s spa.
Shoving her glasses further up on her slender nose, the woman dug in her pocket. “Extra ice, please.”
In a world of too many Gucci purses, this one used her pockets. Graham liked her already. “Didn’t anyone warn you about the water here?”
His customer tilted her head to the side, a long tendril of grown-out bangs falling into her eyes. “What’s wrong with the water?”
The tendril wasn’t sexy. Lodged in between her glasses and her face, she had to cross her eyes and wrinkle her nose a few times to free it. Amusement curled through him, but Graham didn’t let it come through in his voice.
“Ever seen what a three-quarter-ton moose with a full bladder can do to a fresh spring?”
Suspicion and jet lag weren’t a good look on anyone, but with one eyebrow raised, her glasses couldn’t maintain their perch. If she’d taped them with Scotch tape, it couldn’t have been more adorably dorky.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Behind the counter, where she wouldn’t be able to see, Graham used his soda gun to fill crystal clear water into a glass with ice. Then he added a drop of the yellow food coloring he kept for this exact purpose before giving the water a spin with a spoon. The drink he gave her was tinted faintly yellow, the color of pale urine.
Either she didn’t mind a dash of pee in her water or she was too tired to care, because she took the glass. That eyebrow did climb a little higher.
Easton was still pushing the trash bin around the room, so Graham watched her as she lifted the drink to her lips.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked just before she took a sip.
She paused, lips to the rim of her glass. “You wouldn’t risk the health and safety of all these people serving tainted water.”
Graham chuckled. “Glad to know you have faith in me, Zoey.”
Furrowing her brow, she of the glasses and ice water frowned, the tendril of hair falling back in between her glasses and nose. “How do you know my name?”