Georgie, All Along (58)
“I was just telling Georgie how wonderful it is here!” She gestures again at the jam jar, but definitely Evan doesn’t get that in the same way I do. His whole life has probably been full of tiny fancy jam jars, and I’m newly annoyed at Levi. He’s a tiny fancy jam jar person, too, even if he doesn’t seem like it now.
“More wonderful now that we have her on our team,” Evan says, and Bel probably decides on what sort of bouquet I should carry down the aisle. “She’s a real pro at this.”
Good thing you didn’t see me almost put coffee in a water glass, I think, but also, my face flushes from the compliment. Or maybe it’s not so much from the compliment as it is from the way Evan’s giving it—as if he’s offering it up to parents who are desperate to be proud of their newly employed kid.
“Evan, this is my husband, Henry Yoon. Harry, Evan’s family has owned this inn for . . . oh, decades!”
Evan and Harry shake and nod at each other in that specific way businessmen seem to have with each other—more of a sizing-up than a greeting. It’s strangely funny, seeing them meet. They’re both handsome by almost any standards, but honestly Evan—love of my teenaged life—suffers next to Harry. Evan is high school football team handsome; Harry is black-and-white watch ad handsome.
I’m thinking about what kind of handsome Levi is (carpenter handsome, loves his dog handsome, leaves you wanting handsome) while Bel makes one of those professional-people extended introductions, explaining to Evan that Harry is in finance and explaining to Harry that Evan manages this place. They slip easily into chat about their respective jobs, and even though I could keep standing here quietly, contemplating whether toaster-fixing counts as a kind of handsome, I also start to feel strangely out of place. Should I ask someone whether they need any more miniature jam or a fresh glass of orange juice? Sure, Evan works here, too, but it’s not as if he’s serving this morning. He’s beside me in flat-front gray pants and a crisply pressed button-up, the sleeves rolled neatly up to his elbows, and I am wearing a uniform and one of those half aprons where I can tuck everything from my server books and extra pens to the cheat sheet I made for myself about the breakfast menu.
It gets worse when Evan puts a hand on the back of one of the chairs around the four-top and Bel immediately invites him to join her and Harry. When he smiles and sits right down, I’m frozen for long seconds, because I don’t know if I should—
“Can I get you a coffee?” I blurt. My brain went right on ahead and decided that the proper thing to do here was to wait on him.
Evan looks up at me, his smile crooking charmingly. It’s such a bland smile, easily given. I pray that he sends me to get him a scone or something, but instead he looks at his watch and says, “Aren’t you about off the clock?”
I clear my throat. “Almost, but—”
“Join us,” he says, gesturing to the seat beside him, then pulling it out.
“Oh yes! Please, Georgie, sit down with us for a few minutes,” Bel says, a teasing twinkle in her eye.
I would try to give her a meaningful look meant to convey that I made out with this man’s brother two nights ago, but since he’s watching, waiting for my answer, I instead try to make my excuses, gesturing vaguely over my shoulder. “I should start helping with cleanup.”
“I insist,” says Evan, still holding out that chair. “One coffee.”
Bel pins an updo idea to the “Georgie and Evan Wedding” board that now lives in her brain. I can tell it from the look on her face.
I hide my sigh and smooth my apron, taking a seat. “For a minute,” I mutter, though I don’t think anyone hears me. Evan catches Remy’s eye and waves them over, and if I could rocket ship myself directly into the sun, I probably would. Remy and I are equals, colleagues, and now I’m slacking and getting some kind of weird special treatment.
“Rem,” he says, “do you mind getting me and Georgie each a coffee?”
I nearly groan in embarrassment, mouthing an apology to Remy before they go. They at least look understanding, as if they’ve once or twice been roped into one of Evan’s thoughtless whims, but I’ll still apologize later. I will change the water in every mop bucket in this place.
“Did you want anything to eat?” Evan asks. “I can tell Rem to—”
“No!” I say, overloud, and then try to correct it. “Thanks, but no. I ate before I came in.”
This is also a lie, because I couldn’t face the fixed toaster again, but obviously I don’t want to explain that to anyone. Including myself.
“Want the rest of my scone?” says Bel, and all of a sudden, everything about this situation strikes me as grimly, ironically funny. I have a very detailed fic entry in my notebook where Bel and I were on a double date with our perfect boyfriends. Hers was Joe Jonas, and mine was the guy sitting right next to me. I wrote about Joe and Evan becoming best friends. I do not know what I imagined Joe Jonas and Evan Fanning would have in common, but it could not possibly be more boring than golf, which is what Evan and Harry start talking about as soon as I’ve passed on the scone.
Levi would never talk about golf, I think grudgingly, which is so off the rails that I seriously contemplate dumping the coffee Remy brings me onto my own lap. It’d give me a valid reason for excusing myself.