RUSH (City Lights, #3)(6)

Icy dread filled my veins. “It is?”

But there was no time to talk. The restaurant was filling up.

Annabelle’s was a breakfast/lunch bistro that catered to the leisurely diner—it didn’t even open until eight a.m. But the diners now were more impatient than leisurely, and I spent the entire shift playing catch-up while trying my hardest to keep the smile plastered onto my face. Maxine—Skeletor, to Anthony—watched me like a hawk. All it would take was one complaint about cold spinach Florentine or a too-slow coffee refill and I’d be toast.

I made it through the rush without a complaint though my tips were evidence enough I was off today. We wouldn’t get cashed out until the end of the shift but I could already do the math: today wasn’t going to be a good day. It had been a slow March already and I bit my lip, as the calculations added up in my head. I’d have to have two killer nights—and I mean killer—at my second job bartending this weekend if I had a prayer of making rent.

I smoothed my hair and took a breath, determined to have a better lunch than breakfast…and then my morning was saved. The bussers were moving tables together in my station.

“Ten-top,” Anthony crowed, as we watched the group of well-dressed people come in. He clutched my arm. “Girl, that’s Neil Patrick Harris.”

“What? No…” I looked and sure enough, at the center of the group was the handsome actor, talking and laughing easily with his friends.

Anthony nudged my elbow and flashed me his own brilliant smile. “Your knight in shining armor.”

“You got that right,” I said. Neil Patrick Harris’ ten-top was going to save my month.

I heaved a steadying breath, determined to not make a fool of myself in front of the celebrity and his friends, and readied my notepad.

“Screw this f*cking guy!”

Behind me, at the register, a young man in a backwards baseball cap was jabbing an angry text into his phone. The entire restaurant stopped to look—Annabelle’s wasn’t the sort of place for outbursts. But this was also New York City; the customers went back to their conversations a moment later, unperturbed, as the young man threw up his hands.

“Tell that bastard he can get his own damn food,” he said to Maxine and stormed out.

Commotion over, I turned my focus to my table when Maxine’s cold, clipped voice called me back.

“Charlotte, if you please?”

I hurried to the register. “Yes?” I said tightly.

Maxine pushed a short stack of to-go boxes wrapped up in a plastic bag toward me. “I need you to make this delivery.”

My heart dropped. “But…I just got sat…”

“Anthony can take it. This is important.” She jerked her pointy chin at Anthony.

He hesitated but Maxine waved her hand at him, and he looked at me helplessly, mouthing I’m sorry. I watched him walk up to my table, in my section, to wait on my Neil Patrick Harris.

Maxine pursed her heavily painted lips. “This is the Lake delivery. I know it’s not the same as a Broadway star, but all of our customers are equally important, aren’t they?”

“But the big party…it’s my section. Why not send Anthony? Or Clara?”

Behind us, Anthony said something and the entire NPH table burst out laughing. Maxine arched a pencil-thin eyebrow at me knowingly. I sighed and nodded. Anthony was warm and personable and could make ten people—including a famous entertainer—laugh in a heartbeat. I would have done an adequate job but I was ‘tense’ as Maxine was fond of telling me.

“You need to hurry,” she was saying now, handing me a slip of paper with an address, her rings and bracelets clanking. “It seems Mr. Lake has lost another assistant but let’s not lose his business, hmmm?”

I nodded dully. Mr. Lake, whoever he was, ordered from Annabelle’s at least once a week, and some surly or bored-looking assistant—they seemed to change every few weeks—came to pick it up. Judging by the angry young man’s outburst, Lake had lost another one.

I took up the sack of takeout, cast a last, lingering glance at Neil Patrick Harris’ party, and went out. I tried to look on the bright side: maybe this Lake guy was a fantastic tipper.

Yeah, dream on.

From what I’d heard, he was some kind of temperamental shut-in. Even if he was a twenty-percenter, there was no way the tip on this delivery would match the gratuity on a party of ten. The best I could hope for was to make the delivery and hurry back before the lunch rush.

The address was a townhouse at West 78th, about a ten-minute walk. I hurried out at a brisk pace. If the guy had ordered eggs, they were already cold and the last thing I needed was Lake calling up Maxine and bitching that I’d been too slow.

I walked down Amsterdam Street and took a right on 78th. It was a gorgeous spring day. The air was warm but not yet sticky with summer humidity, and the sky was bursting with sunshine. 78th was a clean-swept, tree-lined street with typical New York buildings rubbing shoulders, one to the next, and the Lake residence a red brick three-story townhouse wedged tight between two brownstones. I walked up the three steps to the front door and rang the bell.

No answer.

I rang again, and was about to ring a third time when a hard, young man’s voice answered over the intercom, his tone brittle with sarcasm. “What, did you come back for a reference?”