The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Live

By Friday noon the restaurant had two hundred one-star reviews.

Most of them came from people who'd never been to Rhode Island.

"Heartless."

"The sommelier is a monster."

"Would rather eat in a dumpster than be served by someone who humiliates pregnant women."

The phone at the host stand rang every four minutes.

The hostess stopped answering it after a man called her a name I won't repeat.

At two, the owner called me into the back office.

I'd been waiting for it.

I'd already decided I wouldn't cry in front of him.

He was sitting behind his desk, eating a plate of rigatoni with his reading glasses on his head.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

"You want to quit?"

"No."

"Good," he said. "Because I don't want you to quit."

"They're going to keep calling."

"Let them call. My grandfather opened this place in 1961. People have called it worse than this. Usually about the veal."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

He pointed his fork at me.

"That boy grabbed you in my dining room. In front of my customers. Nobody grabs my people in my dining room." He went back to his rigatoni. "You want to fix it, fix it. You don't want to fix it, open the wine and let it blow over. Either way, you work Saturday."

I went back out front.

Ruthie was reading her phone behind the bar with her jaw set.

"She's doing a live," she said. "Tomorrow, eleven o'clock. 'Brunch with my girls, ask me anything.' She's got a link up."

"Where?"

Ruthie zoomed in on the post.

A café on Wickenden Street with big front windows and a lot of pink.

I'd been there twice.

It was four blocks from my house.

"She's doing it four blocks from my house," I said.

"She wants you to see her through the window."

"Then I'll go in."

At eleven fifteen on Saturday I walked into the pink café in jeans and my black work jacket.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend