Diner Talk

Eight: Dinosaur Legs

Victor

"We can't give her section four anymore, Uncle. There's a blind spot at table thirteen."

Sang walked back into the view of the cameras and I peeked at the clock. Five minutes to ten. These would be her last tables before we could go to the Taylor house and eat. "Section three again tomorrow, then. They like sitting by the windows." Uncle leaned over my shoulder, eyes following Sang as she gave another blonde server a friendly smile, grabbing a couple plates off her loaded tray and carrying them to the other woman's table. "She's a good waitress, but I think I like it better when she works the register."

"Less chance for her to get groped when there's a counter between her and the customer," I said. Uncle nodded, examining something in the corner of the camera as Silas banged his way into the office. His last table had already settled their bill, and he couldn't just walk around the floor without looking suspicious.

"That's not your shirt," I said, examining the strain the seams were under. Silas nodded at me, sitting down in the chair next to me and sighing. Being on your feet for five hours straight wasn't the easiest.

"It's North's. I didn't want to have to drive all the way home to get mine."

"Wanted all the time you could get with that girl?" Silas raised his eyebrows, and I shrugged. When was I going to get the chance to ask him about what he told Sang if not now?

He put up his hands in a gesture of surrender as Uncle looked on in amusement. "As guilty as charged. I'm in love with her." So was I, and I was hoping that I wasn't out of the running for her affection.

"Have you told her yet?"

"Christos, no. It's a little early for that. She only kissed me today." I whipped my head around to look at him. Princess had made the first move?

"She kissed you first?"

A smug grin slid across his face as he leaned back. "She asked to talk to me in private, not the other way around. Ooh, that was a hard fall." I turned back to the cameras to see one of the waiters sprawled out on the floor. Sang rushed over and helped him up, collecting his phone and notepad from the floor and handing them over with a sympathetic smile. "But yes. I didn't know what was happening until she asked if she could kiss me."

I wasn't sure how to feel. Silas hadn't asked Sang out exclusively, but she had taken the initiative and kissed Silas herself. Did she prefer him? "That takes guts. I know that Angel is pretty shy about that stuff."

Silas laughed, and I bristled internally. I thought anglicizing his nickname for her so Uncle wouldn't know we were talking about Sang was pretty clever of me. "She's not exactly shy about it. She doesn't know what to say. She told me that most innuendos sort of go over her head because her parents didn't let her take sex ed."

"That... makes a lot of sense, actually." Sometimes when the guys were joking around an innuendo slipped out, and she never seemed to react besides an occasional blush. I had thought she just had an innocent mind. I watched her take the check from one of her two remaining tables, waving goodbye to a sleeping baby, who looked young enough for this to feasibly be their first outing ever. "Do we have to get Erica to give her the talk?"

"She's reading up on it." I looked at Silas with a creeping sense of horror as I imagined Sang coming across porn, but he just gave me an amused little huff. "In a book that Doc recommended to me when I was younger. I wasn't going to leave her high and dry after she told me that. Who do you think I am, her father?"

I snorted at the mention of that coward. He left his teenage daughter to take care of her chronically ill stepmother and ignored the abuse she suffered, even when he did deign to come home.