Page 2 of Danny

She'd smiled and said, "Most people say they're passionate about hospitality."

"I'm passionate about not being evicted."

And she'd hired me. Just like that. Told me to be here at five, wear the uniform, learn the whiskeys.

So here I am. Learning the whiskeys. Trying not to spill them.

I pick up the tray — three glasses of Macallan 18 for table seven — and step onto the floor.

The marble is beautiful. It's stunning, gleaming, the kind of floor that belongs in a museum or a very expensive bathroom. It's also slippery as hell when you're wearing the low heels that come with the uniform, and I make it approximately twelve steps before I have to grab the edge of a booth to steady myself.

Nobody notices. That's the nice thing about being invisible. And I am invisible here — the new girl, the nobody in the black uniform, carrying drinks to men who look through me the same way they look through the wallpaper. I prefer it. Invisible means I can do my job, collect my tips, and chip away at the debt that is slowly eating my life.

Table seven. Three men, mid-conversation. I recognize the type from Mama’s— except at Mama’s they were arguing about the Mets and here they're probably arguing about mergers or yachts or whatever billionaires argue about. I set the first glass down in front of the silver-haired man on the left. He doesn't look up. I set the second in front of the younger guy with the cigar. He doesn't either.

Good.

I turn to deliver the third glass to the empty place setting and walk directly into a wall.

Not a wall. A chest. A very solid, very broad chest wrapped in a suit so dark it's almost black, except up close I can see it's actually charcoal — the kind of dark charcoal that probably has a name, like "midnight slate" or "executive grief" or whatever designers call it when they're charging five thousand dollars for a color.

The tray tilts. I watch it happen in slow motion — the glass sliding sideways, the amber liquid sloshing over the side of the crystal, and then the Scotch makes contact with his shirt and keeps going, soaking through white cotton, spreading in a dark wet stain down his chest.

The glass hits the marble and doesn't break. Just bounces once with a dull clink and rolls under the table.

The piano keeps playing.

But the men at table seven go quiet, Matteo goes still behind the bar, and the two servers near the kitchen entrance both stop moving at the exact same time, like someone's pressed pause on the background characters.

I look up.

Way up. The man is tall — well over six feet, and built like a Viking, too broad to see past. Dark hair, cut short, a few threads of silver at the temples. A jaw that looks like it's been filed into shape by someone who resented curves.

His eyes were a flat, cool gray, like the underside of a cloud right before it starts to rain. Looking at me with absolutely no expression at all, which is somehow much worse than anger, because anger I know how to deal with. Anger is Gary the plumber when you bring the wrong ketchup. This is something else. This is a man looking at me the way you'd look at a math problem you hadn't expected.

"I —" My voice cracks. Comes out too high. "I am so sorry. I didn't — I wasn't —"

Finish a sentence, Anna. Pick one and finish it.

"I'll pay for the dry cleaning." The words tumble out before my brain can intervene, which is a problem, because the suit is clearly worth more than everything I own including my bed, and my bed is the nicest thing in my apartment. "Or — napkins. I should get napkins. Let me—"

I reach for him. Waitress instinct — spill, fix, apologize, repeat. My hand lands on his stomach, on the wet fabric, and the muscle underneath is hard.

I snatch my hand back.

"Sorry. God. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have — that was — I just grabbed you. I just grabbed a stranger. In his stomach area. I'm so sorry."

I'm spiraling. I can hear myself spiraling and I can't stop. This is the thing I do — when I'm embarrassed, I talk, and the talking makes me more embarrassed, and the embarrassment makes me talk more, and the whole thing feeds itself like a brushfire of social humiliation until someone either interrupts me or I run out of oxygen.

Thankfully, he interrupts me.

"You're new."

Two words. Low, flat, calm. The kind of voice that doesn't need volume because it comes pre-loaded with authority. He isn't asking. He's filing information.

"Yes." It comes out as a whisper. "First night."

Something shifts. His eyes — not softening, not exactly. He looks at me for another beat. Then he looks down at the stain on his shirt like he's just now noticing it, which I don't believe for a second.