Page 5 of Under His Protection

“Too late,” he snapped.

“Nina? Tessa?” our supervisor hollered from further in the kitchen. “Get to work! Your shift started five minutes ago.”

Ricky smirked and clapped his hands twice. “Chop, chop, girls. Go work your asses off. Slave away for pathetic change while I go and make a fortune.” He turned and sauntered away toward the stairs.

I stayed there, glowering at his back until he disappeared.

Tessa sighed and nudged my arm. “Come on. Let’s get to it.”

“I hate him,” I muttered, meaning it yet not.

“Okay, but there’s no point in trying to beat common sense into him.” She tilted her head for me to go in with her.

She was right. Ricky was a lost cause. Hopeless. All that I could do was secure my tips somewhere he wouldn’t find them and use them. The entirety of what Dad left us was gone, and I saw no way any supposedly genius idea of his would bring him out of severe debt and have him come out on top.

All through my shift, I thought of little else. Of how much I loathed my brother, how ironic it was that he was the older one of the two of us and therefore able to impact my cut of what was left to me, and how terrible it was of him to help himself to what was owed to me.

Guilt snuck in too. I despised myself for these circumstances because I truly did love him as a sibling. He was family, all the family I had left now. When Ricky and I visited Dad at the veteran’s hospice, Dad made me promise to look after him, fully aware until his last breath that Ricky wasn’t the brightest guy out there.

But how can I look after him when he takes and loses every penny we’ve had?

“It’ll get better,” Tessa advised vaguely when we had a moment to clear tables later.

“I don’t see how.”

“I know how.”

I shot her a dubious glance.

“You could find a sugar daddy. Or marry some rich, old dude for money.” She smiled widely, teasing.

“I’m not selling myself like that.”

She giggled, stacking up plates the busboy was too lazy to get. “Why not?”

“Trade in my independence and dignity to what, suck old, sagging balls for an income?”

Her face scrunched as she laughed harder. “I think you’re describing prostitution now.”

I shrugged, wishing I could feel lighthearted enough to join in on her laughter. “You should consider it yourself.” I arched a brow, watching her grimace.

“To avoid your parents pushing you to marry Elliot.”

She mocked a gag. “Please. Don’t even mention his name.”

Her reaction to that name was always the same. I never understood the semantics of it, but since Tessa was a teenager, it seemed that her parents had gotten it into their heads that Tessa would have to marry the son of their friends. “They can’t actually expect you to see that through, right?”

Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “I prefer not to think about it.”

I shook my head, tidying up the things to bring back to the dishwasher. “You’re talking nonsense, anyway. Marrying a rich old man?” I stuck my tongue out. “No thanks. I can’t say that the idea of marriage appeals at all.”

Smiling wider, she joined me on the trip to the kitchen. “You got that right. I’m not in a rush to have any man tell me what to do or make decisions for me.”

Lucky you don’t have a brother like mine, then.

I nodded at her. “Who needs men, huh?”

“Not us,” she cheered, infusing as much pep as she could into her voice.

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