Page 50 of Hold the Pickle

“You scared off over four hundred pounds of solid muscle.”

“And I’d do it again.” She glances at my cabbage. “Stop chopping! Nobody’s going to eat that much slaw in a day.”

I shake my head, but I move the cut cabbage to a bin and pick up the extra heads to return to the fridge.

This has been the wildest afternoon.

But the funny thing is, the main thing I want to do is tell Dalton all about it.

16

DALTON

Nadia and I have crossover time again on the Wednesday night after her eventful weekend at the ER. She cooks a tray of stuffed manicotti and even bakes a pie. Apple, which happened to be the answer to a question she asked me earlier in the week. She wanted to know which flavor was my favorite.

“What’s the occasion?” I ask, sitting at the bar as she serves up the manicotti with a thick slice of garlic toast.

“You coming to get me out of a bar bathroom?” She fills two glasses with water. “You didn’t have to.”

“I was glad I could. It would have been much harder if I was still on shift. And I had no way of contacting your cousins.”

She sits next to me. “It’s not something that will happen again. I’ve sworn off drinking for the next decade.”

I sink my fork into the glorious pasta resting on a bed of marinara. “This looks incredible.”

“I got the recipe from Jeannie at work. She’s a real chef who went to culinary school.”

The bite fills my mouth with tomato, cheese, and basil. It’s glorious. When I swallow, I say, “So good.”

“Jeannie can do anything. Funny that she stays at Max’s deli even though she could go anywhere. Her father is a big deal in the LA culinary scene.”

“Maybe she’s like you. Figuring things out.” I take another bite. Damn. I could eat this all night.

“Max’s deli seems to be filled with workers with secondary ambitions. He’s a bodybuilder, of course. But Frank is in a barbershop quartet. He’s talented. And Vera did modeling when she was younger, until they expected her to get tall and she didn’t.”

“You’re making friends there.”

“Sure. It’s a fun group. It’s Max. He’s a great boss, and he attracts good people.”

We eat in companionable silence for a while. Nadia spots me eyeing the pie and slides it forward to cut a slice. She’s about to move a piece to a plate when her phone buzzes.

She glances over at it. “Oh, boy.”

“Something bad?”

“My Uncle Sherman.” She says it with a sigh.

“The one trying to get you to work for him?”

“The one and only.”

She hits a button to accept the call but leaves it on speaker so she can tend to the pie. “Hello, Uncle Sherman.”

“Nadia! My beautiful niece! How are things in sunny California?”

She lifts the pie slice onto a clean plate and pushes it toward me with a rueful look. “It’s great! I’ve been helping Max. I guess you heard they are having a girl?”

“I did. How delightful. A new pickle on the way. How is his deli?”

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