Page 87 of Hound Dog
Mom placed her palm on Haylee’s forearm. “At leastthinkabout the party, dear. And I’ll come by and take Meryl out tomorrow. I haven’t seen her in a while, and we could both use the girl time, I bet.”
Haylee smiled and shifted her feet. “She’d like that.”
Mom took a bite of the hotdog, and her eyes went wide. “Wow. This is actually really good.”
I grabbed my heart, feigning chest pains. “Actuallygood? You didn’t think I could make a good hotdog even after I brought you all the Completos last week?”
Mom rolled her eyes and pinched my cheek. “Yeah, but those were on the grill. Not in a bin of hot, dirty water all day.”
“Hey.This water’s not dirty.”
“It’s actually a brine,” Haylee chimed in. “And we change it every hour.”
Mom winked and pointed at Haylee. “If she’s going to make it in this town, she’s going to have to learn how much we tease.”
Haylee didn’t get a chance to respond because Enzo came charging at us. “Are you kidding me right now? I am your partner, not some little experiment you can fling at clients when you can’t do your job right!”
I cleared my throat at Enzo, shifting a sideways glance at my mom. Above us, seagulls circled and cried out, cutting through the silence as they begged for hotdog scraps.
Mom pointed a finger between Enzo and me. “You two are…partners?”
Enzo whirled around and adjusted her glasses nervously. “No. I mean, yes, but not romantically. I’m Finn’s silent partner for the business.”
Mom’s gaze narrowed, zoning right in on me. Her bullshit detector had always been pretty accurate, and I was certain it was beeping its warning signal loudly in her head right now. “And he flung you at a client… a hotdog eating client?”
God, we’re so busted.
Like deer in headlights, Enzo and I both froze. As one of the matriarchs of this town, my mom had a firm grasp on most people here and could shrink anyone with a simple, withering stare.
Haylee, however, seemed completely unaffected by Mom’s searing gaze. “There was this super grumpy client,” she said, “who was demanding his money back because his hotdog was too spicy—even though the banh mi dogs aren’t spicy at all. Finn passed him off to Enzo to handle.”
She ended the story with a shrug, as though it were that simple. Just a misunderstanding.
Enzo and I nodded, our heads bobbing up and down like some dashboard accessory.
Still skeptical, my mom nodded, eyes on me. “Is that so?”
“Yep.” I popped the ‘p’ at the end of the word and immediately regretted it. It was one of those weird things I only did if I was uncomfortable with a situation.
And based on the twitch of my mom’s lips, she knew it.
But she didn’t fight us on it. With a kiss to my cheek, she hiked her purse higher on her shoulder, took her hotdog, and left.
We all gave a collective sigh once she was out of earshot.
“That was close,” Enzo said. “Quick thinking, Haylee.”
Haylee rolled her eyes and closed the lid to the hotdogs. “Well, you were both worthless. How is it that two people so bad at lying got into a secret occupation?”
“I’m not bad at lying,” I said. “I’m bad at lying to mymother. There’s a difference.”
“Well, at least she bought it,” Enzo said. “That should earn us a little more time.”
“She didn’t buy anything,” I answered. “We’ve been made. She might not know exactly what’s up yet, but she knows something is.” I glanced at Enzo. “I think we need to come clean.”
Enzo’s face paled. “Oh God. The dreaded day has arrived.”
I winced. “I know.”
