Page 11 of Waste Some Time
“There’s good food there. It just isn’t New Orleans food.”
“You can order a salad. I won’t judge you. Much.”
Sydney shook her head at her brother but couldn’t hide her smile. They’d spent most of their lives teasing each other. All four of them. It was good-natured most of the time, so she knew Stephen was just poking at her.
“You know good and well that if I order a salad, I’ll just put fried shrimp or oysters on it, anyway.”
“As you should.” Stephen clapped his hands three times. “Come on. Get your shoes, and grab your bag, and do whatever you need to do so we can get moving. I’m hungry.”
“It’s barely eleven,” Sydney protested as she walked to the room she grew up sharing with Savannah and grabbed her comfy blue flats. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Pasta or poboys. Your choice.”
“Oh no. My favorite pasta place?”
“The one and only.”
“That’s an impossible choice.” Sydney considered the delicious options. “Didn’t mom say she was making spaghetti for all of us tonight?”
“Yes, but that’s different. No offense to Mom, but this is blackened shrimp fettuccine Alfredo. Your favorite.”
Itwasher favorite. But it was lunchtime, and she didn’t want something that heavy this early. She definitely didn’t want to eat pasta twice that day.
“Poboys. I’m dying for fried oysters.”
She knew exactly the place he was talking about, too. It was a small shop near City Park. The poboy place her family always picked up from when they were kids, because it was on their dad’s way home from work, and they had the best French bread. Hands down.
“All right then,” Stephen said. “Grab that bag of yours and let’s get going.”
* * *
Sydney and Stephenmade their way toward City Park in almost total silence. Stephen drove while Sydney looked out the side window, taking in everything that had changed in her absence, as well as everything that hadn’t.
It had been a few years since she’d flown home for the holidays, and it was hard to see all the businesses that no longer stood where they once had. So many restaurants, especially, had closed their doors. Mostly small ones that had popped up and just couldn’t survive. Some of her favorites were still there. Most notably the poboy shop they walked to a couple of blocks away.
The interior remained covered with wood paneling, and there were still two counters, one for ordering and one for paying. Shelves lined with chips and refrigerators filled with drinks crowded in front of the small shop. Most days, the line reached out onto the sidewalk at peak lunch times.
They ordered and paid, then walked to the back room packed with round wooden tables and large wooden chairs. There, at a table near the edge of the room, sat a familiar face.
“Katie’s here.”
In her head, it was a question, but it came out more like a statement with a hint of surprise.
“Yeah, I convinced her to meet me since she couldn’t hang out with us for dinner Saturday night.”
Sydney wondered if he’d been as unclear with Katie as he’d been with her that they’d all be having lunch together. From the look in Katie’s shocked brown eyes, Sydney was pretty sure this was another surprise.
If she didn’t know any better, Sydney would have thought Stephen was working hard on a setup job. But as far as he knew, Sydney had only ever shown an interest in men. Pushing her on his female best friend made zero sense. Even if he thought for some reason that this would get her back home more often.
Stephen was one of the kindest humans Sydney had ever known, and not just as a brother. But he sort of stumbled through life assuming the rest of the world was as kind and open as he was. Not a bad personality trait, but not exactly convenient at the moment. And not conducive to thinking he planned this to manipulate anything.
“Nice to see you again, Katie.”
Katie’s glossy red lips curled into a delicious smile. “Good to see you again, too.”
See, she could do this. Amelia might have thought this was a bad idea, but Sydney could pull this off without lying to Stephen, and without being completely rude to Katie. She wished she had explained all of this to Stephen’s best friend, but since she didn’t have any way to contact her, all she could do was hope Katie would continue this charade along with her.
For now.
