Page 3 of The Princess and the Nerd

Chapter 2

With his shoulders shaking, my childhood friend Roberto stands hunched over the crab cake appetizers. Tears are sliding down his cheeks and into the little cylinders of seafood.

“Hey!” I say as panic floods my chest. I rush over to his side, touching his arm gently. He is sobbing so hard that he doesn’t seem to hear me.

“Rob. Robbers. Hey. RobRob. Berto.Robbie!What’s going on?”

He finally seems to snap out of his trance. “Oh… Don’t mind me, Will.”

“You’re blubbering all over the food and I think something is burning… so I have to worry.”

“Sorry,” he says, wiping his face and grabbing the cried-on-crab-cakes to toss them into the trash. “I forgot to add salt. And crab. I’ll fix it.”

“Honey…what’s going on?” I press again, trying not to get caught up in wondering how he forgot to add thecrabto the freaking crab cakes.

“It’s Alejandro. He left me.”

Shit.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “What happened?”

“He—he said I’m just a—a silly boytoy. That I’m not—not husband material.”

“Oh, honey,” I say softly, stepping closer to give him an awkward hug. “Don’t listen to that asshole. We should have known he was trouble. Isn’t there a Lady Gaga song warning us about impossibly hot men named Alejandro?”

“That song is my anthem,” Robbie whispers through his tears. “She’s so iconic.”

“Exactly. So from now on, we listen to Lady Gaga and date better men.”

“She mentions my name in the song too,” Robbie says brokenly, removing his chef’s hat. “Maybe I’m the problem. There must be something wrong withme,Will. Why does this always happen when things are getting serious?”

I watch as he struggles to keep it together, accidentally splashing melted butter all over his workstation. Poor boy is a hot mess.

“Shhh,” I tell him soothingly, rubbing his back. “Okay, Robbers. You should probably take the night off.”

He wipes his sleeve across his eyes.

“No. This is a big night for you. I won’t let you down. You need me.”

“I mostly need you to go home and eat some peanut butter ice cream, and listen to Lady Gaga, and have a good cry,” I tell him. “Deal?”

“I do love peanut butter ice cream,” he says with a sniffle.

“We can try our best to manage without you tonight. You can come back when you’re feeling better.”

“And let the sous-chef cook for the critic? Hell, no,” Robbie says, wiping his nose and putting his hat back on. “I guarantee he screws it all up.”

“Well… maybe I could try to cook?” I suggest anxiously. I don’t have all of Robbie’s world-class education and awards but I do have some. I’m definitely more skilled than the sous-chef.

“No way, Will,” he says with concern. “You’ll have a full-on meltdown panic attack again. You’ve been doing so much better lately.”

“True,” I say softly.

“You just focus on running the business,” he says, squeezing my arm. “We can eat ice cream together later and I’ll tell you all about how that pig Alejandro done me wrong. But I don’t want to see you freak out and start washing your hands for half an hour until they are raw and bleeding.”

“That wasone time,Robbie,” I whisper. “And I had just shaken hands with a customer who was clearly sick and coughing every few seconds into their hands. I didn’t want to get the whole kitchen sick.”

“Whatever you say, girl—but we both know that once you start cooking, you’ll go on a crazy cleaning, scrubbing, disinfecting rampage. Just let me do my thing. I’m good. I promise.”

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