I’d worked at Le Crepe’erie most of my life in some capacity. That’s the way it is with a family business. As a grade schooler, I used to sort and sharpen crayons into baskets for the guests that came to dine with kids. As a middle schooler, I’d helped plant the flowers in the overwhelming number of hanging baskets and window baskets every spring. Le Crepe’erie had won “Best Floral Display” ten years running and my dad took almost as much pride in this as he did the quality products he put into each crepe. Since I’d turned sixteen, I’d been serving tables. I was even known to whip together a recipe or two when the chef was fresh out of new ideas.
You would have thought a crepe shop in the middle of small town USA wouldn’t be likely to succeed, but Le Crepe’erie had been in business for over fifteen years now and was an icon in Winthrop. Known for its basic menu that changed every day, there was rarely an empty table on the weekends or evenings on the weekdays. There were two options on any given day: sweet or savory. That was it. We didn’t do pancakes, waffles, or French toast. We did crepes.
You couldn’t get an egg over easy or a slab of ham on the side.
I’ll repeat. We did crepes.
But we made darn good ones.
Guests did have a selection of drinks, so long as it was coffee. We did drip, espresso, cappuccino, or the occasional latte if the customer was real nice.
Crepes and coffee were like a religion here at Le Crepe’erie and you didn’t just come into someone’s church and order hash-browns without it being considered a sacrilege.
“How’d you do tonight?” Dani asked me from two tables down where she was bussing a table.
The last guests were just leaving for the night, so I locked the door and flipped the closed sign over behind them. “Pretty good,” I replied. “Fifty bucks or so.”
“Day-um, girl!” she said, running back to the kitchen to crank on the radio. “My little Bs only pulled in a little over thirty. I need to get myself over to Seattle, have a plastic surgeon hook me up, and start making fifty a shift.” She came back out into the dining room, dancing to the song on the radio. “Do you think I could consider a boob job a business write-off if it helps me make more money?”
I took a long sip of my coffee before grabbing a bussing cart. There was a nice mess ahead of me. “Why don’t you ask the working girls down at Dolly’s Gentlemen’s Club? I’m sure they’d know,” I said, crumpling up a napkin and tossing it down at Dani where she twirled on a bar stool. “And mine are real, thank you very much.”
“Yeah, a real waste of space since no one’s having any fun with them,” she said, tossing the napkin back at me. My mind flashed with the memory of Cole looking at me, gaping at me, and my stomach did another one of those coiling up things.
“Yours get enough action for both of us,” I threw back as I sprayed down a few tables with disinfectant.
“Come on, though. Has Logan cupped, tweaked, squeezed, or hell, even grazed them yet?”
I grumbled as I started wiping down the tables. Dani had been my best friend since second grade. We weren’t exactly an obvious best friend match. Dani was vivacious, cursed more than she talked, and had slept with most of Winthrop’s male population that was under twenty . . . twice. She was short, blonde, and stylish. I was more your wallflower type that strived to stay inside our society’s boundaries. A cuss word in my book was crap or ass if I was really worked up, and I still had my V card firmly in hand. I was tall, brunette, and wore what was comfortable.
I couldn’t pinpoint what had brought us together and kept us together all these years, but I told everyone Dani was my kindred spirit. On the surface, we were nothing alike, but everything that couldn’t be seen tied us together.
“He grazed them this past year at Winter Formal,” I said, sounding defensive.
“Accidentally?”
“Does it matter?” I asked while I tossed coffee cups and plates onto the cart.
“Yes.” Dani swung off of the bar stool and marched my way. “Yes, it most certainly does matter. You and Logan have been together for over two years and the only thing you’ve done is kiss. That is not normal.” Dani was a few inches shorter than me, but she had a way of seeming taller when she looked at me the way she was now.
“Says the girl who lost her virginity when she was thirteen,” I muttered.
She grabbed a dish rag and swatted my butt with it. “That’s because I was the smart one. Why do you want to waste the most virile, wild years of your life keeping your knees closed?”
“We’re waiting for marriage,” I replied automatically, but that was Logan’s reason, not mine.
I wouldn’t have had a problem going all the way with a guy if we weren’t married, but I had a few obstacles in my deflowering way. I was with Logan, and I probably always would be. He wanted to wait until we were married. I might have pushed the issue, but even the making out had gotten a little boring this past year. If a guy sliding his tongue into my mouth couldn’t turn me on, why should I assume him sliding anything else inside me would?
“God. Don’t even get me started on you two and your impending marriage and abstaining until that blessed day shit,” she said, helping me clear off the next table.
“I didn’t ask you to get started on any of it, Dani,” I said. “So why don’t you drop it?”
She made a face while she considered this before shrugging. “What are you doing tonight after work? Logan’s out of town at a game, right?”