"Hey Alex, you've got this, right?" My very large, very sweaty boss called out to me from the door of the food cart. The long line of murmuring customers in front of me nearly drowned out his voice. As he spoke, my eyes met an old lady's. She was eying me down like a vulture.

  No, Dave. I don't got this. It's just me back here, dude.

  "Yeah, I got this." God, I was such a pushover. I couldn't help but grit my teeth as I struggled to pry free one of the dozen burgers burning on the grill in front of me. My face was pouring sweat in the too-small cart, and my thighs were quivering. I had to squat because the damn food cart was made for dwarves and twelve-year-olds, not a twenty-six-year-old grown man who should be out working a normal job like any other grown ass adult. Not that everyone was six-foot-three, but fuck.

  Buy a better cart, Dave.

  "Great man, I appreciate you. Carla said I need to get back to the trailer NOW, or I'm not getting any, and you know how she gets." He grinned with that sleazy smile of his, his greasy, thinning hair making him look like someone's drunk uncle. "It's now or never, man. Your life’s in my hands." He put his hands together in front of him like he was praying.

  Fucking gross.

  "Yeah, I got you," I muttered, still wrestling with the burger. The thought of leaving sounded so good. “Lucky man.”

  "I thought you weren't into women?"

  Did I say that out loud? "I told you a hundred times. I like women. I'm just selective."

  "That's not what I heard..." He twiddled his eyebrows like an idiot and gestured to his groin.

  No, Dave. I just wasn't into your wife. Who came on to me every time we worked together. Kept having to turn her down. It was awful.

  I bit back a groan of frustration as the burger I was working on crumbled away, incinerating in the grill's flames.

  Fuck.

  Before I could reply, Dave was already getting his shit together. Once he was done, he snagged a couple of twenties from the till. Then, he walked over to me and watched me wrestle with the remaining burgers for a moment before patting me on the back.

  "I believe in you. And don't worry too much. Devon will be here in a few hours. You just gotta hold out 'til then."

  "Yeah, got it." Another patty fell apart. I chucked it in the trash. There went another couple of bucks from my check. He'd started to charge me every time something got wasted. Said it would build character.

  Asshole. Buy a better grill.

  "See ya tomorrow!" I watched as he reached into the cart's fridge and snagged a six-pack of cold beers. Then, with a wave, he disappeared out the side door and disappeared down the sidewalk, leaving me alone in his shitty cart.

  "When will our order be ready?" A woman with the snottiest voice I’d ever heard and a full-on pig nose glared up at me from the cart's window. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her.

  "Uh...you ordered?"

  "Yes, nine minutes ago exactly. For my family and I." She pointed at a small group seated at a nearby picnic table. There were five of them, and judging by their pot bellies and the pile of tin foil on the table, they were the ones who had ordered the last round of burgers that crushed me. One of 'em ordered three, and they were coming back for more.

  "Uh, give me a sec." Looking down at the grill, I only had six cooked patties. The others were all half-frozen. I cursed Dave with every curse word I knew, then made up more. Cock goblin was my favorite. I decided I was gonna go home and light myself on fire tonight. But before I finished my whiskey, because fuck me if that didn't sound good right now.

  Looking back down at Pig-Nose, I wiped my sweat-and-grease-drenched hands on my little pink apron. That was Dave’s present to me last Christmas. His little joke. "I'll have everything ready for you in ten."

  "Ten?

  "I thought you said nine?"

  She huffed and started to teakettle. “That was a minute ago! How incompetent are you?!”

  It would be so easy. I could just throw the spatula at her and disappear. Move to a new country. Start a new life. No one would ever know. "Look, the line is twenty deep right now, and my boss just took off to plow his cheating wife. This line is going to go as fast as I can manage on my own. It'll be ten minutes, got it?"

  She squinted at me, and her face went red. I thought she was going to say something. I wanted her to. Try me. My spatula lifted without my direction or consent.

  Instead, she sniffled a bit, grabbed some mustard packets, and stomped away angrily. Probably left to find someone who would pretend to listen. I could just make out her words as she hit the grass. “This is why they pay you the big bucks, loser.”

  I gritted my teeth so hard my teeth squeaked.

  The line chimed in.

  "...Wow…"

  "...Such bad customer service..."

  "...He's an asshole..."

  “...I’m leaving a review…”

  That’s when my spatula found itself flying at the far corner of the cart. The customers’ eyes went wide, and they shut up real quick.

  Fuck ‘em.

  ***

  A few hours later, I’d made it through the rush, cleaned the mayo and grease off the ceiling, and was just starting to fish out the beef charcoal from the grill when Devon walked up to the cart with a big smile on her face and her headphones in her ears.

  “Hi, Alex!”

  “Yo.”

  I hated Devon. She was twenty-one and one of those girls that was too pretty for their own good. And by hated, I meant I absolutely wanted to get freaky with. Again. My mind wandered back to that one night when we’d gotten stuck late at night. There was a cold snap. I invited the shivering girl into my coat, and then…

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Nope. Shake the thoughts off, Alex. Never again.

  She was my kryptonite. Cute. Funny. Sassy. Flirty as hell. She was smart, and shrewd. The girl always had some angle she was working, and I was as big a sucker as they came. I always got roped in.

  I sighed. It seemed like this past year, my life was moving in reverse. Ever since we moved from the restaurant to the food truck and started traveling to events, I busted my butt to take over the cart, but Dave didn't share. Not with me, his most senior employee, and certainly not with the losers and airheads we hired. He always said I’d get my due, but he also said the cart got him away from his wife. It worked for them. That absence made the heart grow fonder. But I knew that absence made his wife spend more time with her yoga instructor.

  "What the hell happened in here, Alex? This place is a wreck!" The cart shook as she climbed inside. The smell of lavender, her favorite smell, filled the cart.

  Looking around, I could see what she meant. Thawing patties sat stacked on one of the freezers, condiments coated just about every surface of the cart, and the grill was smoking. I noticed that a bag of plastic-wrapped burger buns had melted to the grates. I’d just been cleaning that, too.

  "Dave fucked off at the beginning of the rush, and I had to run the cart alone."

  She looked at me, her little hands on her wide hips. Her lips, painted some bubblegum pink color like the cheerleader archetype she was, were scrunched up, making her look like an angry duck. She looked like she wanted to yell at me, another common dynamic between us, but her face softened after a bit. "You deserve better than this, you know?" Her voice was genuine and kind. She reached down into one of the coolers and grabbed two bottles of water. She handed me one, hopped onto the cooler, and patted the spot next to her. When I sat, our fingers touched for slightly too long.

  Not again, Alex.

  In all honesty, Devon was annoying, but she was sweet. The cart was her first job, and she was a try-hard. She had that peppy, I was the petite former cheerleader who did all the flying tricks kind of energy. It paired well with her innate sweetness and the I’ll cut you undertones

  "Thanks, Dev. You're right. But until something changes, I'm stuck." I laughed the most bitter laugh I’d ever laughed, then opened my bottle of water and took a swig.

  “Things don’t just change on their own. You have to make change hap—”

  A sharp crack drowned her out. Without thinking, I threw my arm over her to protect her from whatever the noise was. For an instant, the air seemed to be sucked away. Everything that wasn’t tied down in the cart fluttered, and every single napkin flew out the window. I caught sight of a small storm cloud out over the park's small lake. The cloud flashed, and a streak of lightning cut through the sky.

  Our eyes met. Hers were wide, and she was gripping my arm with both of hers like I was a life boat. When nothing happened, she gave a small cough and let go. "It wasn't supposed to rain," Devon mumbled. She pulled her phone out, and her long fingernails tapped at the screen. I always wondered how girls could do that. I couldn't press the buttons with my normal fingernails, and here they were tapping away with an extra inch of nail on each finger.

  Before she could pull up the weather app, everything went back to normal. The skies cleared to their typical afternoon blue, and all traces of the dark storm clouds were gone.

  "What the fuck was that?"

  "Don't know. Kind of scary." She sidled up to me, but I leaned away. In the corner of my eye, I could see that her lips were pursed again. She did that when she was nervous. Or angry. Or hungry. Most of the time, really.

  A couple of the festival-goers walked by, dragging their screaming kids behind them. It was like nothing had happened. Shrugging, I turned back to her. "Alright, that’s enough self-pity and weirdness for one day. Help me get this place put back together before the dinner rush." She looked doubtful, so I added some sauce. "If we get done early, I might just call it an early night." That made her eyes sparkle. Offering early closes was one of the rare perks of functionally running someone else's business. And I needed that perk today. I was done.

  “You got it, boss."

  Fucking yes. She knew I loved that.

  ***

  The rest of the night went smoothly, if quietly. After a couple more quick sales, the clouds started rolling in again, and the crowds dispersed. I handed the last burger plate out and turned to Devon. “We did it.” I smiled at her as I wiped the sweat and grease smoke out of my eyes.

  Devon nodded before throwing herself over the edge of the cooler. I had to give it to her; she really was a hard worker. I started cleaning the grill, and by the time I finished, she was still going at it, organizing the patties and hotdogs with her butt wiggling in the air in that short skort thing she always wore to work.

  It was the small things.

  After admiring her for a few moments, I turned the gas off to the grill. It was then that I noticed it had become eerily quiet out there. There weren’t even any crickets. A flash of lightning lit the sky in the distance, and the smell of ozone filled my nose. There was a storm coming. A big one. And it was in the direction of my house.

  We needed to close up the shop before the rains came, or I’d make some mistakes tonight.

  I got to work closing everything up. As I did, my mind wandered to how awesome this work used to be back when I was younger. When Dave pitched the idea of a restaurant, I was all in. When he said I was going to be his main guy, I was pumped. When he said he wanted to start a traveling food cart, I worked my ass off.

  At first, it was great. It was me and him. Then, Carla quit her job and joined up. That was okay. We got busier. Then, when he brought on Tony, then Marissa, and later Devon, it was a ton of fun. I taught them how to work the carts, handle the customers, the whole deal. We started going to all the fairs and festivals in the region. Tony and I became buds. Marissa and I got close. Devon and I started our on-and-off, dating-not-dating thing.

  We got busier and busier, so I worked longer and longer, grinding myself into hamburger meat. But then Dave started dipping into the till a bit too often. Carla got more demanding. Then she cheated. They decided to make it work. Dave had a midlife crisis. Bought himself an old muscle car. An RV. Boats. Guns. Knives. Tony and I handled the cash flow. We knew what Dave was up to. Dave knew we knew. So, Tony disappeared, and I learned my lesson. Don't rock the boat. Don't question orders. Just do the job. No matter how shitty the work.

  "How much longer?" Devon asked with an innocent look on her face. I hated that face. She knew what she was doing. Nothing good came from it.

  "I dunno. Probably 10-15 minutes." I glanced around, looking at what was left. It came down sweeping and a final mop. Oh, and searching for stray fries. There were always fries tucked somewhere.

  "So... would you mind if I took off a little early? There's a party tonight, and I kind of want to go. Unless you wanted to hang out instead?" Her words and eyes lingered.

  Nope. "Finish the last of the prep, and you can head out."

  She sighed and got to it. She'd been all excited about some new guy she’d been into and was all excited to see him, but we both knew she’d blow him off if I said yes. I didn’t want to do that to either of us. We weren’t good for one another.

  I learned early on that she spent most of her time bouncing from one guy to the next. First, there was Craig, then the tall guy. Louis—he was exotic. Then there was Mark or something. Jason was a wannabe. He was always hanging around. But once we started our thing, the others started to fade away.

  Then, there was just me. Unavailable me.

  She finished up. "Can I go " The pursed lips again and batted her eyes.

  "Sure." I sighed, looking at her pouty lips and pretty eyes. She always knew how to work me.

  "Thank you! Thank you!"

  "Yeah, no worries. Have fun out there."

  She grabbed her sweater and her purse. When she got to the door, she looked over her shoulder at me. "You sure?"

  "Yeah. Have fun."

  Devon stood there, watching me over her shoulder. Then, she turned, stepped up to me, and gave me a big hug. "You really do deserve better."

  "Yeah, maybe one day."

  A while back, she asked if I wanted to be official with her. She was into me. I was into her. We got along. We were certainly compatible. But I wasn’t going anywhere, and she had a life ahead of her. I didn’t want to fuck up her future with my baggage. She was a year away from law school, and I was doing… this.

  "Have fun tonight, and make sure you get to work on time tomorrow. Dave won't be happy if you're late." Again. Late again, Devon.

  "I know!" Her lips scrunched up again. "Uh, Alex?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Do you think that I should have worn a shorter skirt today? I've been doing my squats every morning, and I think my legs are looking extra good!"

  I turned and looked. The short little devil was staring at me, biting her lower lip as she waited for a response. She’d tied up her shirt in one of those front knots girls tie. Her abs were glistening with sweat. She twirled. All her hard work paid off, from what I saw.

  "Well, yeah..." I stammered, my eyes unable to leave her abs. Goddamn, she was hot.

  "Yeah, what?”

  I took a step toward her.

  She grinned and shut the side door.

  In a flash, our clothes were flying off, and our lips were pressed together.

  Fuckin’ girl was a menace.