One for the Road (Barflies #3) - Katia Rose Page 0,1

laughing to herself as she makes her way back to the door and reaches for the handle.

“Joke is on you, mon ami. I can’t believe you fell for that. Everyone knows it doesn’t lock from the inside.”

Everyone does know that. Restaurant safety 101: ensure employees can’t get stuck in the fridge.

As my mother would say, “You’re a fool, Zachary Joseph Hastings.”

She would also probably be echoed by my two sisters. It’s a favourite phrase for all three of them.

DeeDee cracks the door open an inch and turns to warn the kitchen staff that she’s exiting. The sudden view of her tight black pants has me letting out a sound similar to someone getting punched in the stomach. I cover it up with a cough.

A fool, indeed.

“This is what you get for not appreciating my meme,” DeeDee calls over her shoulder. “Now you have to pick those lemons up and cut them for me.”

She steps out into the kitchen. The sounds of clinking dishes, chatting cooks, and a hip hop anthem blasting on the stereo seep into the fridge before the door swings shut. I’m engulfed in silence again, alone save for the faint buzzing of the bulb above my head.

I’m still standing there, thinking about how cute her accent sounds when she says ‘appreciating’ when the meaning of her words catches up with me.

“Right. That meme,” I mutter as I crouch down and start gathering lemons.

I love memes—possibly too much. In addition to working at Taverne Toulouse, I’ve been running an ecommerce business from home for over a year now, and the single biggest threat to my productivity is the way being on the internet gives me constant access to memes.

I stand by my fixation. Call me crazy, but I believe memes are one of the most undiluted essences of our culture there is. When the anthropologists of the future are trying to piece together what exactly the hell happened to our society, I’d bet everything I own they find the answer in memes.

Plus, memes are hilarious.

I get the lemons all gathered up into their crate and head out, calling “Door!” so I don’t accidentally slam anyone in the face as they’re rushing by with an armload of appetizers. I nod to the two cooks on duty as I pass by. It’s still early in the night, and they’re both busy working their way through prep tasks.

“Here you are, Mademoiselle Beausoleil.”

After making my way down the short hallway between the back and front of house, I drop the crate onto the lacquered surface of Taverne Toulouse’s giant three-sided bar. DeeDee turns from where she’s sliding pint glasses onto their shelf and gives me a look that’s the definition of unimpressed.

“Those don’t look chopped, Monsieur Hastings.” Her accent makes her miss the ‘H’ in my last name.

“I’ll get on it.”

“Good.” She makes a show of tossing her hair over her shoulder. “And maybe next time you will be nicer about my memes.”

“I’m always nice about your memes!”

She shakes her head. “You don’t think they make sense.”

I rest my elbows on the bar. “Well, it’s just sometimes they’re a little confusing.”

She brandishes a pint glass at me like it’s a weapon. “Whatever, bro. English is dumb and confusing.”

Then she reels something off in French too fast for me to be sure I follow, but I think it’s along the lines of, “And it’s not my fault my brain operates at a higher level than yours.”

“The pizza one was funny!” she adds, switching back to English for me.

“You sent me the ‘Ermahgerd’ girl when I told you I didn’t know what kind of pizza to order last night. I think I was justified in asking what that means.”

A sly grin spreads across her face. “How about asking what that memes?”

I do my best to look scandalized, but I can’t help laughing even as I place a hand on my chest like I’m offended. “Oh, DeeDee, that was so bad I don’t even know if it counts as a pun.”

“See!” She waves the pint glass around some more. “You’re mean!”

I can’t help myself. “No, I’m meme.”

“Tu es fou!” she shouts, calling me crazy. “Tu es complètement fou!”

“What’s all this revelry?”

I look over my shoulder to see Monroe, the owner of Taverne Toulouse, striding out of the hallway. She grabs a spot beside me, hiking herself up onto a stool. Even from that vantage point, she’s still way shorter than me. She’s way shorter than most people, but that doesn’t stop her from being one