"Welcome to Diablo's Diner, home of the bottomless nacho... Juliette! Thank God you're here. Finally. Maria's about to lose her shit. We're down two servers and the new guy went home sick. Something about a fever."

I groan while leaning over Allison, my best friend, so I can clock in on the computer. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was a nightmare." No need to tell her that I'd lost track of time because I was reading Jane Eyre. It's the final book of high school and the only novel that's held my attention in our senior English class.

While I'm pawing under the hostess' station for a black apron, Allison leans over, her blonde hair spilling into my face. "We're still going to Babylon tomorrow night, right? Did you tell your mom yet?"

"Yeah. Said I was staying with you."

"My mom hasn't mentioned anything to me. Maybe your mom hasn't called. Or maybe she just forgot."

Allison's mom is like that. She works nights and a couple of days, too, and unlike my mom, doesn't care much what her daughter does while she's out of the house. She's more like a big sister to Allison. Which means she's willing to tell my mom that we'll study all night for finals, and she won't ask questions when we go to a South Beach club and roll in at four in the morning. Win-win.

I wrap the apron around my hips. As always, the restaurant smells like French Fries and stale beer. By the end of my shift, my hair will be thick with the scent and I'll have to wash it twice.

"I hate wearing this stupid uniform."

She shrugs. "Could be worse. You could be a Wing World waitress. They have to wear those nylon shorts that ride up the crack of your butt. At least you get to wear jeans and a T-shirt instead of this stupid polo." She plucks at her sleeve.

"I look like a twelve-year-old."

"You couldn't look like a twelve-year-old if you tried, not with that body."

I smack her arm and she yelps.

"Girls. Enough. This isn't daycare." It's Maria, our manager. She runs the staff at Diablo's as if we're a five-star restaurant in Paris and not a chain diner off the expressway in the boring suburbs of Miami-Dade County. She glances at me over the rim of her black glasses. "Thank you for gracing us with your presence, Juliette."

Whatever. I'm only fifteen minutes late, which is nothing. Anyway, I almost always stay a half hour late and am never paid for the overtime. I smile sweetly. "Sorry. Traffic!"

Maria taps on a dry erase table map with her index finger with the seriousness of a general deploying troops. "Kent had to leave. He thinks he has the flu."

Allison groans. "If I get sick before tomorrow night, I'll kill him."

"Hand sanitizer," Maria says. "Juliette, you pick up his tables. There's a family at twelve, a couple at fifteen in the booth and a guy at eleven. Most are ready for their check, so go ask them if they're enjoying their meals or if they'd like anything else. Make sure to push the berry cobbler for dessert."

"Got it." She doesn't need to remind me of the basics. I can do my job. I even sold the most desserts of any server last month, even though they were the most disgusting strawberry shortcakes in the history of baking. She hustles off and I sigh.

"What are you wearing tomorrow night? I just bought a little skirt and halter set at the mall. My dad sent me early graduation money."

"Lucky." Her dad's always sending her money. My dad doesn't, because he left my mom when I was only four.

Allison presses her shoulder into mine and then looks up to see a man with two little kids walking in the front door. "Welcome to Diablo's Diner, home of the bottomless nacho platter!"

It's a good question, what I'm wearing tomorrow to Babylon, and I've been thinking about it all week. Probably the little red dress I picked up at the secondhand store. It's the only place I can afford to shop, unlike Allison. Still, they have nice stuff, even if it's a few years old. Allison says the dress shows off my curves, and thinks it helped get us into Mansion last month. That was the first time we'd gone to a real club, and I'd loved every second.

But Babylon is the most exclusive club on the beach, and our fake IDs aren't that great. Models and actors hang out there, and no one we know has ever gotten in. And a new hot DJ, a guy from here in Miami, is spinning. We'll probably spend most, if not all, of the night in line, but it's worth a shot.

I grab a server pad and head to table twelve. "Finally. We thought our waiter had abandoned us," says the dad, in between bites of a chicken wing. "We've been trying to flag someone down for ten minutes. And where's the guy?"

"I apologize, we've had a shift change." I smile and tilt my head, so my long ponytail brushes my back. The dad's eyes flicker to my breasts and he turns back to the wings.

They want more sodas. More chips. And crayons, because the kids had broken, thrown and rubbed the first ones into the red fabric seats. "Also a dessert menu," the mom grinds out as she grabs one of the kids from standing on the table.

"I hear the berry cobbler's amazing." I keep smiling, even when the toddler flings a carrot in my direction as I walk away.

First I fill their order, because the parents look annoyed enough to write a bad review online. Then I head to table fifteen. It's more of the same, complaints and questions and rude grunts. No one says please or thank you anymore, that's what this job teaches you.

I swing by the hostess's station on the way to filling the couple's margarita order. Allison's glued to her phone.

"I'm wearing the red dress. With the black heels. Hey. You shouldn't be on your cell. Maria's going to lose it if she sees you."

Allison rolls her eyes. "I don't care. I'm trying to see if Lucas is coming with us tomorrow or if he has to work."

Lucas is her boyfriend. Like us, he's a senior at Kendall High. They've been together two years and it's as if they're already married. They're even planning on going to college together in Orlando in August.

She looks up, frowning. When she does that it makes her look older, like she's twenty-eight and not eighteen, and I see our future. One that's filled with suburbs and chain restaurants, of tasteless buffalo wings and weak margaritas. Not bad, exactly, but not all that interesting. And that's when I feel the edges of panic set in because it seems like my life is all laid out in one boring, tedious grind. I'll get a mediocre job and meet a guy. He'll be nice until we have a kid. Then he'll be a jerk and leave me with a crappy apartment, a crappier car and no way out of debt. I'll end up like my mom, like Allison's mom, like most of the single moms all around the suburbs.

"Joolz, did you get to table eleven? I think that guy was ready for his check like a half hour ago. Maybe he's already gone. He was here before I clocked in."

"Ughhh," I groan, hustling to the bar to put in the margarita orders. I head for table eleven, which is always a pain in the butt because it's tucked in a corner, close to the emergency exit. Easy to forget.

"Babe. Hey babe? Can I get another beer?" A flush-faced man at a table calls out on my way to table eleven.

As always, I stop and put on my polite smile. Allison calls it my "fake smile," but I can't help it. And it's not fake. I always try to be nice to everyone.

"I'll tell your server to come right over."

"I'd rather have you serve me. What are you doing later?" He chuckles, and so does the other guy at the table. They both look fleshy and pink, as if they've gotten too much sun. They could be drunk tourists, but we don't get many of those in this part of Miami. Maybe they're lost.

"Your waitress will be here soon."

"Nice tits, but this one's a little chubby for my taste," his companion says.

I stop smiling and turn. I know I'm not thin, but I'd recently lost a couple of pounds and thought I looked okay. As I'm walking away, I hear the guy's voice, which is loud and scratchy, like audible sandpaper. "I like her ass, though. I'd fuck it."

Jerks. I feel my face burning with embarrassment. I make my way to table eleven, barely taking my eyes off my notepad. I'm good at multitasking. Things like daydreaming and walking. Texting and walking. Ignoring stupid men and walking.

At table eleven, I take a deep breath. "I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting. We've had a shift change. May I bring you a complimentary berry cobbler?" I look up and for a second, lose my composure. I drop my pen and it clatters to the table.

The man sitting in booth eleven has the most intense eyes I've ever seen. They're the color of the orange blossom honey my mom used to buy at a farm stand when I was a kid, thick with secrets and sweetness. Everything around us seems to stop when I look into his eyes. I swallow and scramble to pick up the pen, but he's already holding it out to me. I accept it with a whispered thank you.

"Not all of us are like that, you know." His hand, his broad, thick hand, rests near the knife on the table and he points without lifting his arm.

"Like what?" I don't look to where he's pointing because I'm taking in the rest of him. He's got hair the color of burnt caramel, a strong nose, a Cupid's bow mouth. My eyes widen. He's wearing a plain black T-shirt that fits him so well it could be tailored.

Men this hot don't normally dine at fast-casual restaurants in the suburbs on Friday afternoons. My God, his hair looks soft and thick. What would it be like to touch that hair?

"Like those two over there." His dark brows draw together as he glares at the table of the two rude guys. "I've never understood how women can put up with that day after day and still love men."

He looks directly at me and my heart stutters. "Why do you put up with it?"

I blink. "I need the job."

He nods and moves his plate away with his thumb, about an inch. "Aren't you in school?"

I pause, taken aback by all the questions. "Yeah, I have a month till I graduate from Kendall High, but I still need the job because someone's got to pay for college in the fall."

He's studying my face with a familiarity that's unsettling, and his eyes soften. I detect something wistful in his expression, something private and maybe even painful. I look at my black sneakers because the way he's staring at me is almost too intimate. "Putting yourself through college. Your brother must be proud of you."

I frown. "How do you know my brother? Do you know him from the protests?"

The guy shakes his head. His lashes are long and jet-black. "No, not through protests. Although he did try to drag me to an anti-police demonstration downtown one year."

"Then how do you know him? Politics? A non-profit? School"" This guy looks to be about my brother's age, mid-twenties. Maybe he works at city hall or for a politician or something. Although he seems too self-assured, too edgy, to work in an office. And the watch on his wrist looks expensive, and real. It's a Rolex and it makes everything around us — the red tweed upholstered seats, the faux Americana nostalgic crap on the walls, the laminated dessert menu in a plastic holder — look tacky and cheap.

Now he's grinning at me, and my heart bangs against my chest. I swear he's being flirtatious. I'm not entirely sure, because even though I'm one month from my eighteenth birthday, I've never had a real boyfriend. I've only kissed a couple of guys, and all the flirting I've done was through text massages. So maybe this man is messing with me, kind of like the others were, but in a more twisted way.

But although his grin is wicked, there's a sweet afterglow. It sends a tingle up my spine, that smile. I stop breathing for a second and think that if he keeps looking at me like this, I'll turn to dust and blow away.

"Not through school or politics. Or a non-profit." The way he's smiling, all conspiratorially, it's as if I'm supposed to automatically know his relationship with my brother.

"Then how?" I fidget with my pen, feeling the pricks of perspiration on the back of my neck, right at my hairline. I scratch the area with my pen. For some reason, the temperature seems to change in the blink of an eye. The air is thick and hot, and I notice how his ears stick out just a little. On other guys, it would be geeky.

On him, it's achingly adorable.

"You don't remember me, do you?" He's still grinning and hint of his tongue is visible as it touches his canine tooth. As if he's contemplating eating me and the very thought is mouth watering. He looks deep into my eyes and I have to remind myself to breathe. There's a ring of pure black around his honey-colored iris. If I'd met a man this stunning, I'd remember him. Most certainly.

I shake my head. "I'm sorry, I don't."

"The last time we saw each other, you said you wanted to marry me."

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