Rafe shrugged. “I’d pass out face down in the mangu if your Papi ever bought me a beer, Florecita. I’m half expecting him to come out here and remind me to wash my own dishes.”
She patted his shoulder. “Since you brought company, he probably won’t do that. I should try that sometime.”
Rafe handed her the pad and the pencil. “You bring a boy in here, he’s going to chase him off with a chef’s knife.”
Her smile faded. “That is probably true.”
When she went away with our order, he folded his arms on the table and smiled at me. “Hungry? I ordered a lot of food.”
“Sure.” I was, too. “What should I expect?”
“Dominican food is sort of like Cuban. Lots of fried things. It’s not health food.”
I picked up my beer bottle and touched it to his. “Fuck health food. We’ve earned a few fried plantains tonight.”
“Damn straight,” he said, then lifted the bottle to his beautiful mouth.
“You work here during the summer?”
“Yeah. And every holiday. And all the years in high school. They didn’t even pay me minimum wage until last summer. My uncles are slave drivers. They think blood relatives should work for almost nothing.”
“But you get tips?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been working in that kitchen since I could hold a knife. I wrote my Harkness essay about learning to keep my cool in a crowded kitchen.”
“That’s awesome, Rafe. I’m not like you.”
He gave me a lazy grin. Slouched back in his chair across from me holding his beer, rocking a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, Rafe was easy on the eyes. “What am I like, then?”
“You’re good at everything.” Honest to God, the sight of Rafe dancing the merengue as easily as he walked was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. The boy could move. It made me want to gobble him down and ask for seconds.
He set the bottle down with a snort. “Right. I wish that was true. School isn’t easy for me.”
“No? You seem like you’ve got it all together.”
His eyes took a tour of the room. “My family thinks I live a cushy life, going to school and working a few shifts in the dining hall. They think it’s like a four-year vacation. And I’m sweating buckets just to keep my grades at a B- average. My mother wanted me to pick a school in the City so I could live with her across the street from this place and work five nights a week.”
“She doesn’t understand, though. You’re going to have the word ‘Harkness’ on your resume in two and a half years. That sticker is going to be worth a pile of money to you, if you want it to be.”
He leaned that handsome face into one of his hands. “What about you, Bella? What are you going to do with your Harkness sticker?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “I really wish I knew. And the fact that I don’t is starting to freak me out. I mean… it’s not like I’m going to starve. But I really don’t want to move back into my bedroom on East 78th Street with nothing but a diploma to show for my effort.”
“But hey, the diploma will be in Latin,” Rafe said. He touched his bottle to mine and then drained his beer. “Where is that cousin of mine. Flori?” he called as she ran past. “Where’s our food?”
“Some of it is up, I think,” she said over her shoulder. “Why don’t you check?”
“What is the deal with this joint?” he asked, and I laughed. He swept our empty beer bottles off the table and went into the kitchen.
Two minutes later I saw him reappear through the swinging doors, a tray in his hands. I was so busy admiring the sexy sway of his shoulders that I almost missed the gorgeous woman hot on his heels. She had exquisite cheekbones, dark skin and wavy hair which had been captured into a clip on the top of her head.
“Rafael! Adónde vas? Espera a su madre.”
He answered her in rapid-fire Spanish. Setting the edge of the tray down on the table, he began removing dishes. Each one he put in front of me looked better than the last. And the smell! I was salivating in seconds.
Behind him, the beautiful woman put her hands on her hips. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but from her tone it was obvious that a) she was his mother, though she looked almost too young to have a college-age son and b) she wasn’t entirely happy with him.
“Ma, stop yelling,” Rafe commanded. “This is my friend Bella. She has never had Dominican food, and we did not have any dinner. So be nice and let us eat.”