Before the man in question could even contemplate complaining, I shut him up. “Don’t.” I wasn’t even sure what I was objecting to, but at least Sam knew enough not to piss me off again.

“What do you think?” I asked Elias as he considered Tsehay’s suggestion. I was extremely aware of the fact that even though I knew this was probably the best solution, I was dreading not having Elias with me all day. That I’d been looking forward to listening the rest of Aristotle and Dante with him.

“I can do that.” He dipped his head at my question, but something in his eyes made me wonder if he was bummed out too. I reminded myself that the only dummy in this equation was me, and Elias was probably more concerned about us being able to do our job.

He looked at Sam, who was still fuming next to us, and clenched his jaw hard. “We can switch one of Sam’s workers with Yohannes, who has the nutrition background, since that’s something I’m not familiar with.”

Sam scoffed like an asshole and I glared in his direction. Elias looked like he was ready give the man a piece of his mind. “You have to go and apologize to Mr. Dawit. He is a reasonable man, but you have publicly disrespected him. Tsehay and I were going to talk to him, but you made this mess. So you will have to fix it.”

“What?” He had the gall to sound offended. “All I did was ask a couple of questions.”

This time Elias straightened to his full height, and I could see why he always kept that easy and quick smile. He didn’t need to assert himself with posturing. This man was perfectly capable of owning a room when he wanted to.

“Sam, does your mother work?”

The question seemed to catch him off guard, and he actually stammered. “Yes, my mother works,” he said haughtily. “She’s a high school principal.”

Elias smiled, but his eyes were still very unfriendly. “How would you feel if people came up to your mother at restaurants and on her way home from church on Sunday to tell her she doesn’t know how to do her job?”

Tsehay made a sound that I was pretty sure was a suppressed laugh, and I had to bite my tongue not to chuckle. Sam spluttered, furious for getting called on his bullshit. “That’s not—”

I cut him off because no one had time for this. “The hell it isn’t. What you did was disrespectful and Mr. Dawit has a right to an apology,” I told him, already walking away. Sam could get as red in the face as he wanted. That had to be said.