“Okay, let’s start smaller,” Nick says as we squat on the floor, mopping up the six most recent glasses of water I’ve dropped. His elbow brushes mine and we lock eyes for a moment. He clears his throat and looks quickly away. “Let’s see how you do carrying just two drinks on the tray,” he adds.

For the next hour, Nick talks me through balancing the tray properly, keeping my eyes ahead without twisting the tray, keeping my balance with a heavy tray weighing me down and even stacking the tray so that it’s less likely to topple over.

“You’re doing great,” Nick says after I’ve successfully made three trips across the room with six glasses of water on my tray. I grin at him proudly. This somehow feels better than earning Lance Mojave’s approval for my dance steps. “Now let’s try eight glasses,” Nick says.

“Eight?” I croak.

“Eight,” he confirms. “You can do it.”

We stand side by side at the counter in the kitchen, our shoulders touching a little. Nick fills two additional glasses with water and leans over to put them on my tray. Then he helps me hoist the tray up on my shoulder and balance it again. I walk out into the dining room, stroll back and forth twice and then make my way proudly back to the kitchen.

“I did it!” I say.

“Way to go!” exclaims Nick. He claps, like I’ve just given some kind of great performance. Which I guess I have. I’m still balancing the tray and grinning at him like an idiot when he takes a step closer and touches the small of my back gently. “I’m proud of you, Amanda,” he says. But I barely hear him; I can feel the heat from his fingers, and my skin tingles.

Our eyes meet. I don’t have much experience with this, but I could swear that I feel a spark between us. There’s something between us. I know it. All of a sudden, the craziest question pops into my head: What would it feel like to kiss him? I can’t believe I just thought that. My heart pounds. And suddenly, I forget I’m supposed to be balancing the tray, which is bad news considering that I’m holding eight drinks—and Nick is directly in my line of fire.

For the second time that night, I drop an entire tray full of drinks on him.

After drying off (Nick) and cleaning up (me), Nick proceeds to give me a few quick pointers on restaurant shorthand, such as how to jot down a customer’s order without writing the whole thing (S&MB, for example, is shorthand for spaghetti and meatballs, and Ck is for Coke) and the meanings of certain numbers, such as 86, which means that a restaurant is out of something. As in, “We’re eighty-sixed on olives.”