My Bittersweet Summer by Starla Huchton

right?”
    “Did you ask permission?”
    “No, but the schedule says—”
    I turned and pointed the tip of the knife at him. “The schedule can’t predict how busy everyone is at any given moment. You need to make sure no one needs anything before you go.”
    He wandered away and I returned to my chopping, filling a bowl with green sprigs before running it up to the line. While there, I scanned the levels of everything else, trying to anticipate their next request, but everything looked good to go. Returning to my prep station, I was about to start slicing lettuce for wedge salads, but stopped short when I saw Zach leaning up against the sink again.
    “Now what?” I asked, hands on my hips.
    “Only one person needed something,” he said.
    “So go do it. Why are you still standing there?”
    “I am doing it. Your mom said you were supposed to take your break an hour ago and asked me to make sure you did.”
    I scowled. He knew I’d been in the middle of fifty things then and hadn’t gone on break. “I have work to do.”
    “Nothing that can’t wait twenty minutes,” he said. I opened my mouth to speak, but he didn’t let me. “Unless you want to argue the point with your mom, but she’s a little busy right now.”
    The muscles in my jaw worked as I gritted my teeth. “I don’t need a break.”
    “Everyone needs a break, and I’m not going to quit bugging you until you take one.” His mouth turned up in a grin. “Wouldn’t want to get fired on my first night for not doing what my boss said.”
    Irritated, but seeing that I didn’t have a choice, I untied my black apron and pulled it over my head. “Fine, but I don’t need a babysitter.”
    After hanging up my apron, I pulled the trash bag out of the metal container beside the prep station.
    “You’re supposed to be on break,” Zach said.
    “As long as I’m going, it might as well be a useful trip,” I said with a withering glance.
    After thinking about it for a second, he grabbed the trash from the line and hurried behind me out the back exit. Lugging the bag over my shoulder, I grumbled under my breath the whole way. Zach lifted the latch on the white fence surrounding the dumpsters at the far edge of the parking lot and held it open for me. We dumped the bags and I left, heading for the line of wooden columns acting as the barrier between ocean and asphalt. I sat down on the knee-high wall, one leg dangling over the seaside edge, the other planted firmly on the ground, and took a deep breath of salty night air.
    A wrapper crinkled, and Zach sat in front of me, his back to the water. He pulled open the foil on a chocolate bar, breaking off the first row of three rectangles and holding them out to me. I eyed them suspiciously.
    “It’s just chocolate, Margie,” he said. “I’m not trying to trick you.”
    “Just because you apologized, or whatever, it doesn’t make us friends, you know.” I didn’t make a move to take it.
    He shrugged and took a bite. “I get that.”
    “And you realize that I’ll probably never like you, right?”
    He shrugged again. “Maybe.”
    I studied him, the light from the moon and streetlights mixing in the highlights of his hair. Even at night, each strand held a golden, sun-kissed glow. “Then why are you trying so hard? Do you have a thing for lost causes or something?”
    Zach didn’t say anything, instead staring at his chocolate for a long time, thinking. After a while, I gave up on getting an answer and turned my focus to the sound of the sea splashing against the wooden beams, the occasional wave hitting hard enough to send a tiny spray of water up the dangling leg of my pants.
    “If I give up, there’s even less of a chance,” he said quietly.
    “What?” My eyes fluttered open, catching his gaze for a split second. Had he been staring at me when I wasn’t looking?
    “I said, if I give up, there’s even less of a chance.” The wrapper crinkled as he folded it back to reveal another row