BEALE,” SAWYER said in a tone even brighter than the pleasing-the-elderly speeches I’d heard from him at breakfast that morning. “Hello, Mr. Gordon. I’m Sawyer, and I’ll be your server this evening. Barrett.” He looked down into my eyes. “Kaye. You look beautiful in blue.” He set a basket of bread closest to me. He wore his usual battered flip-flops, khaki shorts, and a Crab Lab T-shirt, with a white waiter’s apron tied around his waist. His variegated blond hair looked halfway styled tonight. I approved. Even my mother had to be impressed by a neatly dressed, hardworking teen, exactly what she’d been growing up in downtown Tampa. I should have known better when she didn’t smile at being called Ms. Beale—even though, as Aidan had proven, it was quite a feat for my classmates to remember her name. Sawyer had been to my house for big parties a few times. He must have seen both surnames on our mailbox. So had everybody else, but Sawyer had remembered.
