by Finn, Emilia
But I try to act cool about the woman who makes up my every sex dream. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“No?” Stepping away, he turns his back to me and walks along the street to the black Hummer he drives. Speaking into his microphone so his voice crackles in the piece still in my ear, he chuckles. “Diner oughtta be closing in an hour or so. I wonder if she’s on shift?”
“She is.” I run a hand over my face in frustration. I’m frustrated because she’s addictive. I’m frustrated because she serves me every single day, but she has no fucking clue who I am. She serves me, but she doesn’t see me. “She’s always there.”
“Oh, I know.” Turning and walking backwards, he flashes tattooed middle fingers and laughs. “Go beg the pretty girl to kiss your boo-boos better. Everyone knows that’s where you’re going, so you can quit with the shy girl act. We know you aren’t a virgin anymore.”
“Fuck you, Spencer. Mind your own business.”
“Eh, I’d rather not. Catch you tomorrow, Cap. Sweet dreams.” The gun in his holster reflects the streetlights as he turns back around and continues walking.
I have to remind myself every damn day that he’s my brother. He’s my friend. He’s my trusted coworker.
And it’s against company policy to shoot him because he’s annoying.
Switching on my ignition and thinking of Aaron Scanlen when I have to take extra care of my left arm, I pull out and pass two police cruisers as I head toward Main Street.
I should go home. I should lock my stupid ass away from the woman I can’t stop thinking about and leave her be. She’s beautiful, exotic in a ridiculously delicious way, and she absolutely doesn’t deserve me taking up a booth at Franky’s diner three times a day.
But I do. I go there.
She doesn’t see me, but I sure as hell can’t stop looking at her. But the thing is, I don’t want to stop looking. So even if she’s run off her feet and cussing up a storm because she can’t keep up, I sit my ass in her section and order up a meal I’m probably not hungry for. All because her smile is so pretty.
I plan my day around mealtimes like a total idiot, even though the most I get from her is a polite greeting and the waft of her perfume as she walks away. She introduces herself as Katrina Blair, my waitress, and nothing more. She brings my food and leaves her roses and sex scent lingering in my nose as she walks away. But that’s as far as it goes, because she’s a single mom to a teen who keeps her on her toes, and I’m a man with so much baggage it’s ridiculous. I’ve created this whole romance in my mind, despite the fact I don’t even know the woman. In my heart, I know she’s way out of my league and far too good to sully with a one-night stand.
But I can’t offer more.
Katrina Blair has shown absolutely no interest in the creep who continues to sit in her section, so really, I need to get my head on straight and stop visiting that place like she’s air and I’m suffocating.
There are six billion reasons why I shouldn’t go back there, two of whom are named Gemma and Callie. And yet, I signal before pulling into the parking space out front and yank my keys from the ignition.
Just one breath.
Just one look so I can get my hit, then I’ll walk away.
3
Katrina
I was a fifteen-year-old virgin when I was talked out of my underwear in the back seat of Zeke Douglas’ Chevy Lumina on the Fourth of July just before my junior year began. We’d snuck out for a little fun, because my daddy was always so damn strict and watched every move I made. I was forced to sneak, because otherwise, George Blair ruled with an iron fist and protected his little girl – his only child – mercilessly.
I remember how it felt so romantic being with Zeke. He was so handsome and quick to grin. The moon was bright; the cicadas were chirping, and our adrenaline was running high. It was a sticky day with humidity, but the fireworks provided the most amazing backdrop for the night that would forever change my world.
I was fifteen; Zeke was seventeen, and we were both making decisions only grown adults should be making.
Back when you’re fifteen, you assume the boy looking at you with smiling eyes is your prince charming. Everything he does seems romantic, but everyone else can see the truth: his wild driving was sexy and fun in my eyes, but to the police, it was stupid and reckless. His lack of a job made him seem like a bad boy hell-bent on not conforming. But everyone else saw that he was just lazy. His reputation with the law, because of course they knew him by name, seemed kind of exciting, like an outlaw you read about in all the swoony books, but in reality, it meant picking up trash to pay off fines. Zeke’s shitty grades in school gave me a chance to save the bad boy, but the teachers knew his grades were because he was too lazy to try.
The naïve, fifteen-year-old me labeled him a bad boy, and every girl with a strict daddy wants one of those. I was blind to Zeke’s flaws, seeing only his lopsided smile and pretty eyes. So when I turned sixteen a couple months after that night in his car and was rewarded with two little blue lines and an appointment at the local clinic, Zeke ran so damn fast, it was like his ass was on fire.
Though I could never be sure if it was responsibility he was running from—or my dad’s shotgun.
Nevertheless, Macallistar Blair was born the following May to a terrified, unwed sixteen-year-old girl who had only her daddy to lean on for help. I hadn’t graduated high school yet, let alone college, and every day that passed and I grew rounder, I hustled as hard as I could in Franky’s Diner to save a little cash. My grades slipped fast – because working every waking moment and worrying about a baby will mess with anyone’s concentration – until finally, once Mac arrived, I gave up and walked away from what used to be a 4.0 GPA and a position on the coveted cheerleading squad.
I had to accept my new life.
I would be a single mom with no education forever, destined to struggle, sure to fail.
Awesome.
Zeke skipped town before the pee dried on my pregnancy test, and he didn’t show his face again for a whole decade. So when it was time to sign Mac’s birth certificate, I left Zeke’s name off. Even at sixteen, I was smart enough to know he would only drag us down.
I would forfeit the child support Zeke never would pay anyway for a little peace of mind.
The next several years of my life were the hardest. Harder than even my worst nightmares could predict. My daddy was disappointed in the direction my life took, but he remained my safety net. Our relationship had changed – of course it did. I wasn’t his baby anymore, but a woman with a baby – but although the foundations of our relationship were cracked, he stood by me with a broken heart and did the best he could.
My son was born at a modest eight pounds, six ounces, with cute little dimples on his chin just like mine and my dad’s, and with a bunch of dark hair that is, again, a Blair family heirloom. His birth went as it should; it hurt so much that I thought I couldn’t live through another moment of agony. But eventually pain made way for relief; Mac was laid on my chest, and in the silence of that birthing suite at two-thirty-five in the morning, my baby and I made silent promises to each other.
Our tiny family would be okay. We were a team, and we would make it.
Buttttt unfortunately for me, we wouldn’t make it that first year. Mac was a horrible baby. So bad, he might get the award for being the absolute worst baby of all time. Reflux, constant ear infections, diaper rashes that just wouldn’t go away, eczema that required wet wraps and expensive hospital stays. He was a non-sleeper and wore me down until I was just a robot in survival mode. I lived on a couple hours of sleep a night for years, but it was always broken.
Always.
That first year was the worst of my life. It pains me to admit it, because I was probably supposed to be floating in that new-mom-new-family bliss, but it was straight up horrible and I hated every single moment.
I was sixteen! I was supposed to be attending prom and having fun with my girlfriends, bu
t instead, I was dead tired, flat broke, and crying every single day as I mourned the life I would never have back and the exhaustion I wasn’t sure would ever lift. Life wasn’t supposed to be this hard yet. It’s supposed to be an adventure, an exciting quest to find happiness and the pot of gold.
Alas, I had to work extra-extra hard to unlock that level.
Now my son is a teenager; I still work in Franky’s Diner; I still struggle to sleep most nights because, although Mac looks like a Blair, he behaves like a Douglas and has a tendency to look for trouble, which means all these years later, I’m still exhausted.
But we’re seeing the light. Things aren’t all bad.
My rent is paid; we have food, and I’m paying off medical debt that my kid continues to accrue through bad decisions. But most importantly, beneath the smartass attitude and witty jokes, my son is perfect. He’s a sweetheart, never intentionally hurts me, and actively works on his impulse issues.
He might be part Zeke Douglas, but he’s aware of it, and he tries to do better.
Zeke never even tried.
The bell above the diner door rings and draws my eyes up to the nighttime darkness outside. The diner is empty but for an elderly couple in one booth and a single man in another. But the man who draws my eyes now, the one in jeans, heavy boots, and grief in his eyes stops on the threshold and watches me.
Eric DeWhit watches me with an odd intensity. We’re not friends; we’re not anything, but he’s been in here enough now that I know his name and face, and he knows mine, because part of my job is to introduce myself to my customers.
Eric stops in here every single day, often more than once, and like some unwritten rule, he’s become mine. I never laid claim, and neither did he, but I make up fifty percent of the serving staff here, and he never sits in Tammy’s section.
Never ever.
Even if I’m run off my feet and sweating off my makeup, he sits in my section and waits, and if my section is full, he leaves, only to come back thirty minutes later.
Wiping my hands on a towel, I stand behind the short counter and watch the man come in from the dark with eyes that hold secrets and a body that no doubt knows how to hold a woman.
I wouldn’t know. And I definitely don’t dream about his chest late at night when I’m in bed all alone.
He looks to be mid to late-thirties, has dark-blond hair almost always worn under a stupid hat with ear flaps, and heavy combat boots. He watches me, but he doesn’t move until I do. Frowning, because I’ve never seen him so serious before, I slowly turn away and grab up the half-full coffee pot.
As though that was the invitation he needs, Eric drops his chin and makes his way to the same booth he always sits in. He moves stiffly, and then shows his cards when he drops onto the seat and slaps an ice pack on his shoulder with a grunt of pain.
It bothers me that I care about what happened.
Before heading in his direction, I move to the kitchen and put in his order, because I know he’ll ask for a burger and fries. He asks for the specials every time, and after I spend five minutes explaining everything we have, he orders a burger and fries anyway.
Because he likes to waste my time. Or because he likes the sound of my voice.
It’s possibly the first, but hopefully the second.
Giving Stefan my order despite the fact we’re close to closing and the guys thought they were done serving up dinner, I turn away with the coffee pot in my hand and an odd flutter in my stomach.
That right there. That should be my first sign. In the grand scheme of my life, my stomach fluttering should be a massive red flag that demands I turn the hell around and walk away. But I ignore it, just like I ignored the first few times my son fluttered in my stomach when I was a teen and seventeen weeks pregnant. Passing the elderly couple who are finishing up, and giving a wide berth to the other occupied table, I pass the empty booth where my son normally sits and feel the pang of worry that every mother feels when her child isn’t right in front of her.
Mac used to come in here every day and night and watch me while I worked. He’d eat pie, dry the silverware, and slog through his homework while I watched on and didn’t worry about where he was. But he’s getting older now, and as he ages, his social circle is expanding. He’s become friends with some good people, so I allow him to go to the gym with them, then head straight home where he’ll sleep, and I’ll catch up with him in the morning.
This is somewhat of a new routine for us, since it’s only been the last couple months that I trust him to be good without supervision, but good or not, I still only allow it a couple nights a week. I can’t live my life not seeing my baby in the evenings, so even if he’s big enough to cook his own grilled cheese and pour a glass of milk, I ask him to come in here and do his homework. That way I can feed him and press embarrassing kisses to his moppy hair whenever I feel like it.
But tonight is a good night for him not to be here. It’s a good time for him to be independent and not watching my every move as I make my way across the diner and stop once I hit the musky scent of man and trouble.
Every good girl wants to save her bad boy.
Even after all these years, I’m still attracted to the wrong kind of guy. I can smell Eric’s trouble from five miles away. It’s subtle, but something deep in my heart knows it’s there, and if given the chance, I just know that he can hurt me.
“Hello.” My words are but a whisper. A shaky, breathy, pathetic whisper, because it’s almost the middle of the night, and it almost feels like we’re all alone in this diner. “My name’s Katrina, and I’ll be your server tonight.”
He turns in his seat and rearranges the bag on his shoulder with a grunt, though he tries to hide his pain. His light eyes come up and meet mine. One beat. Two. He stares right into my damn soul and brings electricity to my fingertips. He makes me nervous, though I know I shouldn’t be. He makes me want to break my own rules, though I know damn well I put them into place for a reason.
I should tell him we’re closed and to come back another decade, but his stare holds me in place so it truly feels like we’re the only two people awake in the world. I know, I just know being attracted to this man won’t end well for me, but he refuses to let me free… until he doesn’t.
He breaks his spell with a charming grin that makes my stomach flutter and my heart drop. From intense stares to a goofy grin, he gives me whiplash as his eyes literally lighten in the space of a second. “Hi, Katrina, my name’s Eric, and I’ll be your customer today.”
Lame joke. But it helps me remember he’s just a dude who holds no true power over me. Just a guy. Just a penis. Just another customer. “Are you okay?” My eyes are drawn to his hand moving on his shoulder. “Need a fresh pack?”
“Nah, I’m good. Mine’s still frozen, but thanks.”
“What happened?”
Dammit, Katrina!
His lips twitch into the world’s most repressed smirk as he reaches out for the folded newspaper we leave on all the tables and grunts again when he sits back too fast. “I was playing baseball. Copped a foul ball.”
My eyes narrow at his obvious lie. “Um… okay. You want something to eat?”
“I do, thanks.”
“Burger and fries?”
Relaxing into our usual chat, he expels a warm breath and allows his eyes to travel along my body. “What are your specials tonight, Katrina? I’m hungry, but I’m not sure about the burger.”
“Uh… The meatloaf is on special, and it’s pretty good. We also have minestrone soup and homemade bread, and the guys have a nice chicken burger going. The coleslaw is pretty tasty.”
Lazily nodding as though he has all the time in the world and absolutely nowhere else to be, he considers his options and scratches his jaw so his nails move across the week-old beard. “I don’t think I want the meatloaf. It’s not speaking to me.”
I would hope not. It’s a fucking meat dish, not a person. “Okay. So, the regular burger?”
“Did
you make the coleslaw for the chicken burger?”
“No, it came from a tub.”
He thinks my answers are cute, proven by his smirk and dancing eyes. “But you made the relish for the beef burger? From scratch?”
“Yes, I made the relish from scratch.”
Finally, he flashes his full smile and reaches up to flip the mug over so I can pour. “Burger please, with the Katrina-made relish and a side of fries.”
“Coming right up.” I pour the steaming coffee with precision, because if I spill it on his hand, I’d feel kinda bad to add to the pain on top of his sore shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t need anything for your shoulder? A hospital, maybe?”
Chuckling, he brings the full mug to his lips and inhales the scent. There’s no way in hell I could drink coffee at this time of the night. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until closer to five in the morning, and then I’d have to get up again an hour later and walk around perpetuating the cycle when I pour more caffeine. “I’m okay, but thanks for the concern. Nobody ever worries about me anymore, so it’s fun to be babied for a sec.”
“Kat?” Our eyes come up at the slurred request from my single diner as he turns with dark eyes and a curled lip. Unkempt black hair hangs in his lashes, and a week-old beard covers his jaw… it’s the same as Eric’s, but at the same time, nothing like Eric’s. “Service.” He clicks his fingers. “Now.”
Heat fills my cheeks as I turn back to Eric with a forced smile. “I’ll get your meal out to you just as soon as it’s ready. And if I remember, I’ll bring you a fresh ice pack.”
“You know where to find me.” One-handed, he snaps his newspaper open and goes about reading the sports section in the back. His body language says one thing, but his watchful eyes don’t leave my back as I walk away and pray no scenes are made tonight. I have less than an hour left. One hour to get everyone out that door and the floors mopped before I can go home and fall into bed.
One more hour, then I can consider this day done and myself just a little bit closer to freedom.