by Finn, Emilia
I guess I can relate.
5
Eric
Because I guess I like to play with fire, or maybe it’s the lack of oxygen in my lungs, I head back to Franky’s diner the next day after spending hours in the emergency department having my shoulder checked and wrapped. I woke this morning with a shoulder so stiff, I almost wept, but I have work to do, paperwork to file, and clients to help. So I took my ass to work, but the second I walked into the Checkmate office and found out Spencer is a snitch bitch, I was forced back out again with orders to see a doctor and not to come back until I had a note saying I could.
So I went to the ER and asked for Kari Macchio, since she’s a friend of a friend, and when she had a spare moment, my shoulder was seen to by a girl with a cute smile while her EMT boyfriend watched on and made stupid jokes. If I’m going to be forced to see a doctor, I may as well make it a cute nurse I can gossip about my coworkers with while Luc Lenaghan watches on, eating his tuna on rye in the only spare twenty minutes he’d have all day.
I did as I was told, had my scans, found out my collarbone isn’t busted, just sore, and had my arm wrapped. Now, nineteen hours after leaving the diner, I park my ass back down in my booth and smile at the beautiful succubus as she walks her domain and takes care of everyone who comes here for a meal.
I have to work out more than ever before because I eat burgers six days a week and pie at least half of that. But every extra set I do is worth it when Katrina walks my way with fire in her eyes and a tight control on her anger.
Mac didn’t seem all that worried about her rage last night, so I’m taking it as a sign that maybe she’s an explosive psycho, the kind where it’s gone as fast as it comes and extinguishes itself after the initial flash. Seeing as today is a new day, I’m in the clear to keep clogging my arteries.
Hopefully.
In tight black jeans that do wild things to my imagination, and a tight shirt with Franky’s name emblazoned over her chest, Katrina approaches me with firm lips, fiery eyes, and flaring nostrils as she stops by my table and wields her pen like a knife.
So maybe she’s not a flash in the night, but a sun, a fiery inferno that’ll burn me up if I stare too long.
I know she doesn’t want to serve me, and if I’m being totally honest with myself, she’s been kinda reluctant since that first day, but I’m still here and willing to take the heat, because seeing her angry is better than not seeing her at all.
“Hello. My name is Katrina,” she grits out. “I’ll be your server today. Burger and fries?”
“Hi, Katrina.” She smells good. Like roses and sex. Folding my arms over my chest and looking up – and I definitely don’t linger on Franky’s name – I stare into green eyes and flash a grin that always aims for panty-melting, but usually ends up in the region of constipated and desperate. “My name is Eric, and I’ll be your customer today. Can you tell me your specials, please?”
Okay. So I’m clean out of mystery and intrigue, and will mostly aim for obnoxious and cute. We’ll see where that gets me.
With a sigh that she locks up when I lift a brow, she straightens her spine with resolve and nods. “Sure. The meatloaf is still good. And we have a nice potato and leek soup that comes with homemade bread with rosemary and butter.”
“That sounds yummy. Did you make the soup?”
“No.”
Biting my lips together before I cop some of what she was dishing out so freely last night, I clear my throat and try again. “What did you make? The coleslaw for the chicken burgers?”
“No. I already answered that question yesterday.” She lets out a deep breath when she realizes she’s getting snappy with a customer. Just like Mac, I see her buttons, and I push the ones I can without risking my life. “I made the relish for the beef burgers.”
I flash a wide smile and linger on her tits for just a second.
“So, a burger?” she prods. “It’s not as refreshing as a chicken burger and coleslaw, seeing as it’s a little warm out, but a beef burger will fill your belly, so…”
I glance out the window and lift my shoulders to shrug, only to drop them again when I remember Aaron-Fucking-Scanlen and his baseball bat. Go beg the pretty girl to kiss your boo-boos better. “You think it’s warm?” I meet her eyes and smile through the pain throbbing in my shoulder. “It’s not so bad. It’s not nearly as bad as it was in August.”
“That’s probably because it’s not August anymore.” Her tight voice says she has control of this conversation, but her eyes scream about being a dumbass and just order already, ya creep!
I’m not trying to be a creep, but I’m kinda addicted to looking at her. And well, shit, I could be addicted to cocaine. But I’m not, so how about we stop judging my vices? “It’s October already. You ready for Halloween? Do you get dressed up?”
“Absolutely not. So, burger?”
“Can you tell me what’s in the soup, please? I’m kinda digging something new and yummy, but I’m just not sure.”
Her knuckles turn white as she crushes her pen between her fingers. The tips of her pert ears turn red, and her nostrils flare, because she wants to get the hell away from the dude who has questionable fashion sense and seemingly too much time on his hands.
I get it: a bored man is trouble. He’s either unemployed, or he’s plotting to cause mayhem. I’m neither unemployed, nor a trouble maker, but seeing as she refuses to sit down and play nice, she couldn’t possibly know that.
“You want to know what’s in the potato and leek soup?” When I only nod, I swear to God, she growls. “Well, Mr. DeWhit, it has potatoes and leeks.”
“That sure sounds good, huh?”
She’s going to kill me. She’s going to straight up murder me dead. “Yup, it’s delicious. So, soup?” She grinds her words out between pearly white, and almost perfectly straight teeth. She looks as though her folks paid a metric ton of cash for expensive orthodontic work—Colgate ad-straight and sparkly clean, all but this one tooth. It’s on the bottom, not in the center, but just to the left. It’s just the tiniest bit crooked. It’s endearing, because otherwise, she’s pretty fucking perfect, so that one imperfection makes her more like the rest of us. It makes it easier for me to come in here day after day and try my hand at getting the pretty girl to smile for me.
I shouldn’t be here, but if I’m going to break the rules, then I’m going to try my damnedest to get a smile before it’s all over.
“Did you make the soup yourself, Katrina?”
“No.”
“But you made the relish on the regular burgers?” I bring my words down to an almost whisper to draw her closer. “You make that, right?”
“Yes.” Leaning closer, closer, closer, she nervously clears her throat, then her eyes flare wide and her spine snaps straight when she realizes my dirty trick. Growling beneath her breath, she presses her pen to the pad of paper and reaffirms her anger. “You want the burger or not?”
“Yup.” I hand over my unused menu and flash a smug grin. “Burger with the relish and fries, please. And lemonade.”
Katrina Blair is beautiful, young, and wears her sassy pants to work every single day. She doesn’t often show her sass to me, since I never complain and always tip, but though her words are strictly schooled, she can’t control the way her eyes scream her thoughts.
All I have to do to know what she truly thinks is to gaze into her deep green eyes and wait for the blush to fill her cheeks.
She can’t escape the explosive emotion I was witness to last night, and the fact she’s slipping up tonight and carrying around a bad attitude tells me she’s still a little raw about it. I’m not here to tease, and I’m definitely not trying to add to her shitty day. I just want a moment to breathe clean air and get my fill before I have to go home and mind my own damn business again.
It’s as certain as death and taxes; eventually I have to go home and leave her be. But before that moment comes, I’m saying Katrina Blair needs to loosen up a little a
nd escape the slavery she subjects herself to, so if asking her the specials every damn day or trying out a stupid joke helps her do that, then who am I to argue with the universe?
For the longest time, I wondered what the point of all of this was. What’s the point to life? What’s the point to love? What’s the whole fucking point to anything, if it’s all inevitably torn from your grasp anyway?
But as they say, time heals all wounds, and your hurts start to hurt a little less.
Time doesn’t help me forget the life I used to live so long ago. Because forgetting such an important part of me would be impossible. But with distance comes a buffer, an ability to take a step back and not think you’re drowning every minute of every day. Time has helped me live with my lot and accept that not everything is fair, and no matter how much I hate it, I don’t get to change it.
But with that certainty comes the fact that I was put in this diner, in this town, in this lifetime for a reason. I feel it deep in my heart: there’s a higher purpose for this. But why? When I so clearly cannot pursue anything real with the beautiful woman, why bring me here at all? To test my willpower? To let me feel a little more pain?
I believe in destiny. I must, because if I didn’t, then what was the point to all the pain? Why push me through hell, wring me out, tear the heart from my chest, and then bring me to the other side all alone and bleeding if there was no grand plan? If destiny wasn’t a thing, then that means everything happens by chance. And chance just isn’t good enough for me.
If there’s no grand plan, then why Gemma? Why put me through that?
No, I decided long ago that the universe must have a plan. I was meant to meet Katrina Blair, and not for a fast fuck and running again before she gets her panties back up. I intend to figure out why I was placed here in this part of my life, but first, I really want the pretty girl to smile for me.
6
Katrina
Damn that smug man and his smug grin. Damn his smug eyes that drop to my boobs every three seconds, and his smug words that outsmart me every time we talk. Damn him for being sexy and tempting when I have no business wanting more than I already have.
Damn him, damn him, damn him for stepping in front of Zeke last night.
I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I don’t need a hero to come in and make me wonder about more. I don’t need anything that’ll add more to my already overburdened life and overpacked baggage.
I walk away from the smug jerk before I say something along the lines of go to hell, but take me to bed first! and put his order in at the kitchen, only to turn around again when Stefan slides a bowl of piping hot soup on the counter with a knowing smile and a wink.
He’s smug too.
With the bowl burning my left hand, a plate of bread resting on my forearm, and my ever-present coffee pot in my right, I walk toward Mac’s booth as he sits with his homework spread out before him, with the Space Jam ballcap I’ve owned since the limited edition VHS came out in the nineties pulled on backwards, and his too-long hair dangling in his eyes while he chews on the end of his pencil and works on his most loathed subject.
“Here, babe.” I slide the bowl onto the table and shake the burn from my hand. “Be careful; it’s still hot.”
He continues scowling at the book in front of him. “Thanks, Mom. Can you help me for a sec?”
“Of course.” Placing the coffee pot down and sliding into the booth across from him, I sigh with relief as I take a load off my aching feet for just a moment. My tables are taken care of, and my boss would never tear me apart for taking a moment with my son, so I sit, then I let out a long groan that embarrasses me when I look up and remember who’s sitting in the very next booth. Eric’s back is to me, so all I see are his broad shoulders, a peek of red and black flannel, and a little ink that stretches along the side of his neck and tempts me to lean in and read.
I’m the cat, and curiosity is going to fuck me up.
“Mom?”
“Yeah.” My eyes snap back to my son, and heat fills my cheeks. “What’s the problem?”
“Algebra.” Thankfully, he still hasn’t looked up. “Who was the wanker that thought this shit up? Who cares where the friggin’ x is?”
“Mac!” I’m forever surprised by his crassness, though I know I shouldn’t be. I lean across the table and slam his hand down when he doesn’t stop tapping the friggin’ pencil. “Can you watch your potty mouth? Jesus. At least pretend I tried to raise you right.”
“But, Mom…” he whines. “It’s algebra. Why does it even matter?”
“Because it just does.” I tug his workbook closer and feel my eyes cross at the triangle surrounding Mac’s graffiti art. “We’re told to learn algebra, so we learn algebra.”
“Have you ever needed to find a triangle’s x in your entire adult life? Seriously, ever? It’s a load of horseshit.”
“Well, not a triangle,” I hedge. “But everybody uses algebra every day without even knowing. If you didn’t, it’d take forever to count shit.”
“Mom!” The dimples beneath his lip pop as he mock hisses. “Potty mouth.”
“Oh, shut up.” I push the book under his nose and nod toward my elderly customers who sit in the booth behind me. “If Ray and Gloria’s dinner costs forty-three dollars, and they gave me a fifty to pay for it, how much change would I give them?”
Finally, my son lifts his eyes… but the look on his face implies I’ve grown three heads. “You’d give them none, because that’s your damn tip. You earned that, woman!”
“Macallistar Blair!” I growl when Gloria chuckles into her coffee. “Answer the damn question. Forty-three from fifty?”
“Seven,” he huffs. “You’ve got seven bucks left over.”
“Exactly. You just found the x, now eat your dinner and finish your damn homework.”
Sliding back out of the booth, I fix my apron and top and snag my coffee pot. I love my son more than anything else in the whole world. There’s nothing that would ever change that, but homework… seriously, I’d trade an organ to never have to do homework again.
Algebra does suck. I know that! Mac knows that. But I signed a contract at some point in the last decade and a half that promised I’d give my son the best chance at being a grown up, which means school, homework, and social skills.
I walk away from his booth with a shake of my head and a plan to work on his lack of social filters. It’s so anti-me, trying to beat this out of him, because really, I hate algebra and people too. Blairs don’t much care about other people’s feelings. It’s not that we’re unfeeling jerks, but more that we lack the ability to pat asses that don’t deserve patting.
It’s why I don’t have many friends.
Bitches don’t like it when you call them on their bitching.
My high school friends, while they didn’t scatter the way Zeke did, still led a different life than I did. They had parties and proms, where I had diapers and no time for bullshit. I was too busy to follow them around and didn’t have the energy to make new friends, so I led my solitary life and didn’t let it get to me.
I used to want to host dinner parties. Home-cooked meals, girlfriends, maybe a boardgame once the dishes were packed away. But I let that shit go once my life got real and socializing was replaced with bone-deep exhaustion.
When Mac got a little older and started kindergarten, I was the twenty-one-year-old mom at school drop-off, where all the other moms were in their thirties and forties and career-driven. They were married to their corporate husbands and paid someone to walk their purebred dogs, while in our home, we ate baked beans for the protein boost and shared a bed because we could.
Mac and I walked to school because, more often than not, I was already on shift, so he’d hang out in Franky’s office or in a booth for the morning, then we’d hustle out the door and run, since school wasn’t that far away and we didn’t have a car anyway. But those other moms, they drove their seven-seater SUVs and wore skirt-suits.
No matter how hard they tried to involve me, and they did, I’ll admit they truly tried, but no matter how many pity lunches they invited me to, we couldn’t relate. I had no time or money for a fancy lunch, and they couldn’t understand why I would choose to “ruin” my life at such a young age. They looked down on me with pity; they whispered about me when they didn’t think I was listening, and then beyond the first grade, they stopped inviting us places altogether.
My poor, sweet baby had to learn how to enjoy his own company, because after a while, those snooty bitches gently nudged their precious babies away from my probably-going-to-be-a-statistic child.
Ironically, he became exactly who they pegged him to be.
My son was arrested when he was just eleven years old because he broke into one of those mom’s cars just to prove to himself that he could. It’s what he does; he protects me. He walks across town at nearly midnight to walk me home from work and shoves his father without knowing the whole situation because Zeke was standing up to me and had that wild look in his eyes.
I never told Mac those moms snubbed us, but he’s not stupid, so he figured he’d defend my honor and teach those jerks a lesson. The problem is that, by defending me, he made more work and bills for me.
But that’s just who he is: honest to a fault, loyal to the point he practically sleeps on my head at night like a kitten would, and so unbelievably well-intentioned, it makes it hard for me to get mad at him.
Usually.
But being brought home by the chief of police in the middle of the night, no matter how well-intentioned, doesn’t fly without me losing my ever-loving mind and screaming until he lost his hearing.
Mac and I have been a work in progress since day one. I was still a baby myself, so I never claimed to know everything. I never promised I wouldn’t make mistakes, and I never said I was perfect, but I did vow to try my very best every single day.