Bev came in the back, dressed as usual in street clothes, her uniform and white leather Keds tucked neatly in her rucksack. Bruce Grady, the diner’s owner, and Dink, a busboy and dishwasher, were in the kitchen, prepping for lunch.
Bruce smiled at her as she headed to the small staff area. “Hey, Bev. You look bright today. Gimme some sunshine.” Bev smiled, and Bruce put his hand over his heart. “Such a sight.”
“You’re a flirt. You better watch it, or Sheryl will be putting a whole different kind of wiener on the menu.”
Bruce winced dramatically, and Dink giggled, and Bev went back and to change into her uniform and clock in. As she came out, tying her gingham apron around her waist, Bruce, his face more serious now, asked, “Hey, hon. Can I get you to double up today? I know it’s last minute, but Ceci called in, and Sky’s been on since five this morning. I can’t ask her to close.”
Working open to close at Sal’s wasn’t even a double. It was like a double and a half. The diner was open from six in the morning until midnight, and the staff was on the clock an hour extra on either side, so it worked out to a twenty-hour shift. So no, asking Skylar to work the entire day would be inhuman.
But Bev had arranged to get help picking up her new sofa tonight after work, and it had taken her more than a week to get everything scheduled just right. “Sorry, Bruce. I just can’t tonight. I’m getting my sofa, remember?”
Bruce looked crestfallen. “Right, right. I forgot. It’s okay. I’ll call Brooklynn and have her come from school. She’s been looking to earn money, anyway. It’s a school night, but it’ll be okay. I’ll stay with her. I’ve worked full days before. And Sheryl’ll get over it.”
Brooklynn was Bruce and Sheryl’s sixteen-year-old daughter. He was working Bev, playing on her sympathies, but she saw through his little passive-aggressive display and only smiled. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe Sheryl will even let you keep your wiener.”
Bruce laughed. “You are a cold woman, Beverly.”
“Nah. I’m warm and cuddly. And also smart.” She kissed her boss on the cheek, gave little Dink an affectionate pinch on the arm, and went up to the counter. Skylar Berinski, also dressed in a peach-colored uniform, was clearing a table at the front window.
It was just before eleven o’clock on a pre-season weekday morning, and Sal’s was in the late-morning lull that was typical for this time of day and year. The only customer at the moment was sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee, an empty plate, and the Quiet Cove Clarion in front of him. Irv Lumley was the chief of the local police department, and he was a regular, coming in just about every weekday for a sugared jelly stick and about half a pot of coffee. Most of the town cops were frequent diners at Sassy Sal’s. They got their coffee bottomless and free. The chief got his jelly sticks free, too.
Bev brought the pot over and refilled his cup. “Morning, Chief.”
He looked around from his sports page and smiled. “Morning, lovely.”
“Anything good going on in the world?” She checked his cream pitcher and found it near empty, so she refilled that, too.
“Thanks, hon. Sox won last night. They’re starting off strong this year. But otherwise, it’s the usual gloom and doom.”
“Bummer. Get ya anything else? Another jelly stick?”
He chuckled and let go of a side of the paper to pat his nonexistent belly. “Better not. One of those a day is my limit. Man’s gotta watch his figure, y’know.”
She grinned. The front door opened just then, and a middle-aged couple came in. Bev grabbed a fresh ticket pad and passed Sky as she came out from the kitchen. Sky winked at her, and Bev winked back. That was all the greeting they needed. They got each other on a level that transcended words.
~oOo~
Bev and Skylar worked through the lunch rush together, and then Sky clocked out at two. Brooklynn came in at four, excited to get the gig. Except in the summer, dinner was their lightest meal time. They spent the first couple of hours wrapping silverware and filling condiments. When the dinner traffic picked up, Bev took all the tables and let Brooklynn shadow her, so she’d have the basics down by the time Bev clocked out at seven.
It wasn’t the first time that Bruce’s eldest kid had worked in the diner, but it was the first time she’d be waiting tables. She was tall and skinny, and there was no uniform that fit her, so she was slumping around in one that was far too large, from a waitress before Bev’s time. She kept getting the pockets caught on the corner of the counter. But she seemed to be enjoying herself.
Bev wondered how long that would last. She figured by the end of the summer, Brooklynn would not be so sanguine about leaving work each day smelling like a coffee-soaked deep fryer. With burns on her fingers from the heat lamps and bruises on her ass from jerkface summer men who’d left their manners in their city houses.
It was definitely her coworkers who made the job bearable.
By the time she clocked out and changed back into her jeans, t-shirt, and jacket, Bruce was sitting at his desk, looking a little frazzled. Mario was the cook on the clock.
“How’s she doin’, you think?” Bruce asked as Bev was packing up her uniform and Keds.
“Brook? She’s fine. She’ll be fine tonight. It’s not rocket science, as they say. If you made us do diner speak, that’d be one thing, but you’re too cool for that, thank God, so there’s not much to learn. What’d Sheryl have to say about her being here tonight?”
He chuckled. “Oh, I’ll be sleeping on the sofa for a while, but I think I’ll keep all my parts. Speaking of sofas, you better go get yours.”
As if on cue, Mario poked his head in the door. “Bev, Chris is here for you.”
“Cool. Gotta go. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” She kissed Bruce on the cheek and went out to the front, where Chris waited.
Chris Mills owned Cover to Cover Books, a little shop a couple of blocks down Gannet Street from the diner. He was her best friend, had been for more than ten years, and was the reason she’d decided to move to Quiet Cove the summer before. He grinned when she came out to the counter, his scruffy, normally hangdog face brightening considerably.
“You all set for this?”
He made a show of flexing his muscles. “Chris haul,” he grunted. “Chris heft. Chris smash.”
“Chris better not smash. Or get any kind of man grunge on my pretty white sofa.”
He scoffed. “Only a woman would buy a white sofa. And this woman should be nicer to the person who’s hauling and hefting said white sofa for free.”
She punched his arm lightly. “Not free. I bought you beer.”
He made another animal noise. “Beer? Chris happy.”
“Chris easy, you mean. Let’s go.”
~oOo~
Getting the sofa into Chris’s van was no problem. Getting it into the building was no problem. Getting it into the service elevator was no problem. But getting it around the hallway corner and to her door was looking potentially impossible. Bev had expected to be able to stand it on its end and swivel it around the corner, and from there, it was a straight shot to her door. But she had neglected to consider the quite firmly attached stained-glass light fixture hanging sturdily from the ceiling right at the corner.
And the door to the corner unit was right there, too. They’d crashed the sofa into it twice now. Hopefully, the tenant wasn’t home. He scared her. A little. He seemed really intense, from the little she knew.
Chris dropped his end of the sofa with a groan. They’d managed now to get the thing wedged against her neighbor’s door somehow. “This is hopeless. I thought you were all brawny and muscly, like Chyna.”
“Who?” Bev didn’t need to drop her end; it was wedged into the door.
“Chyna. Chick wrestler.” Chris eyed her neighbor’s door. “Even if we get this thing around the corner, how are we getting it into your place? That turn’s even tighter.”
“There’s no light right above my door.” She looked down the hallway to double check.
The sofa cushions were stacked at the side of her door. “Nope. We’ll be good. We can tip it up down there.” She took hold of the armrest, ignoring the grey smudge from all the crashing. “Come on, we can do this. I am muscly.”
Chris whined a little, but he picked up his end. “Why did you have to get a sleeper sofa? It’s like it’s packed with rocks.”
“For someplace to put your drunk ass when you pass out.” They hefted and got just enough movement for Bev to feel a little hope—and to crash yet again into the door.
This time, it opened, and there her neighbor was, wearing nothing but a pair of plain black track pants and looking absolutely hot as hell. And not pleased. His posture seemed relaxed, but his green eyes flashed fire.
She smiled as brightly as she could. “Hi, Nick. Sorry for the noise.”
She’d never seen him shirtless before. Oh, good lord. His shoulders were—and his abs and—Bev swallowed. There was a thin line of dark hair rising up from his waistband and stopping at his navel and a light dusting of dark hair across his pecs. Realizing that she’d been staring, she shook her head sharply and looked away—and found Chris giving her a deeply sarcastic look. She resisted the urge to flip him the bird.
“If I may ask, what the fuck?” Nick’s voice was deep and smooth, with a rough rumble at the edge. Not hoarse or growly, but almost like he didn’t use it much. Which could well be true. Their few meetings had not been anything in the vicinity of chatty.
“I bought a new sofa. I didn’t want to pay the extra for delivery—they really gouge you with that stuff—and Chris here was nice enough to say he’d help me get it home, but it’s a sleeper and really heavy. We didn’t have any trouble, though, all the way to here. But now it’s stuck in this corner, and we can’t turn it up on its end because of the light, and now it’s getting smudges on it—” Sheesh, she was blathering like a vapid tween. “I’m sorry, Nick. We’ll figure it out, and we’ll try not to bang on your door while we do it.”
Abruptly, he closed his door, and Chris and Bev looked at each other. Chris mouthed Rude and squatted to pick up his end again. Then the door opened, and there Nick was again. He looked at Bev.
“Step aside.”
“What?”
“Move out of the way. Your new furniture has me blocked in.”
Confused, she obeyed, taking several steps backward down the hall toward her own door. And then he did something that made her jaw drop open. He grabbed the top of his doorframe in both hands and hoisted himself up like he was doing a pull-up. He had great arms, too. In fact, his whole torso flexed, and Bev thought she might just pass out. He brought his legs up and swung himself over the end of her sofa, landing neatly in the hallway on his bare feet.
He could have climbed over, Bev thought. But she hadn’t minded the show at all.
Then he turned away from her, and she saw his back. A tattoo covered him from his broad shoulders to his narrow waist and side to side—black and grey, huge angel’s wings, drawn to appear to be growing out of his shoulder blades, with an elaborate, medieval-looking sword straight down his spine, all of it wrapped in barbed wire. She was going to have a heart attack. Could you die from looking at perfection? Like going blind from looking at the sun?
Chris was still smirking at her, but Nick ignored her and spoke to him. “Here. Pick it up from the bottom and tip it forward about forty-five degrees.” They did so. “Good. Take a few steps to your left. Good. Okay.” He stepped backwards, and Bev did as well, keeping the same distance between them, staying out of his way.
She couldn’t stop staring at his back, the way it flexed as he moved and lifted her sofa. Sweet, swaddled baby Jesus. She had an image of walking up to him and licking him straight up his spine—an image so vivid she took a step forward before she pulled up with a gasp.
They’d gotten the sofa around the corner. Feeling a little seasick from the waves of relief and arousal crashing together inside her, Bev turned and trotted down the hallway, opening her door and yanking in all the cushions before the men got there. With only minimal consideration and discussion, they got the beast into the apartment and placed in the spot she’d made for it, right next to the window wall and her balcony overlooking the pool.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! You both rock!” Chris was shaking Nick’s hand. She hugged Chris hard and then turned to Nick, who was already on his way to the door. “Wait. Stay for a beer. I owe you a beer, at least.”
He smiled a little—it was the first smile she’d ever seen on his face in almost a year of hallway and mailroom greetings, and it made him twice as gorgeous. Who’d’ve thought it possible? Even that little turn of his mouth, though, made him look kind and open instead of scary and intense. “No need. I need to get back. Have a good night.”
And he was gone, his perfect back going through her door.
From behind her, Chris snickered. “Shit, girl, why not just wear a sign that says FUCK ME, HOT STUFF? Wouldn’t be any less subtle.”
She turned back to her friend. “Bite me, bitch. Anyway, he has a girlfriend. And I am not his type. He likes blonde model types—tall, skinny, and beautiful. Here, help me get the cushions on and then you can have your beer.”
As they got the sofa set up, Chris said, “You are beautiful, Bev.”
“I wasn’t looking for affirmation, pal. I’m comfortable the way I am, finally. But I’m not six feet tall and a hundred-ten pounds.”
“True. But that’s such a cliché. So is he. But he is a fine specimen, even I can see that. That parkour thing he did, though, that was just being a showoff. Who is he?”
She shrugged and went into the kitchen to get Chris a beer. “Just my neighbor. Nick Pagano.”
Chris had been in the act of sitting on the new sofa. He stopped and reversed, standing straight again. “Pagano? No shit? Bev, you know who they are, right?”
“Of course I do. But it’s not like Tony Soprano and Sonny Corleone are hanging out in the hallway every day. From what I can tell, I think all the stories are mostly that—stories. He just goes to work and comes home, like everybody else.” She handed Chris his beer.
“You’re deluded. He’s bad news. I’m glad you’re not his type.” He took a drink and then scowled at the bottle. “And what the fuck is this? You said beer. This is IPA. IPA tastes like fermented yak piss.”
Bev had chosen it because it came from the Quiet Cove Brewery and had a cool label. She didn’t know from beers, really. She preferred wine. Or vodka, or rum. In her opinion, all beer was pretty gross. “I thought beer was beer. Plus, look—lighthouse on the label. Pretty.”
He set the bottle on the chrome and glass table in front of the new sofa. “You are such a girl sometimes. Saying beer is beer is like saying soda is soda. Or sex is sex. Actually, that last one is true. Never mind.” He kissed her cheek. “But I still love you. I’m gonna head out. We’re still on for Neon tomorrow, though, right?”
“Yep. Bought a new dress and everything.” Neon was a high-end club in Providence. A guy Chris knew from college was head of security there and had invited them, otherwise they would very much not have been on the list.
“Okay. Make sure Sky and what’s-his-name are here by eight.”
“Romeo. His name is Romeo, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but I can’t say it. No grown man should have that name.”
Sky’s boyfriend weighed about three hundred pounds, and it wasn’t fat. Chris weighed not much more than half that. “You should be careful.”
He grinned and went out, singing “Sky and Romeo sitting in a tree, sounding like a porn movie.”
Alone with her new sofa, Bev laughed and picked up his barely-touched beer from the coffee table. Not beer—IPA. Whatever the difference was, and whatever IPA meant. She took a sip. It actually wasn’t too bad. Not really her taste, but better than most beers she’d had. She had most of a six-pack in her fridge.
She wondered whether Nick liked IPA. Maybe she’d see. Just to be neighborly.
>
~ 3 ~
Nick went back to his apartment and took a look at his door. No damage from the sofa. He went in, washed his hands in the bathroom, and returned to his kitchen, picking up the bottle of Glenfiddich and resuming the act of pouring himself a glass.
He was on his own tonight. Vanessa, apparently more hurt about being dismissed yesterday than he’d realized, had returned his call last evening with a terse text: Busy, will call soon. There had been no further contact.
Standing out on his balcony the morning before, he’d understood that his time with Vanessa was winding down. If she was going to play passive-aggressive games, then the end was much closer than he’d realized. Romance was not Nick’s thing. Appeasing the fragile sensibilities of flighty women was not his thing. He was not a misogynist, at least he didn’t think so. He loved his mother fiercely. His cousin Carmen was his favorite among all the Paganos in his generation. He respected women and treated them well. And there was little he enjoyed more than the feel of a female body in his hands.
Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) Page 3