Single Dad’s Waitress

by Amelia Wilde

  How much I still want her.

  I get three steps toward the doorway.

  Then, in a movement as cold as I’ve ever seen, she extends her arm over his lap and tips the coffee pot, sending a stream of steaming coffee right onto his crotch.

  “Oops,” she says.

  “Holy shit!” he shouts, jumping out of his seat and frantically trying to wipe the coffee off of his freshly ironed khaki shorts. I don’t even have to know the guy to hate him, and I punch a fist into the air, barely stifling a cheer. “Valentine! What the hell are you thinking?”

  “Do I have your attention?” she says, unflappable. “Do I have your attention, Conrad?”

  Confirmed. It’s him. I can’t take my eyes off of the scene, and neither can anyone else in the Short Stack. Sharon hustles in silently from the front room and stops by my table, making absolutely no move to stop this. People all around me are forgetting that they should keep talking, and the restaurant goes silent.

  “Quiet!” Minnie chimes in, and everyone laughs, but Valentine doesn’t turn around.

  “I don’t want to be with you, Conrad. Not ever, and especially not now, when I am at work. At this job, which I never should have been ashamed to come back to. Sorry, Sharon.” She says the last phrase over her shoulder.

  “Apology accepted,” says Sharon.

  Valentine’s focus is back on Conrad. “I don’t know why you think I’d want you after your own father fired you. I don’t know why you’d think I’d ever want a man who thought I’d be a terrible mother. If that pregnancy scare made you realize you were dodging a bullet, why would you even waste the gas to come here?”

  Conrad is turning a deep red and still fanning at his crotch. He can’t leave, because in order to do that he’d have to go past Valentine, who is still wielding the coffee pot, jabbing it toward him to punctuate her points.

  Valentine’s lip curls like she smells something disgusting. “I don’t need you. I never needed you. It’s none of your business if I came back here to get my life together, okay? I was mortified. And I was mortified because, for a split second, if you can believe it, I was devastated not to be having your baby. Now I know that I was the one who dodged the bullet. Just...get out of here, Conrad. The coffee’s on me.”

  He opens his mouth and the entire café bursts into applause.

  Valentine turns her back on him.

  People start turning back to their plates, and the entire little café, this too-cute café in this too-cute town, fills up with chatter again.

  But Valentine, who has never been too cute, who has always struck me as someone so deeply sexy that it made this place seem worthwhile, is still looking at me, her eyes locked on mine.

  She’s not done yet.

  41

  Valentine

  I’m so incensed that everything is covered in a wild haze of anger, like that coating of flour over our clothes the other night. So what if everyone in the Short Stack is watching the most awkward moment of my entire lifetime? Soon I’ll be out of here, and everyone in Lakewood can talk about it with the tourists who are in here today.

  I meet Ryder’s gaze from across the room, and he’s got such a silly grin on his face, so stupidly, fiercely happy, that for a split second I forget what I’m going to say. It’s like I’m seeing his blue eyes for the first time. I still have that falling, flying feeling.

  But I’m riding the wave of my anger, all that hurt, and I let it fly. For once in my life, I don’t cower. Not even a little.

  “And you.”

  He raises his hands in the air, his expression settling into something more serious. He doesn’t try to interrupt, though I give him long enough to do it if he’s going to.

  “You were such a dick yesterday that I literally can’t believe it.”

  The restaurant around us goes silent again. The side-eye quotient in here just went up by a thousand, and I’m standing right in the center of it. This time, though, Ryder is in the spotlight with me, and it’s like people are just now realizing how insanely attractive he is. Out of the corner of my eye, I see one old lady at the center table by the wall lean over and whisper something to her friend, pointing her finger at Ryder.

  Damn it, they’re right. Even just standing there in his classic black t-shirt and jeans, he’s making the temperature rise around us. I want to tear the shirt off of him and kiss him, push him back onto the floor, and have my way with him. I can’t, though, because my heart is smarting, aching from what he said yesterday.

  “I don’t know why you’re here either. I don’t know why people think they can treat me like that, and then come crawling back like I’m just going to forgive what happened. No. Not this time. Not this time, Ryder Harrison.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Silence, silence, silence. I’m expecting him to yell, to get red-faced and mean, but he doesn’t.

  Conrad slinks out from behind me, coming through the doorway that I’m standing in now and cutting around by the side, both hands up like I’m the psycho in this scenario. He pauses in the other doorway, looks over his shoulder, and tries to get in one last word.

  “You two are perfect together.”

  Sharon shoots him a glare that’s enough to kill Medusa and points at the door. “Out.”

  There’s some scattered applause. Part of me doesn’t mind. This is Lakewood. What the hell else is going to happen today? Nothing this exciting, for sure. The other part is even more pissed that Ryder has somehow turned my job, this good, steady job, with a good, steady boss who would never fire me on the suspicion of being pregnant, into a sideshow.

  “I’m done being blindsided by men like you.” This one hits home, and I see it on his face, but I’m so bent on being heard that I don’t care. For once, someone is going to care what I think. And if Ryder is collateral damage, so be it. “The fling is over. We are over.” I’m saying the words loud and clear. Nobody will doubt me. Not after this.

  Suddenly, it hits me, how very many people are staring at me right now. The Short Stack is not a large restaurant, but this is smack-dab in the middle of the morning shift, and almost every table filled up after Ryder got here. Every single person has their eyes on me.

  It takes me right back to the agency on the day that I was let go for not meeting the standards of the company. Never mind that I had only been there a few months. Never mind that I was meticulous in my work. Never mind any of it. I felt everyone looking at me on the way out of the office. They all knew what was happening. Everyone except me.

  The next words I had to say stick in my throat.

  “I—”

  Ryder makes a movement, like he’s going to come toward me. My heart throbs against my rib cage. If he touches me, I’m going to dissolve into a crying freak in the middle of the Short Stack.

  I can’t let that happen.

  “Valentine—”

  “No,” I say, holding out my hand like a conquering hero. “No.” Then, because this is so bizarre that honestly nothing can make it worse, I decide to just walk on out of this situation. I’m just going to leave it behind. Conrad, Ryder, the Short Stack—it’s all too much in this moment.

  The restaurant holds its collective breath.

  Slowly, as if I’m in some weird hostage situation that I can only escape if I keep my movements precise and deliberate, I reach behind me and tug on the string of my apron. I catch it before it hits the floor and bunch it up in my hands. “This is embarrassing,” I announce to all the patrons of the Short Stack. My voice sounds strange, like I’m announcing that there’s been a severe weather update. “I’m going to go on break.” Then, in case anyone missed it, I say it again. “I’m taking my fifteen minutes.”

  Not one person stops me on the way out. Not even Sharon.

  42

  Ryder

  The moment Valentine is outside and the screen door swings shut behind her, Sharon springs into action.

  The chatter breaks over the room like a wave. People around me are trying to figure
out what the hell just happened. Two old ladies sitting nearby are beside themselves.

  “Did you see that other one?” one says with a quiver in her voice. “What a disgusting dog.”

  “They both have their issues,” her friend says primly. She drops her voice, but not quite enough. “And the attractive one is here with his daughter. I’ve heard that’s his daughter.”

  I’m torn between running after Valentine and letting her go forever. She can do what she wants. She can call it over if she wants to. I can’t force her to be with me, and I would never want to do that. But the look in her eyes when she said those things...

  It didn’t look like it was over.

  Still, the best thing I can do now is give her a little space.

  I can hear Sharon’s voice coming from the front room. “Emily? Hey, it’s me. Can you come down to the Short Stack? Right now, yes. She had to...take a break. Fifteen minutes. No, I don’t know. Just come, okay? I’ve got too many orders to—okay.”

  Then she rolls up her sleeves and takes over for Valentine. I pay for Minnie’s pancake and, as soon as she’s done eating, whisk her out of her high chair and out onto the sidewalk.

  “I wonder where she went,” I say out loud, slipping into my habit of narrating for Minnie.

  “Where’d she go?” Minnie raises both hands in the air and looks in one direction, then the other.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

  “Balontine come right back?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t know.” I breathe in the fresh morning air, but all that does is make it easier to sigh. “I don’t know.”

  Minnie and I circle the block, taking our time, but I don’t see Valentine again. Either she’s decided to just go home or she slipped inside while we weren’t on that part of the street, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t keep doing this all day. I’m going to look like the same kind of creepy stalker that Conrad was being.

  No sign of him, either, which is about the only silver lining to this situation.

  There’s an ache in my throat that I can’t get rid of, no matter how much Minnie makes me laugh, no matter how much she eases the tension just by being around.

  I have to do something for Valentine. Even if she doesn’t want to keep playing our game—even if I’m the only one who wants to take this to the next level—I have to prove to her that I don’t think of her in the way she imagines. I have to. I might never see her again after this summer, and I can’t have it end like this. I just can’t.

  Eventually, Minnie has to go home for a nap. The house is too quiet with her asleep, without any possibility of talking to Valentine, and I spend my little chunk of free time watching out the front window to see if she comes home. Her car isn’t in the driveway.

  At eleven-thirty, I have to leave for work. It just about kills me to leave without seeing her. I do it anyway.

  I hate it.

  “I don’t know how you get yourself into these situations,” Jamie says while he hauls another bag of premium garden soil out of the back of his truck. I’m still not in love with the idea of having to beg work from my brother, but of all the jobs in the world, this is probably the most ideal for the summer. It keeps me in shape and, most importantly, frees up my mind to think about Valentine.

  I guess dwelling would be the better word, and somehow it’s all mixed in with Angie. Valentine was there when I got that news. She was the one person on earth I trusted to leave with my daughter.

  I look at him with narrowed eyes. He misses the expression entirely. “This isn’t the same thing as with Angie.” It’s hard to say her name. It’s always been hard to mention her to my family because it was so fucking embarrassing to be with her in the first place.

  It’s been five days since I had to go to the city. I haven’t been back to the Short Stack, and I haven’t seen Valentine’s car outside her place. This morning I finally cracked and told Jamie everything.

  “Isn’t it?” Another bag of garden soil hits the pile with a heavy thud. “You pushed us all away so hard that you went all the way to Afghanistan.”

  “That’s not why I joined the Army.”

  “Then why?” Jamie pauses and looks at me over the garden soil. “You always held everybody at arm’s length. That’s probably why you thought there was nothing for you at home.”

  “Mom and Dad wanted me out, and you know it.”

  “Nah,” Jamie says. “You wanted to leave, and so you made that the story. It was easier that way.”

  There’s a certain ring of truth to what Jamie’s saying, something that feels way too familiar.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  He rolls his eyes, then reaches into the truck for another bag of garden soil. “Yes, you do. You’re doing the same thing here. That’s why you have to leave at the end of the summer.”

  “That’s—” The argument is so flimsy that I can’t force the words out. I hate it more than a little bit that my brother is right about this. At least, I’m pretty fucking sure he is. It’s never been obvious to me until this moment, though, so my instinct is to scowl. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. But that’s not what’s happening with Valentine.”

  “Look. Nobody can blame you for not wanting to rush things,” he says, counting up the bags and reaching for the clipboard he has wedged in the back of the cab. “But if you keep pushing them all away, you’re not going to end up with anybody.”

  43

  Valentine

  “Cece, I have to get out of here.” For just a minute, I give in to the urge and bury my face in my arms. I’m only halfway through my glass of wine and still feeling ridiculous.

  “My friend,” Cece says, coaxing me back into a sitting position. “This is not the end of the world.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Not the end of the world, maybe, but work has been hell.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Work has been annoying.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” Cece’s eyes sparkle. “You really put on a show.”

  “That’s not what I meant to do when I woke up that morning.”

  “Nobody ever expects to go into work and have a love triangle play out while they’re on shift.” Cece laughs at her joke.

  I don’t. “It’s not a love triangle.”

  She forces her face into a serious expression. “I know. Tactless joke. I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you. I guess.” I reach for my wine and take another sip. I should be in a better mood than this. I finally stood up for myself and left both of them behind. I let out a groan that makes Cece laugh again. “This is horrible. I mean, it’s good, but it’s horrible.”

  I’ve been staying with her since my fifteen-minute break. After I got back to the Short Stack, Ryder was gone, but the heat in my cheeks lingered for hours. I couldn’t bring myself to go home that night, so I went and crashed on her couch. Cece lives in a little blue house three blocks from the Short Stack, so it’s convenient as hell to stay with her.

  Plus, there’s the added side benefit that running into Ryder isn’t nearly as likely.

  Of course, that hasn’t stopped my body from wanting to run into Ryder. We were only having a fling for a few weeks, but it seems like longer than that. The desire that rushes through my veins whenever I think of him makes me think the amount of time doesn’t matter so much as the way his eyes are like a sucker punch to my soul.

  Don’t think about him.

  I last for a single breath.

  “I know this is the right thing,” I say out loud, looking Cece in the eye.

  She purses her lips. “Do you?”

  I slap my hand down on the surface of the table. “Are you seriously telling me that I should go back to one of those men?”

  Cece wrinkles her nose, shaking her head so violently her hair shakes. “No. I am absolutely not telling you to get back with Conrad. He was a douchebag, and you know it. Everybody knows it. Everybody in the entire town knows it.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,�
� I grumble the words into my wine glass. This is just not how I expected the summer to go.

  “Valentine.” Cece’s voice is soft.

  “Yeah?”

  There’s sympathy in her eyes. I will only ever tolerate sympathy from Cece. Nobody else. Well, maybe Sharon. But other than those two, no. I don’t even want my mother to pity me.

  “You know, you don’t have to follow through on this.”

  “Follow through on what?”

  A glass of wine with nothing to eat is going to give me a headache. I’m not hungry. I haven’t been hungry for days, but it’s just not the wise choice to skip out on food. Cece’s ordered some fancy bread and dip—so typical of this wine bar—and I take a piece, dip it, and put it into my mouth. It’s tougher than I thought, so I end up chewing it like a total cow while she looks at me, her gaze getting more sympathetic by the second.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I tell her through the bread. “Follow through on what?”

  She folds her hands on the tablecloth. “On your big... announcement.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m not taking it back. Do you know how many people watched me tell Ryder we were over?”

  “What does that matter?”

  “It doesn’t.” I shake my head as an ache beats in my chest. “It doesn’t. But what does matter is that he was a total dick, just like Conrad.”

  Now it’s Cece’s turn to look skeptical. “Just like Conrad?”

  “Yes,” I tell her. She’s supposed to be on my side, and here she is, giving me the third degree. “He also accused me of being a terrible mother, which is stupid, because I’m not a mother yet.” My voice breaks on that second mother, which surprises me so much my hand flies to my throat without my permission.

  “Shit. Val—” Cece gets up and comes around to my side of the booth, sliding in next to me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be pushing you like this.”