Then the pain hit me again. A wave of it. It stemmed from somewhere close, but I couldn’t pinpoint the location. I turned in a circle, but saw no one.
“You okay, hon?” Cookie asked me, taking my arm again. And again the concern she felt welled up inside her. I didn’t quite understand her. Why she felt so strongly about me. Why she was so caring.
“You’re always so nice to me,” I said. Out loud. A little surprised by that fact.
She squeezed my hand. “We’re besties, remember? Of course I’m nice to you. Otherwise, I’d be the suckiest BFF ever.”
I chuckled softly for show, but she meant it when she said we were besties. With every fiber of her being. And that niggling suspicion was back stronger than ever. We’d only known each other a month. Damn it. She was clearly one of those needy psycho chicks who boiled rabbits on the stoves of her enemies.
Oh, well. I’d enjoy her friendship while it lasted. But I mentally crossed bunnies off my shopping list.
When we walked back into the café, we had several new customers. We’d only been out for, like, thirty seconds. Weird how quickly they accumulated.
I had just hung up my coat when Dixie called out to me. “We have a couple of deliveries. Just waiting on fries for one.”
She wore a grin that stretched from multi-pierced earlobe to multi-pierced earlobe.
“You seem chipper.”
“I had a very productive morning.” Her face flushed and an excitement rushed through her as she packed up one of the orders.
“Clearly. I was wondering where you were.” She’d been gone all morning. Now I wanted to know why.
“I hired a new cook,” she said, her eyes a-twinkle. “He starts tomorrow. First shift.”
“What?” Sumi’s tiny head popped up, the pass-out window framing it almost perfectly, except she was too short so we couldn’t quite see the bottom half of her face.. “I’m first-shift cook. You can’t do this to me.” She waved a spatula. “I’ll sue!” Pretty brows slid fiercely over almond-shaped eyes, her wrath thoroughly incurred.
I never let my guard down around Sumi. The fact that she was vertically challenged meant nothing. She could kick my ass in a heartbeat. That woman had a temper. And she was quick. Limber. Horrifyingly good with knives.
“Oh, hush,” Dixie said, clearly not as fond of her faculties as I was of mine. “He’s going to be more of a” – she folded the top of the bag and stapled a ticket to it – “I don’t know, a specialty cook.”
“Cool,” I said, more interested in our customer base. One of our three-meal-a-dayers had shown up right on schedule, but with the eleven o’clock hour came our second-shift tag team, and my section was now officially split in half.
Francie and Erin were already busy taking orders.
I only had one customer in my section so far. I glanced at him. He was one of them. One of the three. They came every day like clockwork. Morning, noon, and night. Cookie and I had started referring to them as the Three Musketeers, for lack of a better descriptor. Though that would imply a friendship among them, and as far as I knew, they’d never even spoken.
The first one, a handsome ex-military type with fantastic biceps, always sat in my section. In the same booth when possible, but always in my section. He wore a khaki jacket that complemented his burnished mahogany skin and close-cut black hair. His eyes were silvery gray. Sharp. Capable of amazing things.
Garrett settled into his usual booth, then glanced up at me, offered me a whisper of a smile, opened a copy of the latest Steve Berry, and began to read.
“Looks like you’re up, sweetie.”
I leaned toward Cookie, and we both took a moment to admire the view.
“He looks like he’d have great abs,” I said, deep in thought. “Doesn’t he look like he’d have great abs?”
She let a slow breath slide in through her teeth, and we watched for the sheer pleasure of watching, the way you would a sunrise or the first pot of coffee brewing for the day.
“He certainly does,” she said at last.
I grabbed the carafe and headed toward him.
As though on cue, Musketeer Number Two walked in. A rascal named Osh. He was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty, with shoulder-length hair the color of sunlit ink, though it was perpetually sheltered by the charming tilt of a top hat. He tipped it toward me before taking it off and finding a seat. Never one to sit in the same place twice, he decided to take a seat at the counter and flirt with Francie a bit.
I could hardly blame him. Francie was a cute redhead who liked to paint her nails and take selfies. I would take selfies, too, if I had someone to send them to. I used to send them to Cookie, but she had to ask me to stop when they got a little too risqué for her taste. It was probably for the best.
Osh flashed Francie one of his dazzling smiles, causing her to almost drop the plates she’d just taken from the pass-out window. The little shit.
The first time he came in, he ordered a dark soda. When Cookie asked which one and listed what we had, he shook his head and said, “Any dark soda will do.”
From that moment on, we mixed it up for him, gave him a variety of drinks even between refills, a game he seemed to enjoy. Though not as much as flustering the servers.
Francie giggled and rushed past him with her order. At least she was semi-nice to me. Erin, on the other hand, hated me with a fiery passion. According to gossip, she’d asked for extra shifts, but when yours truly showed up, frozen and homeless, Dixie’s generosity turned into a hardship for Erin and her husband. I’d basically taken any hope she had of extra shifts, and with it, any hope of friendship.
Garrett’s shimmering eyes held me captive as I walked toward him, the silver shards sparkling atop the deep gray of his irises. They were warm and genuine and… welcome. I shook out of his hold and offered my best dollar ninety-nine smile.
“Anything besides coffee, hon?” I asked as I poured a cup without asking. He always wanted coffee. Hot and black. There was something fascinating about a man who drank his coffee hot and black.
He pulled the cup toward him. “Just water. How you doin’ today, Janey?”
“Fantastic as ever. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.”
A man I didn’t recognize spoke from the next booth over. I could feel impatience wafting off him. “Hey, honey,” he said, jerking his head up to get my attention. “Can we get some of that over here? Or is that asking too much?”
A spark of anger erupted in my current customer, but on the outside, Garrett’s expression remained impassive. It held no hint of the slightest concern.
Definitely military. Probably special ops.
“Sure thing,” I said. The tight-lipped smile I offered the jackass and his friend hid my grinding teeth. I poured two cups as they leered at me, taking in every curve I had to offer. “I’ll get you some menus.”
Technically, they were in Cookie’s section, but I didn’t want her to have to deal with them. She’d had a hard enough day. When she started over, I shook my head and nodded toward another couple in her section who looked ready to order.
“I just want a cheeseburger and fries, sweet cheeks,” the first one said. “He’ll have the same.”