Judy watched me grow up and snuck me miniature candy bars every time my brother and I showed up for a visit, so she gets away with stuff like this.
I squeeze her hand and smile my pearliest. “You just take care of your mom and enjoy the holidays at home for a change.”
At least someone should be able to appreciate the season.
As the door closes, I find my earbuds next to the stapler and cue up my favorite podcast, but the trailer feels lonelier than ever.
The LHS crew got lucky this week, drawing two rain-free days in a row.
Unluckily, temps hovered in the upper thirties, and both days passed beneath a cloak of slate gray clouds.
My normal crew for the drive home found other rides to the motel hours ago. As they clocked out, I heard talk of a rendezvous at a bar.
Afterhours paperwork and phone calls trying to keep this job on schedule held me in the office long past five.
A lone lamp on a pole is the only light guiding my walk to the white truck sporting the company’s logo. My foot jackknifes on a mud slick, but I catch my lumbering self in the nick of time, preventing full-scale disaster. When I haul my frozen rump into the cab, the steering wheel nearly ices my fingers to the vinyl rim.
I crank the engine and check the heat controls. They’re already set to red from the drive this morning. Stupid thing will just be warming up by the time I reach—air quotes—home.
My stomach growls into the void, like a beast in the forest.
Fast food?
Nah, but I’m not fit for much else. Except…
A pair of perfect blue eyes have danced around the edges of my solitary dreams the last two nights.
While other places are closing down at this hour, I find Charlie’s glowing a welcome as I back into a front parking slip minutes later. I cut the engine and stare at the nondescript building with light pouring through its windows. No point lying to myself. I ain’t here for the food.
I can’t believewhyI’m here. I don’t do this kind of thing, and certainly not lately.
Doesn’t hurt to look a little, does it? All in a very healthy, decent way, of course. If I have to stare at either the TV or more inane videos on my phone one more evening, I might lose it. Even reading barely appeals.
But if all else fails, I can liven up the evening with wacky dog videos. Best thing on the internet.
No, tonight I’m opting for the absurd, driving to a greasy diner nearly at closing time in hope of watching one pretty waitress.
I mean it: one. The rest of Charlie’s crew are not my type. This one may not be either, but she does broadcast a completely different set of vibes than her coworkers.
What are the odds she’s on duty?
I grip the front door pull and stop, running my gaze down my work shirt and jeans. Dadgum. Stupid mud boots are still on my feet.
I peer through the glass door peppered with stickers advising which credit cards the establishment takes as payment. A yellow mop bucket on wheels standing at the ready by the checkout counter makes the decision for me.
I stop in the airlock and toe the heel of my left boot with the right. There’s a giant sucking sound as the rubber releases my foot. I reverse the process on the other foot, then line the boots up off to one side.
I duck and swerve, dodging the jingling bell dangling over the entryway. Warm air from a dusty vent in the low ceiling blasts my cheeks one stride inside the dining room. At the counter, an old man hunches over a basket of something fried. A middle-aged couple occupy a table in the far corner.
And the waitress scribbling down their order is my reason for being here.
Tall, slender, curved in all the right places. A deep chestnut ponytail with strands I imagine flowing like melted chocolate when she lets it down.
The pen freezes. Her flat affect as she watches me choose a table does not match the jump in my heart rate that the sight of her induces in me.
The guy-equivalent of a wallflower, I’m used to ambivalence.
Whatever. At least I’m not spending the night—ahem, evening—alone for a change.
