The tire that had been so flat the night before was now as round as any of the others. I checked them all for inflation with the little device I kept in my glove compartment and found they were within a quarter pound of pressure of one another. Really?
Time for breakfast and a chat.
I pushed open the door, the chiming bell attracting the attention of everyone there. Gossip fueled the town, but I hadn’t done anything they should wonder about, had I?
“Welcome, Lux. Take any open table.” Layla was refilling coffees, so I took a seat at a table near the kitchen. For convenience.
When she came over and pointed to the upside-down cup in front of me, I turned it over and watched her pour the dark, rich brew. They had the best coffee in town. Strong, just the way I liked it. “What will you be having this morning?”
“Pancakes and a word with Gary if you can convince him to join me here at the table?”
“Any particular reason?” She smirked. “In case he asks?”
“I think he’ll know.” I settled back to sip my coffee and wait.
It took about ten minutes before he showed up, the plate piled with pancakes in hand. “You wanted a chat?” He set the plate on the table and sat down across from me. “What’s up?”
“I think you know.” I was starting to sound like an echo of myself. “What’s the deal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Eat up while they’re hot.”
“Uh-huh.” I wanted answers, but he was right. Hotcakes were much better hot than cold. Pouring a stream of real maplesyrup over the stack, I fixed him with a fierce gaze. “Why did you let the air out of Rain’s tire?”
He had the nerve to look puzzled. “He has a flat? That’s why the car was here when we arrived. Did you get someone to come look at it?”
I shoveled a big bite into my mouth and chewed. I could press this, make him admit he’d done it so I would have to give Rain a ride, but what would that serve? Nobody was hurt, and it looked fine now. “No, it’s miraculously fixed. But I do plan to get it checked before he drives it. Clearly there is something odd about the tire.”
He agreed to that. But, like Layla, he was smirking.
After breakfast, I went back home. I had the day off, and it had occurred to me in those wee small nonsleeping hours that I should look into what a human expected from a relationship. Shifters were known to meet, make and start life together, but humans, so I was given to understand, wanted more. Which led me to trying something I heard humans loved. One phone call later, I was a couple of hundred dollars poorer and hoped I was on the right track.
Chapter Eleven
Rain
This wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d moved before, but I’d never lived in a town this small, and it was taking some getting used to. Yes, it was slower. And that was great. But slower also meant I couldn’t simply decide to eat Thai or steak or barbecue and have my choice of half a dozen places to get it in a five-mile radius. Here, I needed to plan a day trip if I wanted to hit up a warehouse store.
The biggest adjustment of all was social. Without having work as a means of meeting people, making friends kind of sucked. Sure, I had Lux, and that was amazing and wonderful and fantastic. But also, I had Lux, and that was it.
Layla at the diner was nice to me when I went there to work. Gary would even say hi to me, but for the most part, the only people I ever talked to were Bennett and Geoff from the motel. They were really nice and very unique and interesting, but they weren’t my typical friend group. They weren’t people I’d go out with on a Friday night for happy hour or anything like that. But then again, this wasn’t the kind of town where you did that. There was a bar, ish. Gosh, that was that.
And I was starting to reevaluate what I thought was fun, anyway. Wasn’t all of that part of why I was feeling the itch to leave and move to the middle of nowhere? Pretty much.
I wasn’t working today. One of the things I decided when coming here was that I was going to set firm boundaries with myself. I wasn’t going to be one of these people who went from working in an office and being forced to toil for incredibly long hours to self-employed and imposing twice as many on myself.
I’d seen too many people do that over the years. Sure, they were their own boss, but sometimes when you’re your own boss,you’re the biggest dick of all. What value did being self-employed have if you did nothing but work?
Lux didn’t have off today, so I found myself at the check-in desk with a cup of tepid coffee, helping Bennett with his crossword. He was obsessed with them, and it amused me no end that he used carpenter pencils to complete them. They had such little boxes to put the letters in, and he picked the thickest lead there was. No erasers on top, either. I used to think pens were the worst option, but I was second-guessing that assessment as Bennett struggled with today’s puzzle.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said, writing down the wordtuna, my sole contribution to his current correct answers. “Remind me, why are you hanging out here? I know I’m a ball of wonder, but you’re young. There are so many things you could be doing right now better than being stuck inside.”
He wasn’t mincing words. I kinda liked it.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what those ‘many things’ are, so here I am. They finally razed my house, though. So, at least I add gossip totunaas my contribution for your time.”
He shook his head, very obviously amused. “I hadn’t heard yet, so your fee is accepted. If you come back tomorrow, you will need new gossip. No double-dipping.” He started to fill in some boxes and grumbled something I didn’t understand before putting the pencil down.
“Anyway, going down past that is pretty depressing, more so than when it was the remains from the fire.”
