Something to entertain me while I stayed here.
The drive to the diner was short and my spirits lifted as a similar bell the one in the motel office rang out, signaling my entrance. Great. Now, everyone in this small town was staring.
“Table for one, sugar?” a curvy woman asked, smacking gum.
“Yes, please. Booth if you have one available.”
She winked at me and somehow it made me feel at home. “Sure thing. Follow me.”
I slid into the booth and ran my hand across the table, testing for the telltale stickiness of one of these eateries but found there was none. “Coffee, please,” I said before she could ask anything else.
“Yes, sir. Here’s the menu. Gary’s got a new white chocolate cranberry pancake this week but the rest is on the menu. Let me know when you are ready to order. I’ll be right back with the coffee.”
I opened my laptop and began to answer emails since the cranberry pancakes sounded like heaven so there was no need to look over the menu. Layla came back with a big cup of coffee and gave me enough tiny creamer packets to fill up a bowl.
This place was definitely growing on me.
I ordered the pancakes and went back to replying to new clients when the bell rang again and for some reason, I looked up and my world turned upside down.
In strolled hands down the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life. Dark disheveled hair messily curled around the rim of his hat. Even darker-brown eyes, and his cologne hit me even with the enticing scents of frying bacon and all the other diner delights. How strange. I’d never smelled someone so distinctly before. He stopped halfway in, raising his chin a bit, nostrils flaring.
Had to be the cranberry pancakes. I smelled them when I walked in as well.
“Don’t have any tables available, Lux,” Layla, the waitress said. She must’ve been part owner of this place as well. Bennett wouldn’t have a beef with a waitress about the diner’s internet unless she owned it as well.
The place had filled up while I was busy working and eating, and I was sitting at a four-person booth alone, hogging all kinds of space.
“He can sit here,” I called out and turned my attention back to the man. His ears had gone strawberry red, and so had his cheeks. My face wasn’t cool, either. Something about him made all kinds of thoughts swirl in my head. Naughty ones and sweet ones.
The man with the button-down uniform came over and stopped right next to the other bench but didn’t move to sit across from me. He looked at Layla and then back to me, as if making up his mind about something. Goddess, he was even handsomer up close.
“I can’t sit here,” he said. His eyebrows bunched over his nose. I didn’t see why he couldn’t sit with me. Sure, we were strangers but it was just sharing a booth, not a bed.
Not yet, anyway.
“You absolutely can. I won’t bite. I promise. Everybody’s gotta eat.”
He looked at the bench like it grew six legs and took a step back. “It’s not time. I can’t…this isn’t right.”
If he didn’t want to sit next to me, then why did he walk over here?
“I can leave,” I said and closed my laptop. I was finished with my breakfast and certainly there had to be a library with good internet somewhere near. It really wasn’t fair of me to sit here, keeping the booth occupied when this place was clearly busy.
“No. Please don’t leave. I’ll leave. I’m leaving. Leaving.”
Then the man darted out of the diner so fast that I barely registered the movement. It was like one moment he was here and a blink of the eye later, he was gone.
“What the hell?” I said a little louder than intended.
Layla cackled and came to stand next to the booth. “That was Lux. He comes in for a late breakfast sometimes. Works for a delivery service. Good man. Not too bad on the eyes either.”
It sounded like she was trying to tell me something without telling me. Only hinting.
“He’s more than not bad. He’s beautiful. But why the freak-out?”
She shrugged and wiped at a nonexistent something on the table. “Not my story to tell, sugar. You all done? I’ll take that plate.”
“Should I move on? I don’t want to take any business from you by staying here and soaking up your internet.”
