“Fine.” She tapped his chest. “I’ll do it if you do.”
Pirate raised an eyebrow, but didn’t back down. “Fine,” he echoed. “I’ll pee on a damn stick, too.” Releasing her, he walked to the doorway to pick up the box. It was a two pack. “Though won’t you be surprised when mine comes back positive.”
Sophia smiled at him. They took turns using the toilet. They’d long ago gotten over any sense of modesty. Some couples didn’t pee in front of each other, while others, like Sophia and Pirate, had farting contests after eating a baked bean casserole for dinner. There was no right or better way. It was justthem.
The two pregnancy tests side by side, they waited the two minutes for the results. One came back negative… The other didn’t.
CHAPTER 5
TALLY
“Order up!”
The commercial kitchen in the clubhouse had basically exploded. Once a distillery that hosted events like weddings, retreats, and wine tastings, the kitchen had been transformed by Jenna, the club’s first, and for a really long time, only ol’ lady. It was her domain, and there was even a plaque somewhere on the wall that claimed it as such. But in the past year, Jenna’s battle with LOMS—late-onset multiple sclerosis—had slowly been pulling her from her kitchen. Tally, in an effort to take some weight and responsibility off her shoulders, as well as earn her place as the outsider in the club, started to take over.
To Tally’s utter delight, Jenna welcomed the assist and held no animosity towards Tally encroaching on her turf.
Then Tally was approached by Sophia, another ol’ lady. Her family was like small-town royalty in Mount Grove. Hell, the woman’s maiden name was Groveton, basically stamping her blood with the town. Her parents had three children, and at the end of this year, would be dividing their various businesses amongst them. Sophia was inheriting the town’s diner.
The Mount Grove Diner had an interesting history. Because no one called it theMount GroveDiner. It was justthediner. Tourists were easily spotted because they were unaware of the history, or the fact thatthediner was the pride and joy of the small-town. Like many other communities in Small-Town America, corporations and franchises had tried to make their mark here too. But they all failed. Not evenMcDonald’swas able to stand up against the diner.
The diner, a local bakery, and a local pizzeria had survived, because residents of Mount Grove were that loyal to each other. Even if the cost of dinner would have been cheaper at a fast-food chain, they still did not support them.
Personally, Tally admired that tenacity. It was one of the many reasons she’d fallen in love with Mount Grove upon moving here. And now she got to keep that legacy going.
Sophia had approached Tally with an offer of a partnership. With Tally’s experience running a restaurant, she would be an indispensable resource to Sophia. Tally had jumped on the opportunity, loving that she finally was going to have a place in this community that didn’t involve just serving the club brothers meals. Not that she didn’t enjoy that, but running the diner with Sophia would give Tally a bigger purpose.
Tally’s first impression of the diner was that it was too small. She had no idea how a corner restaurant like that had fed that amount of daily people as their records claimed. Coming from a city, Tally had honestly suspected that the diner was laundering money or faking records, but further investigation proved otherwise. Everything added up. There was no alternative revenue. The diner was literally working non-stop from open to close to feed the hungry people of Mount Grove.
Sophia hadn’t just inherited that one business, though. She’d inherited the building block that the diner sat in and was ableto work her Sophia Magic to free up the office space next to the diner. And then construction plans started.
The diner couldn’t just shut down, though. People of Mount Grove were relying on the diner to feed them. Some of the elderly residents had standing orders because they couldn’t cook or didn’t want to cook anymore. Single parents with limited incomes appreciated the large portions the diner offered, giving them multiple meals for the price of one. And so on and so forth. The town needed the diner to stay in business.
Then there was the fact that a good amount of the town was skeptical of the Blind Chef of Atlanta. It didn’t matter how many news articles or TV interviews they read and saw about Tally’s history, they still could not believe that a woman who was born without eyeballs could be a chef.
Well, fuck them. Because Tally wasn’t justachef. She was a fuckingawesomechef, and she was working her ass off to prove it to them. First with the annual Thanksgiving feast and now with the temporary menu the diner offered.
Being winter, the diner couldn’t just close its doors and expect people to eat outside or offer delivery-only meals. Most of the construction was happening on the other side of the wall that separated the spaces and then that wall would be taken out.
The diner had had a set menu for decades. The same grilled cheese, burgers, Caesar salads, milkshakes, and the like. Tally would keep certain staples—because she likely would be run out of town by a mob holding pitchforks if she didn’t—but she also wanted to expand what the diner could offer. Using the construction as an excuse, Tally was slowly introducing new menu items to the townspeople and getting their feedback.
The club members were her first guinea pigs for any dish.
A long plastic table had been erected in the center of the clubhouse. It had been put out for Thanksgiving, and then had never been taken down. Not when a number of club memberswere willing to sacrifice their mornings to be Tally’s test subjects.
“Whatever it is,” Ranger practically purred from her left, “it smells divine.”
Tally shook her head, not bothering to hide her smile. He was such a flirt, but she knew he’d never act on it. And not just because Tally had proven she could kick his ass.
As she brought the cart to a halt next to the table, Tally clicked her tongue. Her estimate based on the voices at the table was accurate. She might have been born without eyes, but Tally was only blind in terms of legality. In truth, Tally saw much more than people with two working eyeballs did. She saw with her body, honing her other senses to a world beyond sight. Some might think echolocation useless for a human, but they were dead wrong. Tally might never know what the color blue looked like or know what an elephant looked like. Her world was a mixture of shapes and vibrations that gave her the ability to notice things others missed.
“This is my take on traditional Eggs Florentine,” Tally explained to the seven hungry people at the table.
Ghost was the club’s new President, or he would be at the end of the year. Tally wondered if he was here because he was trying to show support or to prove that the mantle of responsibility that he’d been voted into would not change who he was. Ranger and Ghost had a bromance going that had many of the others wondering how Ranger was going to handle Ghost’s new position of authority over him. So far, Tally wasn’t sensing anything different between the two brothers.
Jigsaw, Bones, and Keys were present. She didn’t know Bones or Jigsaw very well, but she was quite fond of Keys. He was the kid brother among the club members. At only twenty-four, he was also the smartest person Tally knew. He was also the most naïve. Even after being part of Navy Intelligence foryears, Tally got the impression that Keys didn’t have a lot of real-world knowledge. In his own words, Keys understood computers, not people.
Prospects Darren and Viktor were also eagerly awaiting their breakfast. Both prospects tried time and time again to help Tally in the kitchen, but she always ended up kicking them out. Her kitchen, her rules. And she didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with amateurs. Viktor was the strong, silent type, and despite the spelling of his name, had a strong Southern accent. Darren was Black like her.
