“Just a glass of water please.”
“And another coffee,” the deep voice added as he slid into the booth opposite me.
“Coming right up.” She smiled before scampering away leaving me sitting there staring silently at my new emerald-eyed friend.
“So, what flavor pie did you order?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course. You can tell a lot about a person from their pie preference. Not to mention how they eat it,” he offered.
“You can, can you? I didn’t know that.”
“Well now you do. See cherry pie means you’re after something sweet. Apple pie screams tradition. Key lime pie means you wish you were somewhere tropical while peanut butter pie says you still eat like you’re twelve.”
“And pecan?”
“Ah. Pecan pie. Pecan pie tells me that you’re a weirdo,” he confirmed keeping his face stoic.
“Well then, I guess I’m just a sweet, traditional weirdo then.” I shrugged, offering him my biggest and brightest smile before nudging a spoon and a plate towards him.
“Apple?”
“You look like a good old American boy,” I told him as I popped a spoonful of cherry pie and ice cream into my mouth, moaning at the flavors.
Each night I’d come in here I’d ordered a slice of pie. So far they’d been hit or miss but tonight was different. The pastry wasn’t soggy, the ice cream wasn’t half melted and even the cherry filling tasted sweeter. I doubt they’d changed suppliers, more like I’d picked the night they arrived fresh, but I had big plans to devour the lot. The boring salad I’d had before tonight's show left me starving and unsatisfied, something I was about to rectify.
The waitress returned with our drinks while we ate in silence. It should’ve been weird or awkward but strangely, it wasn’t. It was comfortable. It almost felt like we’d done this a thousand times before.
“Are you going to take off your cap?” he asked gruffly as he cradled his coffee in his hands.
“Why?”
The last thing I wanted to do was be recognized. I was enjoying just sitting here stuffing my face. Suddenly being recognized and having a camera shoved in my face was sure to ruin that.
“So I can see your face,” he replied like he wasn’t asking for something monumental.
Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was just me. I had so many hang-ups, this was just one of them. Grabbing the brim of my cap, I tugged it off my head and tried to smooth out my hair.
“Better?”
“Much.”
“What’s your name?” I asked, feeling like he needed to give me something to even the playing field.
“Hayden. Yours?”
For a moment I considered giving him a fake name. Normally it’s exactly what I would do. But when I looked down at his hands cradling his cup, I noticed the callouses and the Band-Aid. I knew this guy was real. I don't know why I trusted him, but for some reason I did. So I gave him the truth. “Cassidy. My name is Cassidy.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thanks.” I felt my cheeks blush.
Don’t get me wrong, in my line of work, I got compliments all the time. Tonight I left the stadium with a handful of phone numbers I knew I’d never use and a couple of marriage proposals, so being told I had a pretty name wasn’t something new, yet in so many ways it was. The marriage proposals, the offers for a fun night in a hotel room, even the badly worded signs held up by guys who were barely old enough to shave let alone order a beer, weren’t real. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know what my life was like. And what’s worse, they didn’t care. All they wanted was to use me, whether it was for my body, my image, or their five minutes of fame, it didn’t matter.
Hayden didn’t seem like that at all. For one, even with my hat off, he didn’t blink and recognize who I was. Whether he didn’t like country music, lived under a rock, or just had his own life to worry about, I wasn’t sure, but I was most certainly intrigued.
“What do you do, Hayden?” I asked.
