I shrug, trying to pass it off as nothing. “It’s nothing bad. Just… well, it’s not bad.”
Just embarrassing.
Hunter drops it. “Knox said you had some trouble last week.”
I glance at Knox. “It was just a guy being handsy. I haven’t seen him since. Guess he believed you were serious about throwing him through the front window to have stayed away.”
Knox chuckles. “I was absolutely being serious.”
“Nico wouldn’t have been happy about the window.” My eyes slice to the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the street. Glass like that would be expensive to replace.
“Probably not,” Knox admits. “But he would understand why it had to happen.”
I give him a doubtful look. Then I glance at the counter and spot Nico in the kitchen with Winston. Nico waves, and I recall all the free coffees and slices of pie that found their way into Knox’s hands over the last few days.
Nico’s Diner has almost always been family run. Nico’s wife passed away twenty years ago, and Lina grew up serving these tables. If any guy had tried to grab her wrist or her ass, Nico would have thrown them through the window without a secondthought about the cost of replacing it. Maybe that’s what the coffee and pie were for: a thanks.
My gaze returns to the table of four alphas to find they’re all watching me. I nearly drop my small notebook and pen when I pull it out of my pocket for something to do. Flustered under all that male attention, my cheeks heat and I blurt at Elias, “Did you want the BLT sandwich with chicken and extra BBQ sauce?”
He slowly blinks. “I did.” He snorts and shakes his head. “We all spend ten minutes poring over these menus and always order the same damn thing.”
I tuck my notebook back into my apron and turn to leave. “I’ll be right back with your drinks and your food.”
Hunter glances at my apron. “It’s a big order.”
Too big to remember without writing it down, his glance tells me.
“I’ve got it,” I say with a smile.
I feel their eyes on me as I return to the counter, checking in with a couple of my tables on my way to find out if they need anything else.
In the mornings, after I’ve refilled the sugar and sauces on the table, I like to have my first coffee of the day sitting at the counter with my small notebook open. As I sip my coffee with cream and three sugars, I write out table five’s order and leave it beside the hatch, ready to pass it to Winston. That’s what I do now. I pass the slip through the hatch, head to the coffeepot, and get my alphas their coffee.
Wyatt has his with creamer, just a splash and one sugar.
Hunter has a sweet tooth. Extra creamer and five sugars (I thought I’d misheard him when he told me the first time).
Knox likes his black with two sugars.
Elias doesn’t drink coffee, so I grab a soda, add extra ice to the glass, and once I’ve loaded up my tray, I carry the drinks over to them.
“The kitchen is still a little quiet, so your food should start coming out in about ten minutes,” I tell them, handing them their drinks.
As Hunter reaches for the sugar, I tell him, “I already sweetened it for you.”
His eyebrow rises, and when he takes a sip of coffee, he sits back into the booth’s burgundy leather bucket seats with a happy sigh. “Ah. Just the way I like it.”
“He’d inject sugar right into his veins if he could,” Knox says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how he does it.”
Wyatt holds his cup in his hand while looking at me, but he's not drinking.
There’s a new softness in his gaze that makes me feel almost shy, and I nearly knock the ketchup over. “I’ll be back with your food.”
Leaving them with their drinks, I clear plates on my way to the counter, returning with checks for two tables so they can pay. I return to the hatch just as Winston places the first of their food order on the narrow white strip that separates the counter from the kitchen. As always, the smell of spicy BBQ sauce and bacon makes my stomach grumble.
They order enough food that it takes two trips, so I load up my tray and make my first trip to their table.
“BLT sandwich with chicken and extra BBQ sauce,” I say as I place the sandwich in front of Elias. “Fries with extra spice, mayo, and dill pickles.”
