“Are you open?” I frowned.
She laughed. “Not really, but you look like you could use a coffee or perhaps some sweet tea?”
I shrugged. “I was hoping to buy dinner. I guess that ship has sailed.”
Sonni pointed to the kitchen. “I could probably scramble you some eggs. But if you wanted something more, you’re outta luck. The cook just went home.”
“Shoot,” I sat down at the counter. “I needed something more - for the family.”
“Your family?” Sonni’s eyebrows went up as she poured me a cup of coffee. “I thought you were visiting.”
“Staying with my…” I stopped. What was Flint? My boyfriend? My lover? My person? Dang. Now I understand why Wysdom got so worked up when she first met Luke, and everyone tried to label it. These feelings confused the stuffing right out of me. I didn’t know how to answer a simple question.
“Are you alright?” Sonni smirked. “You look like my question short-circuited your wiring.”
I waved her off and reached for the coffee, pausing as I looked at the contents. “Do you have sugar?”
She nodded. “Sure thing, doll. I was just refilling the sugar jars. Let me get one for you.”
Sonni disappeared into the kitchen. I swiveled on my stool to look at the diner. The place needed a massive update in the decor, but other than that, the joint was mostly clean. There were areas on the floor where years of mopping scrubbed part of the linoleum clean off. The wall next to the kitchen had about a dozen darker spots where pictures once hung, preventing the paint from fading in the sun.
The last time it looked fresh was likely when Flint was in high school. Preparing to marry his pregnant girlfriend.
Leave it to Flint to do the right thing by the girlfriend, even if he wasn’t in love with her. The man had an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong. Like a Samoan Dudley Do-Right, riding up on his white horse to save the day. Never mind what the woman wanted.
Dang. That thought came out of nowhere.
Flint had been nothing but sweet as pie to me. And the sex had gone from “Wham BamBamBamBamBam, Thank You Ma’am” to something much more.
Yes. Plenty of Bams in that statement because it wasn’t a drive-by sexing either.
I rubbed my eyes. The four million hours of sleep this afternoon did nothing to help my fatigue. I yawned.
“Enough of that,” Sonni chuckled as she sat down the sugar jar. “I’ve still got about an hour of clean-up to do. You’re welcome to keep me company.”
I smiled and poured a generous amount of sugar into my cup. “Sorry. I’ve been pretty tired lately.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Too many late nights?”
“Something like that,” I sipped. The coffee was strong and a little bitter, but I needed the caffeine.
“What do you do for a living?” Sonni loaded ketchup bottles and salt shakers into a plastic bin.
“I work with Immigrations,” I answered. “At least, Idid. It’s complicated.”
“You don’t like it?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been doing it a long while. And my boss forced me to take time off. It’s the first time in a long time that I didn’t need to be in the office, fixing things and cleaning up messes for everyone else.”
Sonni moved on to rolling silverware into paper napkins. “You strike me as a fixer.”
My burst of laughter surprised even me. “Honey, that’s one way of putting it.”
“Do you like fixing everything?”
I paused. No one ever asked me that question. When you’re a working mom, people are afraid to ask too many questions because they’re afraid you’ll give them an honest answer. Or have a meltdown. It’s not like I could quit being a mom. I mean, I guess some people could, but that’s not in my DNA. I hadn’t been sure I wanted kids until I got pregnant. Then, I couldn’t imagine life without them.
And kids make a mess. All. The. Time.
