“He’s not my anything,” I hiss. “And I can’t go out there.”
“Why not?”
“Because!” I gesture helplessly. “Jordan will… he'll look at me. And make me sit with him. And…” My voice drops to a pathetic whisper. “He’ll ask me out again.”
Molly cackles like a witch in heat. “Exactly why you should go! Murphy needs a tutorial on how a real man treats a woman he likes. Go get your man, girl.”
My face bursts into flames. “Molly, stop,” I hiss. “You know he’s too old for me.”
Molly rolls her eyes so hard her entire head moves. “Sabrina Wells, you've paid half the bills in your house since you were fifteen. You run this place better than Murphy’s dad. You're far wiser than boys your age and handle responsibility like aforty-year-old woman with a mortgage. An older, loaded man is exactly what you need.”
I can only stare. “That wasn’t the least bit flattering, Molly.”
“Hell, yes it,” she deadpans.
“It wasn’t! And I’m not seeing Jordan today.”
Molly narrows her eyes. “Fine! Be like that, then.”
She walks toward the grills and bellows, “Madeline!”
Madeline—our grill worker, with just-turned-twenty-one confidence and a habit of flirting with every UPS driver—looks up. “Yeah?”
“Take off your apron and go look after table four. Bree’ll be covering the grill for a bit.”
“What? Why?” Madeline asks.
“There’s a hot guy who needs rescuing from Murphy. Let’s just say—you’ll thank me later.”
Madeline strains her neck to peek into the diner, then squeals, rips off her apron, shakes out her hair, reapplies lip gloss, and grabs a clipboard like she’s auditioning forThe Bachelorette.
I gape at Molly. “You did not!”
“I sure did. And why not?” she taunts. “Madeline’s Jordan's age anyway. And she looks like you if you were older and blonder.”
Her gaze drops—pointedly—to my chest. “Same… proportions. I wonder if Jordan’s into blondes as well as brunettes?”
My jaw drops as something hot and violent twists low in my stomach.
“Oh look now,” Molly rubs her hands together gleefully. “Madeline's over there fluffing her tits. Jordan's a goner, for sure!”
“Molly—” I gasp, horrified, but I can’t help it. I step out from my hiding place and look.
Madeline saunters toward table four, her cleavage leading the way, hips swinging with Broadway confidence.
My pulse stutters as she puts one manicured hand on the table and leans over Jordan.
Jordan looks up. His expression perfectly polite. Charming, even. It’s nothing like the way he looks at me—that mixture of respect and degradation. Restraint and hunger.
Still, he’s smiling at her. Speaking to her. Nodding at something she says. And freaking breathing the same air as her.
I want to claw her eyes out.
Madeline tosses her head back and laughs at something—probably a sentence with no punchline. The sound scrapes down my spine like nails on a chalkboard.
My throat burns before I feel the moisture in my eyes.
Hell no. I refuse to cry over a man I’ve only spoken to twice.
