I didn’t believe in judging people by their appearance. I thought Garrett had a kind face, and look where that got me. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Plus, this guy—the owner of the diner, most likely—seemed like a considerate man, if how well-kept the diner appeared was anything to go by.
The man only nodded and placed a glass of ice water and a menu in front of me. He slunk away and returned moments later with a carafe of coffee and a mug. I placed my order as he served me a cup of much-needed coffee. I was starving, so I didn’t need much convincing to order their signature burger.
The man nodded again and silently walked back to the kitchen. I watched him move through the service window as he washed his hands before firing up the griddle.
It didn’t take long for the entire diner to be filled with the mouthwatering scent of burgers and fries. My stomach growled as loud as an engine. Good thing there wasn’t anyone nearby to hear it.
By the time the man came out with my food, I’d been watching him like he was bringing me a lifesaver. With how hungry I was, that wasn’t far from the truth.
I was grabbing the burger before he had the plate fully on the table. Was it rude? Yes, but it’d been a long day, and I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch.
I’d gulped down half the burger before the diner owner could even walk away. It didn’t even take another minute for me to finish the other half of the burger, but then I devoured the fries much more slowly.
With my stomach full, one problem was taken care of, and my mind wandered to the very major problem that lay in front of me.
I’d made the grand declaration that I was going to stay in town, but I honestly had no clue what I was going to do. I guessed the first step was to look up nearby hotels, so I at least had a place to stay for the night.
The rest—like finding a more permanent living situation—could wait until tomorrow.
I munched on another fry, my mind a jumbled mess on how I was going to make this move work without any support—but determined that it would—when a large shadow loomed over me again. Knowing that there was only one other person inside the diner besides me, I wasn’t startled to see the establishment’s boss back again.
It seemed that every time he came to the table, he didn’t show up empty-handed, and this time was no exception. He placed what looked like a banana split in the space in front of me.
I glanced up at him with clear confusion on my face. “I didn’t order this.”
He cleared his throat, as if he were warming up his voice after a long period of disuse. “On the house,” he said. “Feels like you need some cheering up.”
His gruff voice matched his rough appearance, but there was something comforting in his tone. Maybe it was the shock I’d received today and the stress that had quickly accumulated, but the small act of kindness from a stranger was more than I could handle, apparently. The tears started before I could even try to get a hold of them.
“Whoa, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” the man said. There was no hiding the shock in his tone, probably from seeing a grown man break down inside his diner. “There, there. It’s going to be all right.”
He clearly had no way of knowing what the situation was or if things really would work out in the end, but when I looked up to the obvious concern on his face, I wanted to believe his words.
“Would you listen to my story?” I asked through my stream of tears.
The kind stranger merely nodded and took a seat across from me. He was patient as he listened to my tale. How I moved here for a man that I didn’t truly know in the end, and how I was now faced with finding a place to stay, because I was determined to stay in Kither Springs.
He didn’t get impatient even when I derailed from the story to voice the sting of betrayal I felt from Garrett’s secrets. He didn’t even flinch when the ice cream from the banana split he’d kindly brought me melted and was left untouched.
The man just nodded and looked at me with those steady eyes that made me want to confess all my troubles, because he would somehow make everything right again.
Not that I was expecting him to. It was just the feeling he gave off. Like he was someone I could trust, despite having just met him today. Which is why I was completely caught off guard at hisnext words.
“You’ll stay with me tonight.”
My mouth was probably agape. A virtual stranger was offering his home for me to stay, and I…wanted to accept.
He looked like he could break me in half with just one of his hands if he wanted to, but something inside me told me the man wouldn’t do that.
But then again, what the hell did I know? I was wrong about Garrett…and yet my gut still told me to accept the stranger’s offer.
I must have been more crazed than I thought, since I was really considering going home with someone who looked like they could murder me with their bare hands. I didn’t know anything about this stranger. Not even his name. But that was an easy fix.
“I’m Atlas,” I told him and reached over the table for a handshake.
“Hector,” he replied, and his warm hand engulfed mine.
I wasn’t aware then that maybe, just maybe, the reason the universe led me to Kither Springs was to meet this person.
