I pour a cup of coffee from the pot, noticing my hand shaking so bad I miss the mug with the first bit of my pour.
“Focus,” I say, trying to calm myself as I turn and carry the mug to his table.
His eyes track me like a hunter as I approach his booth, and this time instead of looking down, I lock right in on his, like a deer who sees the camouflaged man in the tree pointing a gun right at her.
But this man is far from disguised, standing out like a sore thumb due to his massive size and strength, which was clearly on display last night, and the only thing I need to conceal now isn’t the coffee dripping from the bottom of his mug that I missed when I wiped it clean, but the dripping that’s about to start flowing from my panties if I’m not careful.
He nods as I sit the coffee down, but before I turn to go, he leans back in his seat and offers, “You shouldn’t be out after dark by yourself, Little Peaches.”
I freeze. My stomach tightens like an anchor rope keeping a cruise ship docked to the shore in a storm. My reaction to his words are immediate and visceral, and half of me wants to rip him a new one for talking to me that way, especially as it’s the first words he’s ever uttered in my direction, and the other half of me knows he’s right and wants to ask him if he’s the one who wants to offer to be the solution to the problem his brain sees for me.
Being that this is a tough neighborhood, and I’m not about to show any weakness, I go with the former.
“Who do you think you are talking to me, anyone, like that?”
“I’m a man, that’s who I am. And like any man I know my responsibility is to make women feel protected, treated with respect, and cared for.”
Cared for. That word hits me in the gut like a lightning bolt, the knot I had releasing as I feel my middle buckle like a balloon that’s been pricked.
Pulling myself together quickly, I straighten up my back, and change my approach. “What makes you think I need protecting in the first place? What makes you think I couldn’t have handled those men myself?” I shoot at him, trying to put up a tough facade, but also admitting to him that I do know it’s him that came to my defense last night.
“I’m not saying you couldn’t,” he answers immediately. “What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to even worry about something like that in the first place, but unfortunately in this neighborhood you do…if you walk home without a man by your side.”
“And you think a man by my side is enough?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I don’t think a man by your side is nearly enough, but I know the right man by your side is all you’ll ever need.”
My body feels like a tsunami is forming inside and if he keeps talking so self-assuredly, so matter of factly, that tsunami is going to explode right out of my middle and unleash a real life torrential downpour from my panties right to the floor of this diner.
“Men these days don’t walk women home. Everyone’s equal, and women can do whatever a man can do,” I say, still trying to hold my ground for some reason unbeknownst to me. I guess being what most would call a survivor has led me to push away help, or even the whiff of an attempt of someone offering their assistance. I’m so leery of why, or what’s attached to it that I’ve almost given up thinking men are genuine, although I do manage to keep a positive outlook on life.
“Just because someone passes the anatomy test of being a male, doesn’t make them a man, and that’s the problem these days. Yeah, we may all be equal in a lot of ways, but no one is going to ever convince me, or any real man, to sit back and let a girl ‘figure it out for herself’ when someone’s threatening her, especially with bodily harm.”
I’m quickly warming to his caveman communication style, but if I’m not careful he could very easily be the one clubbing me over the head and dragging me back to his lair to make soup out of me.
“Thanks for your advice, I’ll keep it in mind,” I say, turning to go.
&
nbsp; “Keep it in mind that when you hear footsteps tonight, they belong to me. I’ll be following you home as long as you work evening shifts here.”
I stop, turn on a heel and move back to his table where I lean in close to his face ready to read him the riot act for coming into my place of work and acting like, like, like this.
But instead his dark orbs pull me in deeper, enough to drown and instead I exhale hard and beat feet back to the counter to get another customer’s order which will allow me to get away from him for a second.
But the order that’s ready is his.
“Fudge!” I curse under my breath.
I look around for Alice, hoping she can take it to him only to realize she just went on break.
I fist the plate, marching back to his table and slap it down on the hard top.
“If you bother me, I’ll call the cops.”
“Cops don’t come to this neighborhood, Little Peaches,” he says, and from what I’ve seen I know he’s right.
“And stop calling me, whatever that stupid name is you’re calling me.”