2
Sophia
Breakfast With A Thug
“Here you go, darlin’. I threw in a few extra cherries for you, since you always have such beautiful manners.”
Grinning, I meet my server’s eyes and add another few dollars to my planned tip because she’s always giving me extras: bacon strips, cherries, patties on my burgers, and chocolate sauce on my ice cream. Ginnie is a red-headed waitress and as sweet as the pie she serves me seven days a week.
She’s worth every penny.
Sitting at the clean counter and turning to stare out into the darkness, I study the falling snow and wonder if the mystery man will come in today.
I used to eat here sporadically, a couple times a week, usually when I needed a break from work and a minute to stretch my legs. I live on this block, and Ginnie’s is the only place that’s open twenty-four hours within walking distance. But the day the handsome stranger walked in two months ago with his broad shoulders and hands dug deep in jeans pockets, was the day I sat a little taller on my stool and planned to drop by again at the same time the next day. And the next day. And the next day.
We’ve yet to speak beyond a rushedhey, but some days he stops close enough to rub shoulders while he flirts with Ginnie and orders his mammoth meals.
That’s okay; I love to eat, too.
Twenty-five years ago, I was born into a normal family, with a normal home, two golden retrievers –Daisy and Duke– and a four-door sedan. My sister and I shared a bedroom until I was seventeen and she was fifteen. We shared boyband posters and boyband boyfriends. We were the best friends anyone could find, and though we were teens andsupposedto be in that stage of life where we should have been at each other’s throats, that just wasn’t us.
Ellie had the sweetest soul; she was the kindest person in this city and the next, so even if I wanted to be a bitch and hoard all of the New Kids on the Block, she made it hard to do so.
Not long after my seventeenth birthday and a small dose of what the shrinks like to call trauma and the resulting PTSD, things changed, and my appetite took a proliferate left turn until I developed a hunger beyond what my athletic body already possessed.
I consume between four and five thousand calories a day, and no matter what I eat, no matter how much I stretch my stomach out at each meal, it takes only an hour or two before my stomach grumbles and I have to start again.
So I sit in Ginnie’s diner seven days a week, and I allow her to clog my arteries with the tastiest food I could never dream of creating.
I’m good at my job.
In fact, I’m fucking amazing at my job.
But my cooking skills leave a lot to be desired, despite my mom’s best efforts.
Ginnie offers me seconds, then dessert, then second dessert. So really, with Ginnie in my life, why should I learn to cook?
Each morning, when my stomach is bloated and I can feel the food in my chest, I drag my sluggish ass back to my apartment, and I get back to work. But for the hour or so I allow myself to be here and not working, I watch for the mysterious stranger. I kinda hope he’ll come in, and when I’m feeling extra daring, I lean just a little to my left when he’s ordering so his shoulder bumps mine.
I’m a G-Rated whore.
Icy snow beats at the diner windows and blocks out a lot of my view of the street, but I see his shadow first; I see his stride reflected from the streetlights. My heart races as I drop my head and study my meal like it holds the world’s secrets.
The bell over the door jingles when he comes in, and in that moment, the air in the almost empty diner changes. It was just me, Ginnie, and her cook, but nowhe’shere, and suddenly, the air feels electric.
“Hey, beautiful.” He stops at the counter in the same spot he always does. It’s almost like I’m invisible, because he sure as shit isn’t calling me beautiful. The counter is more than twenty-five feet long, but he stops by me every time, close enough our coats rub together, close enough his aftershave fills my lungs and makes me forget the plans I’ve already made for my life.
“Hey there, handsome.” Ginnie comes to the counter and takes his hands in hers. Rubbing them and making him smile, she blows hot air to warm him and watches him with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s cold as hell out there. What in the name of Mother Mary are you doing coming down today?”
“I’m hungry.” He doesn’t yank his hands from hers. He just drops onto the stool two down from mine and hunches his shoulders in defense of the cold. “I’m so hungry, Gin, I think the cold is eating up my energy.”
“Of course it is, darlin’. That’s how you stay warm. Lemme get you a burger and curly fries. That’ll warm you up.”
“Sounds perfect.” As soon as she turns away, he drops his hands into his coat pocket and bounces his knees to keep warm. “Can I get a hot cocoa, too? An extra tall one.” His strong jaw moves as he speaks, the muscles twitching as he fights against the cold. “I need enough to fill my belly with warm chocolate. And maybe tee up some of the pie, because my hungry is hungry, and I can already tell my burger and fries ain’t gonna cut it.”
“Yeah, honey.” She slaps his order onto the board for her cook, then bustles to the back wall and makes herself busy with the large coffee mugs. “You want a cocoa too, Soph? On me, because that snow is too cold today, and none of us should be here.” She turns to me, drawing the handsome stranger’s dark gaze with her. They both watch me, though one of them is smiling, and the other tilts his beanie covered head like he is a puppy, and I was doing something interesting.
“Soph?”