“Hey you.”
“Hey now… you’re not sick are you?” he asked, leaning back in his booth as if that could protect him from my germs even if I were.
“No, no. I, ah, I did karaoke last night,” I lied. “Went a little too high on those high notes,” I said, rolling my eyes at myself.
I hadn’t been a good liar earlier in my life.
But having to tell half-truths to my sister to protect her, well, it sort of honed my skills.
“That’s why you look off,” he said, old and without a filter, just what I loved about him. “Your face is all weird.”
“That would be makeup,” I told him. “To hide how pale I am from not getting enough sleep. So can I get you your usual?” I asked, trying to be friendly, but also limit how much I needed to talk.
“Yep. You know me. And can you turn off the air? It’s too cold in here.”
“Sure thing,” I told him, as we always told the customers. But we couldn’t touch the air or heat. It was controlled by a thermostat in the locked office. But even just telling people you could change it seemed to placate them.
It was a grueling shift.
Not because it was busy. In fact, it was slower than I’d expected. But because I just felt like crap. Every time I had to laugh or fake a smile, my whole face started to throb. And since tips were my livelihood, I had to put on the mask of happiness.
It was sometime around midnight, though, when the door opened.
And there he was.
I’d stopped looking for him.
I’d almost convinced myself that I didn’t care that he hadn’t shown up.
But there he was.
Looking even better than I remembered in his dark gray slacks, black button-down, and his expensive-looking watch.
His gaze was on me and his eyes scrunched a little, likely thinking that I looked different, like everyone who knew me at the diner had noted.
“It’s open,” I said, waving toward his booth, internally cringing at how raspy my voice sounded, something that made a frown etch deeper on his face.
But he nodded and made a way to his booth anyway.
I fidgeted behind the counter, putting on new pots of regular and decaf, refilling the little saucers of pre-packed creamers, wiping down the counter.
Nervous.
I was nervous to go to his table.
How absurd was that?
Annoyed with myself, I grabbed his water and his coffee and his cream and headed over to him.
I felt his gaze on me the whole way. And for just a short moment, I didn’t feel all the throbbing aches in my body as it warmed under his inspection.
“Hey,” I greeted, keeping my voice low to make the rasp less noticeable.
I’d just passed him his coffee and put down the creamers and was about to move back a step when his hand suddenly shot out, grabbing me at the wrist, and pinning my hand to the table.
Startled, my gaze shot to his, finding a ferocious sort of intensity there.
“Who did it?” he asked, his voice barely more than a growl from how tight his jaw was.