Chapter Three #3
“Same,” I added. “Except medium. I’m not brave enough for rare.”
“Smart choice.” Millie scribbled on her pad. “Be up in fifteen.”
She vanished again, and I was left alone with Diesel, trying to remember how to have a less dramatic conversation. The silence lasted roughly three seconds before my mouth decided to take matters into its own hands.
I was hopeless.
“So the seniors I drive are placing bets on whether you’re single,” I said. Jesus. If he wasn’t, would you be on a date with him? Maybe he was a player. I prayed he wasn’t. I liked Diesel, and it would be disappointing to find out he was cheating jerk.
Diesel’s eyebrow lifted. “Are they?”
“Greta called dibs. Irene thinks you’re too young for her but appreciates the view. Edith hasn’t weighed in yet, but I’m sure she’ll find a way to blame technology.”
The words tumbled out like I’d opened a dam and forgotten how to close it.
“Walter’s mostly concerned about his dentures, and Artie probably thinks you’re competition.”
“Competition for what?” Diesel asked, looking amused.
“The deli counter woman, who’s definitely not interested in him but he’s convinced is playing hard to get.” I reached for my coffee but pulled my hand away, my throat threatening mutiny if I took another sip.
“Sounds like an interesting group.” He was fully focused on me, ignoring everything around us. He didn’t even turn his head when someone dropped a dish, the shattering sound loud enough to draw everyone else’s attention toward the counter. Not mine. I was just as focused on Diesel as he was on me.
“They’re the best.” My hands smoothed over the laminated menu. Talking about work felt safer than trying to navigate date conversation. “Exhausting, but the best. Irene tried to sneak wine into her cart again yesterday. I caught her in the act.”
“What’d she say?”
“That I was a tattletale and her blood pressure would be fine if people stopped telling her what she couldn’t do.”
I wasn’t trying to be a downer, but I also couldn’t allow someone I cared about to be so reckless with their health.
Irene meant the world to me. All five of my seniors did.
It would crush me if anything happened to any one of them.
Diesel’s foot tapped against mine under the table. “She’s got a point.”
“She absolutely does not have a point. Her blood pressure medication explicitly says no alcohol. I read the label.” I wasn’t budging on this. Not for Irene or the sexy mountain. “But I agreed with her about the sparkling cider. It was a compromise that didn’t feel like pulling teeth. Or dentures.”
“Diplomatic.” His foot tapped against mine again. Was it some kind of code or was I overthinking the contact? Maybe Diesel thought his foot was hitting the base of the table.
You focus on the weirdest things.
“More like self-preservation. If I let her have the wine and she ends up in the ER, her daughter will have my head.” I leaned back, finding a position that felt less like I was about to hug the menu for emotional support. “What about you? Any interesting customers lately?”
“Define interesting.” Diesel nudged my menu aside with two fingers, as if he’d read my thoughts. God, I hoped he didn’t have that ability. If a gutter mind were illegal, I’d be on death row.
Then I remembered he’d asked a question. “Anyone try to diagnose their own car problems using information they found on the internet?”
Diesel rolled his eyes, though I caught the amusement in them. “Last week. Guy came in convinced his transmission was shot because of some YouTube video he watched. He just needed transmission fluid.”
That made me grin. “Did you charge him for the YouTube degree?”
“Charged him for the fluid and a lesson in humility.” Diesel winked, making my entire body flush with heat. “He called me condescending on Yelp.”
I grinned. “Were you?”
“Little bit.” There wasn’t any shame in his tone, just fact. “But I was also right.”
“Being right doesn’t make you wrong.” I’d learned that lesson the hard way when I was younger. My brother hated when I was right and constantly pulled a guilt trip on me, like I was a bad person for trying to make him see reason when all Brett had seen were bad decisions.
“Philosophy major?”
“High school dropout with years of experience.” The admission just flowed out of me. Diesel didn’t even flinch. He simply nodded like it was no big deal. “But I got my GED later. The traditional education route and I didn’t get along.”
More like I’d gotten fed up with being bullied because I was gay. I’d loved school. It just hadn’t loved me back.
“Nothing wrong with that.” Diesel had said it without a hint of judgment in his voice. When the last guy I’d dated found out, he’d started treating me like I was an idiot. Jesse had escaped my house seconds before the vase I’d thrown could connect with his head.
“Try telling that to my family.” A subject I was never fond of talking about. “They had plenty of loud opinions that were never in my favor.”
Diesel’s eyes hardened, the expression so brief, I thought I’d imagined it. “Family’s good at that.”
“Yours too?”
“Sometimes.” He shifted in his seat, and I saw his jaw tighten just a fraction. “But we’re not talking about them right now. We’re talking about you and your passengers and why you let yourself get talked into things by seventy-year-olds.”
Remembering my seniors made me smile. “Because they’re persuasive and I’m weak,” I said with honesty.
He scoffed. “You’re not weak, Ollie. You’re nice.”
“Nice people get walked over.”
“Nice people with boundaries don’t.” His blue eyes held mine. “You’ve got boundaries. You just choose when to enforce them.”
My throat tightened unexpectedly. Nobody had ever put it that way before. Everyone else had just called me a pushover or too soft or any number of other things that made me feel like being kind was somehow a character flaw.
“Thanks,” I managed.
“For what?”
“That. What you just said.” I wasn’t looking for validation, but couldn’t deny how good the acknowledgement felt. A little recognition was worth more than gold when you thought your efforts were a poor contribution to someone else’s life.
“I’m just speaking the truth.” He leaned back as Millie appeared with two plates loaded with burgers big enough to choke on.
“Here you go, boys.” She smiled, setting our plates on the table with a soft clatter. “Anything else?”
“We’re good,” Diesel said while staring at me. Was he answering Millie or reassuring me?
I had a feeling I already knew the answer, so I didn’t bother asking for clarification. Instead, I bit into my juicy burger and enjoyed the rest of our date, snatching fries from Diesel’s plate as he stole some from mine.