Chapter 4
Maisie
As the week rolls on, more locals smile when four certain alphas continue making regular stops at the diner. They sit at one of my tables, and they always tip big.
And more importantly, no more guys try to grab me.
In the morning, Wyatt stops in for a coffee and a slice of pie, lingering to tell me a little more about New Orleans and a big family that grows larger every year.
After my parents passed, and then my grandma followed a year later, it was only my big sister and me. I look forward to Wyatt’s childhood stories, and the idea of having a big, loud, and fiercely loving family appeals to me more with every word.
Knox has started coming in for the odd cup of coffee and pie at random times during the day.
He walks in and casually glances around, then heads to the counter to grab his hot drink and pie to go.
Lina told me he must walk up from the construction site during his break.
I asked her why, and she smiled and said she didn’t know.
I could be wrong, but Knox’s glance around the diner is never casual.
He’s looking for someone, and he only relaxes when he doesn’t find them.
I think Knox keeps coming back to the diner at random times to make sure the guy who tried to grab me doesn’t come back.
To protect me. It seems stupid to say it to anyone, so I keep it to myself in case it’s a foolish thought.
“Are you sure you don’t want to switch sections again?” Lina asks sweetly at the start of lunch on a new week.
Which is how I know they’re back again.
I glance over at table five, catch Wyatt’s eye, and smile shyly as he settles into his regular lunchtime booth. He returns the smile with a wider one and points to the menu in what has become our regular habit.
Wyatt, Knox, Hunter, and Elias grab menus on the way in. They don’t need me to seat them and are happy to wait for me to work my way over to them instead of hollering or waving to get my attention, like my other customers do.
Between breakfast and lunch, I stand with Lina behind the counter near the kitchen hatch, where Nico and Winston, the part-time cook, are in the kitchen. I try not to stare at table five, but it’s a battle I lose on a daily basis.
Never has one table contained so many hot men.
Lina, happily married with a six-year-old son, said she has regretted serving the family tables since the construction started down the street.
It’s become a running joke that if she had known they’d be coming into town, she’d have told Franklin no when he asked her to marry him.
I’ve seen her with Frank, and those two love each other to death.
“Okay,” I tease, and head for her section. “You get their table, and I’ll do your section.”
With a laugh, she snags my arm and hauls me right back. “Yeah, right. They’d be in your section the very second they realized I was working yours.”
Her touch, I can handle. As long as it doesn’t come too fast, and I have time to prepare for it. Derek has knocked me down too many times that I wonder if I’ll ever stop instinctively flinching when a man reaches out toward me.
“They’re just being nice.” My eyes find them again. “That’s all.”
They’ve all introduced themselves to me, kept their distance, and been sweeter than I thought four construction workers could be.
I’m used to catcalls, whistles, and uncomfortably long stares.
Hunter, Wyatt, Elias, and Knox are so different.
Maybe it’s their age? They’re all in their early thirties, so I guess they've aged out of any wild behavior.
I keep wanting to ask Hunter Bailey, the blond former surfer from California, how he wound up in construction, but I’m not sure if he would see my questions as flirting, and I’m not ready for a relationship. I’m not sure if I ever will be.
Hunter ties his long, dirty blond hair back in a careless, messy bun.
He smells of sea spray and coconut, and his dark blue eyes are always laughing when they meet mine.
He’s like one of those guys in a perfume ad.
Ridiculously hot in an I-got-up-looking-like-this way.
A guy like that could have any woman he wanted.
The interest I sometimes catch stirring in his gaze when he looks at me must be in my head.
“BLT!” Winston slides a plate across the hatch with a thick BLT, a generous serving of fries, and a small container of thick-cut pickles across to Lina.
Lina grins at him. “Thanks, Winston.” She snags the extra sauces the customer requested and adds them to her tray along with the BLT, then turns to me as Winston disappears back into the kitchen after a quick glance at a ticket to prepare the next order.
“They’re not nice. Nice would be saying the occasional hi or whatever.
Those alphas are ready to throttle anyone who dares hurt you. ”
“No, they aren’t.”
“Knox.”
That’s all she needs to say. She was here when a guy tried to grab me, and Knox threatened to throw him out of the window headfirst if he didn’t leave.
News must have spread across town, though no one has asked me why Knox would threaten to commit violence to protect me.
I never saw that guy again. Not even once.
Checking I have my notebook and pen in my big apron pocket, I give each of my seven tables a quick glance as I weave past them on my way to table five. Everyone’s drinks are topped off, their mugs steaming with fresh coffee, and no one looks unhappy with their meals as they clear their plates.
“Hey there, darlin’,” Wyatt says with a small smile. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
I feel my cheeks heat as I return his smile with a shy, “Hi. Sorry I kept you waiting. Lina was trying to get me to switch sections.”
Elias Gallo, the amber-eyed alpha with shaggy dark-blond hair, sits upright in the booth and frowns as he scans the diner. “Did the guy who tried to grab you come back?”
Elias went from reclining to scanning the room, as if waiting for me to point the guy out to him, and he’s not the only one probing the diner. They all are.
Wow, Lina was right. This is not nice. It’s downright protective.
Elias caught me staring at him from the counter once.
When a man looks as sexy as this one does and smells of molasses and dark chocolate, any girl would stare.
His lips had quirked in a smile, and I’d nearly run into a wall trying to look busy.
The next time I glanced over at table five, he looked pleased.
“No.” I pull my notebook from my pocket, though I never need it, especially when I’m dealing with this particular table of four. “She was just saying that I always have the table with the—” hottest guys in the diner.
Thankfully, my mouth snapped shut before those dangerous words slipped out. Unfortunately, two seconds too late because now I’ve made said hot alphas extremely curious from their lengthy stares.
“The table with the…” Hunter prompts, dark blue eyes sparkling with laughter as if he knows exactly what I nearly spilled and would love to hear me say it.
I shift from foot to foot, my face hot.
Knox gives me a thoughtful look and nudges Hunter. “How about we decide if Maisie wants to tell us?”
I shrug, trying to pass it off as nothing. “It’s nothing bad. Just… well, it’s not bad.”
Just embarrassing.
Hunter drops it. “Knox said you had some trouble last week.”
I glance at Knox. “It was just a guy being handsy. I haven’t seen him since. Guess he believed you were serious about throwing him through the front window to have stayed away.”
Knox chuckles. “I was absolutely being serious.”
“Nico wouldn’t have been happy about the window.” My eyes slice to the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the street. Glass like that would be expensive to replace.
“Probably not,” Knox admits. “But he would understand why it had to happen.”
I give him a doubtful look. Then I glance at the counter and spot Nico in the kitchen with Winston. Nico waves, and I recall all the free coffees and slices of pie that found their way into Knox’s hands over the last few days.
Nico’s Diner has almost always been family run.
Nico’s wife passed away twenty years ago, and Lina grew up serving these tables.
If any guy had tried to grab her wrist or her ass, Nico would have thrown them through the window without a second thought about the cost of replacing it.
Maybe that’s what the coffee and pie were for: a thanks.
My gaze returns to the table of four alphas to find they’re all watching me.
I nearly drop my small notebook and pen when I pull it out of my pocket for something to do.
Flustered under all that male attention, my cheeks heat and I blurt at Elias, “Did you want the BLT sandwich with chicken and extra BBQ sauce?”
He slowly blinks. “I did.” He snorts and shakes his head. “We all spend ten minutes poring over these menus and always order the same damn thing.”
I tuck my notebook back into my apron and turn to leave. “I’ll be right back with your drinks and your food.”
Hunter glances at my apron. “It’s a big order.”
Too big to remember without writing it down, his glance tells me.
“I’ve got it,” I say with a smile.
I feel their eyes on me as I return to the counter, checking in with a couple of my tables on my way to find out if they need anything else.
In the mornings, after I’ve refilled the sugar and sauces on the table, I like to have my first coffee of the day sitting at the counter with my small notebook open.
As I sip my coffee with cream and three sugars, I write out table five’s order and leave it beside the hatch, ready to pass it to Winston.
That’s what I do now. I pass the slip through the hatch, head to the coffeepot, and get my alphas their coffee.
Wyatt has his with creamer, just a splash and one sugar.
Hunter has a sweet tooth. Extra creamer and five sugars (I thought I’d misheard him when he told me the first time).
Knox likes his black with two sugars.
Elias doesn’t drink coffee, so I grab a soda, add extra ice to the glass, and once I’ve loaded up my tray, I carry the drinks over to them.
“The kitchen is still a little quiet, so your food should start coming out in about ten minutes,” I tell them, handing them their drinks.
As Hunter reaches for the sugar, I tell him, “I already sweetened it for you.”
His eyebrow rises, and when he takes a sip of coffee, he sits back into the booth’s burgundy leather bucket seats with a happy sigh. “Ah. Just the way I like it.”
“He’d inject sugar right into his veins if he could,” Knox says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how he does it.”
Wyatt holds his cup in his hand while looking at me, but he's not drinking.
There’s a new softness in his gaze that makes me feel almost shy, and I nearly knock the ketchup over. “I’ll be back with your food.”
Leaving them with their drinks, I clear plates on my way to the counter, returning with checks for two tables so they can pay.
I return to the hatch just as Winston places the first of their food order on the narrow white strip that separates the counter from the kitchen.
As always, the smell of spicy BBQ sauce and bacon makes my stomach grumble.
They order enough food that it takes two trips, so I load up my tray and make my first trip to their table.
“BLT sandwich with chicken and extra BBQ sauce,” I say as I place the sandwich in front of Elias. “Fries with extra spice, mayo, and dill pickles.”
I slide the next plate toward Hunter. “Chicken and bacon sandwich with waffle-cut fries. Your cheeseburger is coming out soon. Winston is still working on it.” I add the extra sauces to the table and lift my tray. “I’ll be back with the rest.”
My second tray full, I return to their table, passing Knox his double cheeseburger with no onion, fresh tomato, and extra mayo. He always likes a double portion of fries, so I slide that plate toward him, too. Hunter gets his cheeseburger to go with the BLT he always orders.
Wyatt has a medium-rare steak sandwich with cheese and spicy waffle fries. I pass him his food and lift my tray after checking I haven’t forgotten anything, telling them, “And a slice of pie with another round of drinks for dessert?”
All four men are staring at me, their jaws hanging open.
“How’d you keep all that straight?” Wyatt asks. “Lina used to write it all down, and even then, she wouldn’t always remember which thing belonged to each of us.”
I shrug. “Just can.”
My memory wasn’t always this good. It’s a blessing and a curse.
I was always so scared of messing up Derek’s dinner or the way he liked his shirts ironed and the bed made that I repeated those things in my head over and over until it stuck.
I must have been doing the same with Elias, Hunter, Knox, and Wyatt’s order for it to have stuck in my head as well as it has.
“Are you okay?” Elias asks gently.
I blink myself back to the present and find them all watching me, their eyes filled with concern.
I force a smile to my lips as I shove the remnants of a painful life I wish I could forget to the back of my mind. “Fine. Enjoy your meal.”
And I walk away, my heart heavier than it was when I first went over to their table.