Chapter 21
Chapter
Two days after book club, I’ve almost convinced myself that I’m not angry.
Then George strides into the diner.
Alone.
My hands fist, crushing the order I’d just torn off my pad, and I have to quickly flatten it out again so it’s legible for Billy.
“The Bunsen is here!” Sally crows from the booth she’s bussing, as if he’s some hero returned to his kingdom, deigning to grace us lowly peasants with his presence. At least that’s probably how he sees it.
“Good to see you, Mrs. Cornfield.”
“Psh. No need to be so proper. Call me Sally.”
I grit my teeth against the words that want to spill out of my throat.
If I told Sally what happened in the parking garage—or how George has reacted to me before the emergency landing—the sweet woman would turn salty and erase The Bunsen from the chalkboard before the door smacked George on the ass on his way out.
But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to whine about how the guy wants nothing to do with me.
Maybe Darla is right. Maybe I do let my pride rule my decisions.
Whatever the case, Sally looks so happy greeting him. She’s already folding the pilot who rescued a waitress into the family lore of Cornfield’s. Other than her wife and two kids, there’s nothing Sally loves more than this diner. Her parents opened it when she was a toddler, and she grew up here.
My guess is that she probably had a love-hate relationship with the place, like a lot of kids do with their parents’ legacy, but in the end, love won out.
Which is one of the reasons she hates Jimmy Dorst, owner of Beefies Steak House.
From what Mom said, Sally and Sam set out to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, an endeavor that can take over half a year.
While they were gone, Sally’s dad’s health started deteriorating, but they kept it from their daughter, not wanting to ruin their trip.
Jimmy, meanwhile, tried to bully the couple into selling the diner, attempting to take advantage.
Mom was working as a waitress one of the times he came by.
Done with men who throw their weight around to intimidate people, she cursed him out and chucked eggs at his retreating car.
Marge, who was a diner regular—because she loved flirting with my mom—and Sally’s friend, managed to get in touch with the hikers by sending a letter to one of their resupply stops.
Sally and Sam did cut short their hike, stopping in the middle of Pennsylvania to storm home and tell Jimmy off and take care of sweet Mr. Cornfield. The diner stayed in the family, and Sally still holds a grudge against the steakhouse owner all these decades later.
Not that I blame her. Karl Newton has been on my list since before I was born.
So I get why Sally loathes all things Beefies related. Which is why I will never tell her I’m about to start picking up shifts there.
It’s not like I’m passing along insider knowledge. I’m just earning as much extra cash as I can so I can pay Shawn back before I’m forty. And maybe earn his forgiveness by then, too.
I tried to find a job somewhere else. But all the other options in town I was qualified for weren’t hiring or paid way less than waitressing.
There’re probably options in the city, but that means tolls and paid parking and gas for the commute.
All the while, a Help Wanted sign hung in Beefies’ front window, taunting me with the possibility of tips.
Tips paid on a check for an expensive steak dinner.
Plus, if my car craps out like it does regularly, I can manage the mile and a half walk to the restaurant and not miss a shift.
I’m a traitor. Ruled by money and willing to lie to the people I love so they don’t know how pathetic I am.
The least I can do is seal my lips about George being an asshole and let Sally have her joy. I don’t deserve her loyalty against George when I’m going behind her back at Beefies.
“Take whatever seat you’d like,” she says to the pilot. “I’ll send Beth over to help you.”
No, I want to groan. Instead, I try to look really busy brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the hopes she’ll send someone else.
“Beth,” my boss singsongs. “George is here.”
“Oh?” I manage to keep the flatness of anger out of my voice.
“Go say hi.”
I glance up and do a quick scan for him. “He’s sitting in Jocelyn’s section.” I name the other waitress on shift today.
Sally huffs. “She won’t mind if you give her one of your tables to even things out. She knows what he means to you.”
He means nothing to me, I want to growl back. But I’m not Darla, ready to burn down the world because of a pissy mood. So I smile and nod and grab the pot of coffee that finished brewing too damn fast.
George watches me as I approach his table, and I fight a scowl the whole way.
Damn him for coming here.
Damn him for looking so good when I’ve gone back to intensely disliking him.
He’s dressed nicer today, probably on his way to the airport to get flown somewhere to do business for BnB.
The top two buttons on his starched white shirt are undone, showing more collarbone than is decent at six p.m. on a Monday.
He wears a leather jacket over the shirt, as if the diner is too cold, which is ridiculous because I’ve sat smashed up against him multiple times and know the guy radiates warmth like an outdoor patio heater people set up when the weather turns chilly.
Maybe he’s keeping his jacket on because he plans to leave soon. I hope so, although I dread what quick message he might have to share with me.
“Hey, Beth. Seeing your father’s disdain for your existence reminded me that you’re a skid mark on the BBN tighty-whities. Therefore, I can no longer associate with you, and I hope you never try flying planes again because, let’s be honest, you’re terrible at it.”
The thought makes it impossible for me to keep up my perky waitress persona. Luckily, my back is facing Sally, so she doesn’t see my surly face or hear the way I greet her beloved hero.
“Bunsen.” Flat. Unenthused. Unaffected by whatever shit he’s ready to shovel my way. “Coffee?” There, I’m still doing my job.
He frowns. “Beth—”
“Beth!” another familiar voice calls out as the entrance bell rings.
Every muscle in my body stiffens, but then I turn to find Marge, grinning and offering a wave. My mother isn’t at her side.
Thank the universe.
Charlotte Lundberg tolerates Shawn, I think because he’s so enthusiastic about being my brother and he’s all around a difficult person to dislike.
I can’t guarantee she’d show the same grace to George Bunsen, son of one of her nemesis’s business partners, who has most recently been a dismissive, hurtful ass. She’d sense the malcontent and eviscerate him.
My mother and Darla are similar in that way.
Marge, meanwhile, can often be sweetly oblivious, and she enjoys making friends rather than enemies.
“Hey, Marge.” I wave toward the empty seats in my section—far away from George. “I’ll grab your order in a second.”
Instead of plopping down on her favorite counter stool, she meanders our way, her smile open and friendly, her eyes curious when they take in my customer. “You look familiar. Where might I have seen you before?”
He rises from his seat and holds out his hand for a shake, the new position showing off a set of navy slacks that fit his legs too well in my opinion.
“I’m George Bunsen. Nice to meet you.”
Because I know Marge so well, I spy the slight pause before she reaches for his hand. Other than that, she shows no indication that this might be an awkward encounter.
“George. Yes. Good to meet you. I’m Marge. Beth’s stepmom.” That became official a year into my Mom’s cancer treatment, when they tied the knot to get her on some decent health insurance. But that was just paper. They’ve been partners for almost as long as I can remember.
I narrow my eyes, waiting for George to say something about my mom. If he does, I will chuck a full dozen eggs straight at his head.
But George doesn’t react other than to smile softly. And to wave toward the other side of his booth.
“I’m eating alone. If you’d like to join.”
“What?” I snap.
Marge is already slipping into the booth, an intrigued sparkle in her eye.
Oh no. This can’t be good.
“I’ll have orange juice,” she says to me. “Take your time grabbing it.”
I barely stifle a groan as I stalk away from them. I don’t see how any good could come of those two chatting.
When I return tableside with a glass of orange juice, George has already revealed one of my secrets.
“She’s learning fast. Steady on her landings, which are always the hard part.”
“Beth. You didn’t tell me George was your flight instructor.”
He blinks up at me, face blank. Well, my mind is shorting out, too, because it sounds like the man was just complimenting me.
“I didn’t think it mattered,” I mutter. Lies. I thought it would matter too much.
He drops his eyes to his empty coffee mug, and I realize I never filled it. I reach to do so now, still clutching the same pot.
“With the way you go on and on about your flights, I would’ve thought his name would come up,” Marge presses.
“She loves flying with you, you know?” My stepmom leans across the table.
“I don’t understand half the jargon she spouts off, but I can tell she adores it all. You’re probably her favorite person.”
“Marge! He’s not…” My face flushes red and I fumble with the menus, slapping one down in front of each of them. “He’s my instructor. I’m just his annoying charity-case student. We’re not even friends.”
The words whip out. Cracking through the air like a bolt of lightning, leaving the singed sting of awkwardness in their wake.
They both stare up at me—Marge confused, and George…well, once again the man is unreadable. He’s probably just thinking, Duh, isn’t that obvious to everyone? Why does she feel the need to point it out?
I suck in a shuddering breath and flip open my notepad. “Food. What food can I get you?”
“Beth.” Marge’s voice is so gentle when she says my name that I panic.
“One Bunsen and one turkey club—mustard, no mayo—coming up.” I rattle off their usuals, then escape while trying not to look like I’m running away.
Billy grunts out a thanks when I pin the guessed food choices in the pass, and I busy myself wiping down the counter farthest from where the two of them sit.
Not that I can escape them forever.
Are they talking about me? Are they sitting in the awkward silence left in my wake?
Is George being a condescending ass?
Marge can handle herself around douchebags, but as my hands clench in my cleaning rag, I realize how much I hate the fact that she might have to handle George at all.
That he turned out to be the pompous prick I first suspected he was.
That I actually had started to relax around him and maybe even not totally intensely dislike him.
Naive. Too trusting.
My adrenaline crush–muddled brain has made me soft.
“Order up! One Bunsen, one turkey club.”
Since I’ve had a moment to myself, I’ve forcefully recovered my waitress persona, wearing a perky mask as I drop the food off at their table.
“Beth,” Marge says in the same softly coaxing voice, and I try not to let my shoulders shoot up to my ears. “Did you know George has a cat?”
I blink once. Then again. “A cat?” I repeat, trying to understand this entirely new direction of conversation.
In my peripheral vision, I spy his perfectly shaped head nod once.
“A cat.” He spreads his napkin in his lap.
“Are they friendly?” I ask, a reflex.
George’s lips twist. “When she wants to be.”
Sounds like most cats.
I find I like the idea of George living with a small fuzzy fiend who he can never fully trust.
“We’ve got one of those,” Marge offers with a chuckle, pulling out her phone to show him a picture of Grumps reclining in his plush chair, glaring at the camera.
“He’s cute,” George says.
“He’s a cantankerous bastard. But we knew that going in.”
George raises a brow in question, and Marge smirks my way.
“Beth picked him out. We went to the shelter, and she pointed at him and said, ‘He’s got resting bitch face. Let’s get him.’ And that was that.”
I roll my eyes. “I was joking.” No, I wasn’t. Grumps looked pissed off that day, and I immediately knew that I wanted to be one of the few people in the world he didn’t hate.
There’s something life-altering about earning the love of an animal who doesn’t trust anyone else.
Kind of like earning Darla’s friendship.
“When are you two flying next?” Marge smiles between us like she’s setting up a playdate.
“I don’t—”
“There’s a club event this Sunday.” George looks to Marge, even though the words are for me. “Anyone available shows up with soap and sponges, and we wash the planes.” Now he focuses on me. “I thought you might want to come.”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” my stepmom crows. “Don’t you have Sunday off?”
From the diner I do. But I have a dinner shift at Beefies.
Not that I can tell Marge that. She may not hold a perpetual grudge against the Beefies establishment, but she will wonder why I have the sudden need to earn extra cash.
As far as she and my mom know, the medical debt we were drowning in was covered by a charity program run by the hospital. Those kinds of charities do exist, but that’s not where our relief came from.
“I do,” I say, reluctantly.
“That’ll be fun, then. And you can make some more plane friends.” Marge smiles up at me now, and before I get too annoyed about her meddling, I catch the compassion in her eyes.
The hint of understanding.
She knows I’m not fully comfortable with George and probably has some guesses as to why, even if they aren’t exactly right. But I take in the underlying meaning of her words.
Make some more plane friends.
Make some connections in the world of aviation that aren’t George Bunsen.
Don’t give up on lessons just because you’re not a fan of your instructor.
It’s sweet. And if disliking George was the only problem, then I could easily make a shift. But even if I find a new best friend in the club, I doubt they’ll teach me for free.
Still, I do want to make more friends in aviation.
“Okay.” I nod, glancing at George but fixing my eyes on the collar of his shirt rather than meeting his eyes. “I’ll go.”