Chapter 4
Chapter Four
ATLAS
Hector wasted no time getting the security company here to set up the security system. I told him I’d take care of everything, but he got to it before I could.
A few days later, two people arrived early in the morning, and a couple hours after that, our home had a brand-new alarm system set up.
“You can enter the PIN you want to set now,” the woman from the security company said.
Hector looked at me, but I gestured for him to do it. He owned the home, so he should be the one to make the code.
He nodded and quickly glanced at me before typing a series of numbers into the control panel. I unabashedly watched his finger slide over zero-seven-one-two.
It seemed like a random set of numbers to me.
“Make sure you write your code somewhere, just in case,” the woman suggested.
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget it,” Hector replied, then walked them downstairs.
I worked the numbers in my head, trying to figure out if they meant something. They seemed random, but I knew Hector well enough to know he put thought into every one of his choices.
It was one of the things I liked about him.
Most men would have jumped at the chance of at least getting me into bed if I told them I liked them, especially when it was obvious the attraction was there on both sides.
Not Hector, though, and if I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought that to be a rejection.
I’d heard rumors from around town saying Hector was a violent person who’d once assaulted a police officer, but I had a hard time believing them. The only thing rough about Hector was his exterior.
He wasn’t the kind of person to hurt anyone. He refrained from accepting my feelings because he didn’t think he was good enough for me, and I didn’t push because I wanted to show him he was more than enough for anyone, especially me.
“Does the PIN mean anything?” I asked Hector once he returned upstairs.
“Oh, it’s just, um, you know, random,” he replied, but pink heated his cheeks. That told me the numbers definitely meant something, but he wasn’t keen to share because he was embarrassed.
I merely smiled. I was patient. I could wait until he was ready to tell me.
“I really wish you’d let me pay for the system. I was the one who insisted on getting it, after all,” I said. Hector seemed relieved by the change in topic.
“Does it really matter who pays for it? Besides, it’s more for me than you. I like knowing nobody can sneak upstairs and steal Shadow.”
As if summoned, Shadow magically appeared from whatever dark corner he’d been hiding in. The pitch-black cat rubbed himself against Hector’s legs while casting me the smuggest expression I’d ever seen on a cat.
For reasons unknown to me, the little feline hated me.
I swore he tore up my shoes just to spite me, or maybe that was his way of telling me to get the hell out of his house.
I suspected the cat thought I was trying to steal his favorite person from him.
Well, Shadow was just going to have to learn how to share, because I wasn’t going away that easily.
“Who’s my handsome boy?” Hector cooed, and my heart melted into a puddle of goo at my feet.
Talking to his cat was the only time Hector physically softened, and it wasn’t until months of living together had Hector felt comfortable enough to act like this in front of me.
I swore I physically swooned the first time I’d witnessed it.
Probably would have fainted and ended up in his arms—right where I wanted to be—if he hadn’t caught himself and blushed from embarrassment.
Now, he easily showed affection to his cat in front of me.
If only he showed me the same affection so openly too. I’d purr nicely just for him.
Hector picked up Shadow and held him like a baby, with the cat’s belly up. Shadow would only let Hector treat him that way. If I so much as accidentally brushed up against the cat, Shadow would shoot me a look of disgust like I’d done the most offensive thing in the world.
I was slowly trying to get Shadow to warm up to me by giving him treats, but the cat was just too skittish. He never let many people get close to him, much like his owner.
I understood.
They’d both been hurt and betrayed by the world. Hector by the people of his town, and Shadow by his old owners, who’d abandoned him in the alleyway behind the diner because he was too aggressive.
I was determined to break both their walls down and show them it would be okay to let me in. Hector was set in his ways, but I’d prove to him that not all change was bad.
Later at the diner, Hector was sweating in the kitchen by himself. Just like when I first forced my way into the job, and he was taking care of the entire diner by himself, he now insisted he could handle the kitchen alone too.
I heard he used to have a sous chef a few years back, who was like a son to him, but he left town to…
I believe it was to join a circus? After that, it was just him and his ex-wife working the diner, but that was before the sudden influx of residents and tourists, which also meant the diner was now packed most days.
Hector still refused to admit that he needed help, despite having no issues hiring someone to assist me up front.
“Call me if anything comes up. I’ll be in the kitchen,” I tell our part-timer, Becca.
She was the waitress we’d hired a couple of months back, and I really liked her. Probably because she’s a mother of three, with the youngest having recently gone off to college, she’d learned how to temper her composure and was unfazed by most things. It made her an excellent person to work with.
“You got it, sugarcakes,” she replied with a wink.
I shook my head and chuckled. She was very happily married, and her husband frequently dropped by the diner just to see her, but that never stopped her from flirting with every person who entered the establishment. I knew she had to be raking in tips.
Hector spotted me as soon as I walked through the swinging doors. He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand to stop him.
“I’m helping, and that’s final,” I said and didn’t even give him the chance to refuse. I washed my hands at the sink and grabbed a white apron.
I wasn’t the best cook, but I could at least handle fry food. Hector grumbled something under his breath as I settled into the fryer beside his griddle station and popped in some fries and wings that had been ordered.
We worked in silence to complete the tickets. We didn’t need to communicate, moving effortlessly around one another, like we’d done this song and dance a million times before. Before long, most of the tickets were taken care of, and I wouldn’t be of any help with the rest of the orders.
I cleaned up and undid the white apron. Hector was still focused on the griddle, making half a dozen burger orders at once. They were the diner’s specialty, which wasn’t really a surprise since Hector seasoned and shaped the patties himself.
I bumped his hip with mine when I passed. “Just admit it, you love working with me,” I commented.
He looked up from his task with a faint blush on his cheeks that could have been from my words—or the heat from the griddle. “Working with you isn’t bad.”
I beamed because I knew that was practically the highest compliment from Hector. He didn’t have a way with words and wasn’t used to expressing his feelings, but I could read him well enough.
“If only you were this honest about how you felt about me,” I said with an exaggerated sigh.
Hector grunted something unintelligible, but the heat on his cheeks now had me chuckling as I headed back out front to help Becca. She had everything under control, of course, and was currently flirting with Carol.
“You’re just what we need at the hugging booth. We broke the donation record for the summer fair, and I’m hoping to do the same for the fall fair. You just have to join this time,” Carol said with a flash of her pearly whites.
She was the head of the PTA for Kither Springs’ one and only elementary school. She also ran the hugging booth at the summer fair and had roped Dan and Clay into volunteering, which had led to them being the main attraction at the booth.
Jones had suggested donating money to have them hug under the hot sun, which led to more people donating to increase their time. I naturally had to donate to the cause as well, and from what I heard, they managed to get the clock up to a couple of hours.
Seeing them hugging like that made it so obvious to me that they had a thing for each other.
It was a surprise nobody else had caught on, if I were being honest. The way Clay’s hands rested so familiarly on Dan’s lower back, and how Dan nuzzled up against Clay’s neck for comfort?
It all screamed of a certain level of intimacy and love shared between the two.
“This town wouldn’t be able to handle me, sugarcakes. One hug from me is all they’ll need to want to come back for more, and I’m already a taken woman,” Becca teased.
Carol laughed, then her eyes flicked to me. “What about you, Atlas? Want to join us for a good cause?”
“I’m gonna have to pass too,” I said with an apologetic smile.
“Shame,” she replied, but the smile was still on her lips.
With a stalker on my tail, I didn’t feel too good about giving out hugs to random people. Though I wondered how many hugs Hector would order from me if I volunteered.
Hugging Hector in public? That would be nice. Hell, I craved just hugging him in general. He wasn’t the most physically affectionate man, and it was hard to find excuses to touch him, much less get him into my arms. Though I’d gotten really good at coming up with reasons lately.
“Hey, Atlas!”
I turned to find Arnold Kary waving at me from the front door. The giant frames that took up half his face slid down his nose. He pushed them back up with a cheeky grin.
He was a teen from town who frequently came to the diner for study dates with his boyfriend, Larry. Although from what I saw, Larry was much more interested in the milkshakes and watching his adorable Arnold than in the actual studying.
“Hey! You back for more studying?”
He shook his head, which made sense since he wasn’t carrying his backpack.
“Here, this is for you.”
I smiled and accepted the little gift bag he was holding. “Aw, you got me something? That’s sweet of you.”
I was confused when he shook his head again.
“I was walking by, and someone asked me to hand this to you,” he answered.
My heart stopped in my chest, because while I knew I was liked well enough in town, it wasn’t like I was stringing along a crowd of secret admirers in my wake. And the people who had shown an interest in me backed off when they realized I only had eyes on a certain diner owner.
The tumbling feeling in my stomach told me the gift bag could only be from one person. My hands were clammy as I opened it to find exactly what I’d expected.
Another note.