Chapter 5
Chapter Five
HECTOR
The scar at my temple throbbed. An itch that told me something was off.
I looked around the kitchen and saw nothing out of place. Nothing in the air smelled rotten either, so it couldn’t have been a gas leak or me leaving a carton of milk out again.
Everything was good, or at least it should have been. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something had happened. Instincts told me to look out through the service window, and my internal alarm immediately went up.
Atlas was by the front door with the kid, Arnold. There was nothing strange about that. They were friends—Atlas was friends with practically everyone in town—but it was the tense brow that furrowed as he looked at whatever he was holding that alerted me.
Pain hit the back of my hand, and I didn’t need to look to know I’d have another oil splatter there. I ignored it. I wanted to rush to the front and fix whatever problem Atlas had, but I couldn’t keep the orders waiting any longer.
It took everything in me to stay and finish the final order before putting it up at the pass-through so Becca could deliver it. She placed a new ticket on the holder, but it could wait a few minutes.
I was out the swinging doors before I could really think, which led me to almost running Atlas down.
Reaching out, I steadied him on his feet. He was breathless when he looked up at me, and I didn’t miss the way he pressed against me until our lower bodies were practically flush against each other.
His body was all hard ridges against mine. It was so different from how it felt when I used to hold Angelina—back when things were still okay between us—but I didn’t hate having Atlas in my arms like this. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to want to hold a man, but Atlas made the want hard to ignore.
“You okay?” I asked.
He let out a happy sigh and placed his hands flat against my chest. “I am now.”
I didn’t want to admit how much I loved knowing he felt calm in my arms. It was the reason I never turned him down when he asked for a hug. Seeing him sigh and let go of all his worries while I held him had slowly become one of my favorite things.
Atlas’ calm didn’t last long this time, though. He shook his head, and the frown was back on his face. “I actually was coming to ask if I could take a short break to take care of something.”
My scar itched again and warned me that there definitely was something wrong.
“Of course, you can. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” he replied, and I knew he was lying.
I grabbed his shoulders. My fingers gripped them tightly, wishing I could just shake all the secrets out of him. It was my failing that he couldn’t trust me with his worries.
“You know…” I hesitated, but this felt too important not to say out loud. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I want to share your burdens with you.”
His expression softened. The tension in his brow disappeared until he was smiling at me again.
“I know, and I’m sure you’d be the first one to run to fix this problem—”
“I would. I’d do whatever it took—”
My words cut off when he cupped my cheeks. The corner of his lips tilted up softly and almost wickedly.
I want to kiss those lips.
No, no, no. I pushed that thought away. It wasn’t the first time the confusing impulse took hold, but like every other time, I couldn’t act on it.
“I know you would, but I hate being a burden to you.”
“You’re not. You never could be.”
Atlas just smiled sadly. “I think it’s time I told you. But not right now. Tonight, after work?”
I nodded, but I didn’t let him go. I knew I should, but I wanted to keep him here where I wouldn’t let anything go wrong, even if it was just for a bit longer. It didn’t help when Atlas looked at me with those soft eyes, like he was seeing a version of me that wasn’t only my hard exterior.
“Why, aren’t y’all just the cutest thing?”
Becca’s voice was a cold splash to our moment. My arms fell from around Atlas’ waist, and my gaze shot to her. Atlas wasn’t as fazed. His lower body was still pressed up against me, but he was facing Becca now with a happy smile.
“We sure are,” he agreed easily.
There went my heart again. I reached between us to rub my chest, but it didn’t help soothe the ache there in the slightest.
“Unfortunately, no more shows for you. Arnold’s waiting, and we need to go,” he said with a sigh before turning back to me. “I’ll be back soon, then we’ll talk tonight?”
“Okay.”
And just like that, he was gone. I watched Arnold chase after him, carrying a gift bag through the large windows that took up the entire front wall of the diner.
My gaze didn’t break until Atlas was out of sight, and I was still left with the feeling that something was terribly wrong and I couldn’t fix it.
Atlas was slipping through my fingers, and I couldn’t stop it.
Becca was grinning at me when I turned to her. In fact, I realized my diner had gone suspiciously quiet despite the full tables. Looking around, I saw—yep, the entire fucking town watching me with hawk eyes.
Mae Edgson, Ryan Edgson’s mother, more infamously known as the biggest gossip in town, wasn’t even blinking as she watched with fervent eyes.
Her signature twin braids flopped a little as she bounced in her seat.
If it was physically possible, they’d probably be pointing arrows at me as if to say “new target acquired.”
She was a sweet lady, had always been kind to me, and was about a head shorter than me, but she terrified me when she got that look in her eye.
Like she’d found a locked treasure chest and wouldn’t stop until she uncovered every single nugget of gold.
I’d flown under her radar for years, and it didn’t feel good being her target.
I gratefully tore my gaze from her when Becca clapped me on the shoulder. “He’ll be back, boss. Don’t ya worry.”
I frowned at her sudden comment. Becca was a good hire—one that Atlas had insisted we needed, and he’d been right—but I wasn’t a huge fan of how she was able to read me so well.
I was only just getting used to Atlas being able to tell my moods with just a glance at my expressionless face, and now there was another person who could read me almost as well.
It was unnerving.
“Don’t you have work to do?” I said, more harshly than I’d intended to. I frowned at the tone I couldn’t control—the one my mama always sneered at as the nasty attitude I’d inherited from my papa. It was what turned people away from me. Becca only bellowed out a hearty laugh.
She gave my shoulder another hard pat and turned her gaze to the rest of the room. “Alright, show’s over! Who needs a coffee refill?” she called out to them. Half the people in the room raised their hands, which earned another chuckle from her.
Instead of going to feed the coffee addicts, her hand stayed on my shoulder. “We should grab drinks sometime,” she said with a kind smile and a wink that promised no nonsense before finally going to do her job.
I didn’t bother with a reply, instead heading back into the kitchen, since I had a feeling she was going to get what she wanted, whether I was willing or not.
This was something else I was unused to. People didn’t invite me to parties or for drinks. They usually tried to stay as far away from me as possible.
It was the same with The Diner.
The place had never been this busy before. We’d always managed to get by, since this was one of the oldest and one of the only sit-down restaurants within the town’s limits, but most people who came were quick to eat their food and get the hell out of here.
Now, the sound of conversation and laughter filled the dining area. People stayed long after their meals, just hanging out and chatting about the stupid little things that didn’t really matter.
There were a lot of new faces from the recent migration of people here, but among them were the original Kither Springs folks, too. Some of whom had known me my entire life and never spared more than a sneer my way.
Now? They were smiling while giving me neighborly “hellos” and making polite small talk despite my lack of conversational skills. For the first time in my life, I had something akin to a community. Well, it was more like a community had formed near me, and I was on the border of it.
I knew this unexpected shift in the people around me wasn’t all due to Atlas, but it was true that these changes had started after he arrived.
It was like Atlas had shown me some good in this world, and that only attracted more of it into my life. Or maybe the younger man’s optimistic mindset had rubbed off on me.
I chuckled to myself.
I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.