Chapter 6
Everly
An elbow ramming into my side jolts me out of my stare.
“Now there’s a cutie for you, hon.” Marlene flutters her ridiculous eyelashes.
I’ve worn fake lashes a total of one time, applied by a professional makeup artist when I was a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding.
I tried a couple times myself and gave up.
Honestly, how long does Marlene spend gluing those arachnids on each morning?
The elbow’s second assault digs deeper, nearly parting my ribs. “But I see you’ve already noticed.”
“Ouch!” Massaging my side, I skulk deeper into my hiding spot behind the restaurant-grade coffee maker. “He’s alright, I guess.”
Marlene huffs insultingly—okay, gratingly—skeptical.
In the sundown of middle age, Marlene has been waiting tables for Uncle Charlie since I was a preteen.
While she’s twice my age and has a horrible relationship track record, she isn’t dumb enough to buy a word I’m saying.
Kind of like Oakley, she has some sort of Everly-radar that’s picked up on Knox, even though I haven’t uttered a solitary word about last night.
Knox is more than alright. Not sure how I missed it on day one.
I mean, maybe he isn’t the most classically handsome man, but he seems kind, and his hardy appeal screams I’m the guy you want around when stuff hits the fan.
And, by the time he left last night, his dimpled smile was registering on the toe-curling meter.
Speaking of curling, my stomach has been in a twist all day.
Thoughts of Knox possibly reappearing did that.
But why? Cute and kind are fine qualities, but alone, they in no way mean two people are a match.
What could he and I possibly have in common?
I like book talk in a coffee shop, or academic podcasts that stretch my mind during my daily commute.
Girl, you are way ahead of yourself.
I breathe a sigh of both regret and relief at the realization Knox, intently perusing the menu, is in Marlene’s section. “Well, lucky you, you get to be the one to flirt with him tonight.”
Marlene spins. “Uh-uh, hon. You told me I could leave a few minutes early again if we wasn’t busy.”
I did say that, didn’t I? Out of the goodness of her heart—that and needing extra spending money for the holidays—she’s been working longer hours as needed.
Unluckily for my instinct to hide, on no scale do two tables qualify as a rush.
I mean, I could probably insist. Teddy, her adorable dog, surely could hold his legs together an extra half hour if I needed her, right?
She presses a fist into her skinny hipbone. “The man is all yours, sweetheart. Smile. Wink. Have a little fun, girlie.”
Does she not know to whom she speaks?
“I’ve been talking to his buddy a bunch lately. He’s a real nice guy, and he speaks highly of Knox.”
I whip around. “You know his name?”
“Sure. Like I said, Cliff thinks a lot of him, and Cliff is a real decent man himself.”
My gaze freezes as my brain processes the morsel Marlene just dropped. I had not realized the wind was blowing that direction. Sure, Marlene is an incessant flirt, but there is a unique texture to her voice this time. Cliff, huh?
She smirks. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
Not the him she references, yet chance and fate are ganging up on me, clamoring until I’ve no choice but to acquiesce to both. “Fine. I’ll wait on Knox. Go keep Teddy from destroying your carpet.”
She giggles like a teen as she reaches under her hair and unties the apron. Dancing Santa earrings skim her shoulders. “You poor, poor baby.”
I shush her, release my ponytail, and finger-comb my hair into a messy bun instead.
One of Knox’s indented grins springs from hiding when he sees me on approach. He lays down the menu and watches. As in, watches. Only, not in a creepy way, and it baffles me how he pulls that off. He’s looking at me like I’m a toasty fire and he just came in from the cold at the end of a long day.
I’m not even to the table yet and my heart is tripping all over itself. “Good evening.”
“Good evening to you.” The dimple twitches out of control.
Okay, yes, my greeting was a tad on the formal side.
I set a glass of water onto the table. “The chili didn’t scare you off, I see.”
“Ah, so that was your plan.”
“I’d have given you a full bowl and added onions if I didn’t want you back.”
He levies a lingering squint. My words boomerang, pinning me to the wall.
“I’m not saying I wanted you back.”
An upward turn develops around the vicinity of his mouth. “So you didn’t want me back?”
“That’s not what I’m saying either…”
He rests onto his elbows and leans his temple into his fist, one knuckle hooked higher. “Exactly what are you saying, Everly?”
“I’m…” Tragically horrible at flirtation. Which wasn’t even what I was attempting. I stumbled accidentally, backwards no less, into something flirt-adjacent.
I haul the pieces of my wayward self from the four corners and try to cinch them all together. “So. Chili or no?”
A slow-breaking smile nothing short of roguish spreads across Knox’s face. “You know what? I’ll start with another cup—but hold the onions. “They can sure mess up the end of a nice evening…know what I’m saying?”
Is he implying…
Gulp. Pretty sure he is.
I scamper off to my hidey hole, face burning the entire way, and haul Marlene behind the drink station. Payback time. I jab the pointiest part of my elbow into her side, sputtering. “I thought you said he was a nice guy!”
Her brow puckers. “No, I said Cliff was a nice man.” She grips my arms. “What’d he say to you, hon?”
I tell her. She throws her fake blonde hair back and cackles. “Oh, sugar. You are something. How old are you now? Twenty-two?”
I scowl. “Almost twenty-eight.”
She follows up with a downright insulting gawk and shake of her head. “You’re blushing at that? Why, that’s the tamest flirt I’ve heard in years!”
I do not need Marlene, who’s never not flirted with a man, making me feel silly.
I am not na?ve, nor am I completely inexperienced with men—I only feel like I am sometimes.
I stink at flirting and tend to take things overly seriously, another thing Lance counted as a strike against me.
He thought my awkwardness was cute in the beginning but then complained I wasn’t playful enough. Yeah, well he was a real—
I stomp my metaphoric foot. Lance does not deserve brain space.
Regardless, I have no plans to flirt with Knox. It’s not like I even want to. Besides, Marlene may have a tiny point about overreacting.
I scoot my face in front of the small mirror tucked behind the drink station.
Uncle Charlie allowed Marlene to tack it up years ago.
My hair is still a disaster area, and my makeup clocked out with the lunch crowd.
I grab a napkin and dab away a mascara smudge that probably melted into its spot while I helped Buck in the kitchen during the dinner rush.
I scoop out a cup of chili and set it on a plate. I add all the accoutrements—okay, Oak, I take your point—and cloak myself in my calmest, most collected air.
Knox’s smile is genuine and minus rogue vibes when I deliver the chili. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Are you ready to order?”
His expression turns serious. “I’d hoped for something from the specials board, but all of them sound awfully heavy.”
Yet he ordered Uncle Charlie’s chili? “Yeah, Friday specials are all fried. Fried catfish, fried shrimp. Fried okra, fried squash, fried—”
He laughs. “I get it.” He lays the menu flat, closes his eyes, and swirls his finger in the air before jabbing it onto the page. He peeks. Grins. “I’ll have the smothered steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans.”
“That is an interesting technique you got there.”
One of his impressive shoulders lifts. “Hasn’t failed me yet.”
“There’s a first time for everything. Brown or cream gravy on the potatoes?”
His nose bunches. “Brown. You guys and your flour water.”
My pen pokes to my hip along with my hand. “You guys?”
“Southerners.”
“Ahem. Texans.” I tilt my head. “You’re not from here?”
“Nope. Kansas City.”
I should have perceived the absence of a drawl. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
“Work. My company’s installing sewer lines for the City of Chandor.”
“So you’re only in town temporarily?”
He folds big arms over a big chest. “Who wants to know?”
I toss my head back. “Brown gravy it is.”
Knox’s laugh follows me to the kitchen, where I clip his order for Buck to see. It’s the only order left to fill and will hopefully stay that way. Days in this grease pit are impossibly long. No wonder Uncle Charlie had a heart attack.
With a toodle-oo, Marlene abandons me. I fritter time away in back while Knox’s order processes. He’s talking on the phone when I deliver it.
You should learn how to have fun, Everly.
Lance’s words gong back to me. Why is everyone so concerned about my lack of fun? Rather, their faulty perceptions of my lack thereof.
Ten tiny little minutes before closing. I peer toward Knox’s table.
I did a drive-by a few minutes ago, dropping his ticket off while his mouth was full, and he was reading on his phone.
Now, he’s finally pulled out his wallet, I think scrounging for a tip.
Whew. Dare I hope he’ll leave a twenty on the table and call it done?
Remind me again why you’re avoiding a handsome man who’s shown interest, Ev?
The bell above the door dings. No way. Two guys saunter in, bringing a chill with them. Spooky tattoos. Scraggly hair. Shifty eyes.
They plant themselves at a table before I can turn them away with a sorry, kitchen’s closed.
Their gazes creep and crawl over me while I take their drink orders. My eyes involuntarily flit to Knox every so often. Would he perchance like the last slice of apple pie? Sure, Buck is still in the kitchen, but he’s nearing seventy and in worse health than Uncle Charlie.
Knox holds up a finger on my way to drop the ticket off in the kitchen. “Got any apple pie left?”
“Sure thing.” Is the man a mind reader? “A la mode?”
He smiles. “Why not?”
Buck groans when I personally hand him the order, mumbling that Charlie would have turned the latecomers away. I don’t believe a word of it. Uncle Charlie has never turned away a dollar.
Buck fries up the chicken-fried steaks in no time. The duo eat fast and Knox eats slow.
Slow enough for me to read the situation. His leisurely speed, combined with surreptitious eagle eyes on his fellow customers, tip me off. The center of my heart softens, if not full-on melts. Yes, I’ll take big old Knox any day of the week over the two jokers reeking of alcohol.
Tension seeps out of me once the men leave, their money tossed into their table’s center. From behind the register, I watch them get into a beat up old car and rumble away.
Not a minute later, Knox shows up, smiling at me from across the counter. He lays his ticket and a twenty beside the register.
I can’t hide from the man any longer—and why would I? A smile comes effortlessly. “Thank you, Knox.”
His expression blanks. “For what?”
Slowly taking the money and ticket, I give him a side-eye. “You know.”
He shrugs, fumbling a toothpick from the dispenser and slipping it between his teeth. He turns for the door. “Hey, don’t lock me out yet. I’ll be right back.”
Toothpicks are so not classy, except…in this case, kind of charming.
Watching through the glass as he walks to his truck, I make change from the twenty, comping the cost of the pie, although I suspect I’m about to be told to keep all of it.
I lay the money next to a ceramic Christmas tree with multicolor peg lights.
The years have made it a classic, and it was the one decent decoration I salvaged from the rest of the tired décor in last night’s box.
I strain to see through the glass while pretending I’m not looking. All I can make out is Knox at the end of his crew cab work truck, sliding something large from its bed.
The front door whooshes open, blasting the stuffy dining room with frosty air. Knox sets a box down in the spot where I intended the tree to go last night.
A brand new Christmas tree box.
“What’s this?”
“Exactly what it looks like.” Tucking his hand into his pocket, he grins. “You said it yourself. This place could use some cheer.”
I stare. “You can’t buy me—” I swallow. “You can’t buy the diner a Christmas tree, Knox.” More, why would he?
The toothpick still pokes from his mouth, ridiculously, unnaturally, adding charm. “You were right the first time.”
“First time?”
“I bought it for you.”
My heartbeat trips, uprights itself. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
His khaki-colored work shirt hangs untucked over his jeans. Dark hair at the crown of his head pokes up as if caught and harassed by the December wind. Faux innocence rounds his, um…hot cocoa…eyes.
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
“That could change.”
I clutch the edge of the counter. My pulse sprints. “Knox…”
“My motel room is incredibly lonely at night.”
Oh. I backpedal into the wall, my shoulder brushing the curled up edges of Uncle Charlie’s sales tax license taped to the dark paneling. “So, Knox, I need to say—”
He squeezes his eyes completely shut. “That came out really, really wrong.” He drops his face to the floor like he can’t bear to look. “What I meant was…if I have to spend another evening staring at that TV screen or at my stupid phone, I might just lose my mind.”
Pieces click into place. The fist of disappointment that clenched in my chest releases. “How long have you been in Chandor?”
“About a month now.”
“Hmm. It’s been pretty gloomy around this neck of the woods the last few weeks.”
He dashes his head. “Tell me about it. Evenings are long, and the rain isn’t helping my days much, either. Apparently, back home, the weather is unseasonably warm and sunny.”
I grin. “Murphy’s Law.”
“Exactly.” He scratches his cheek, eyes twinkling like they’re lights on a string. “So. The tree…”
I act like it’s a tough decision. “I suppose I could make an exception to my no-gifts-from-strangers policy just this once.”
He grins a row of straight, white teeth. “If we play our cards right, we won’t be strangers much longer at all.”