CHAPTER 7
Petal
“Order up! Girly, where’s your head at? Food’s gonna die in the window!
” George’s growl drags my attention from the plate glass windows that line the front of the diner.
All day, I’ve been torn between doing my job and searching the world outside for answers.
I’m feeling unsettled and have been since the moment I left Dino-Mite this morning.
I grab the plates from the pass-through and deliver them to their table before returning to stand behind the counter.
Restless, I shift from one foot to the other, the move alleviating a bit of pain and recentering my focus on work.
I spin and begin the process of cleaning the soda fountain nozzles, part of my side work for the lunch shift.
A throat clearing behind me has me nervously peeking over my shoulder.
I have no clue why I’m so jumpy today, but whatever’s in the air needs to go away.
I don’t have time for nerves when there’s stuff to be done and money to be made.
“Welcome to Pete’s Pastries, have a seat anywhere, and I’ll be out with a menu in just a moment,” I chirp.
The man just stares at me, dark brown eyes managing to be warm and inviting while also spearing deep into me.
Without breaking eye contact, his hand finds the back of a barstool at the counter and drags it out far enough for him to be seated.
My own hands shake as I finish dropping syrup nozzles into the pitcher of warm water and tug on my apron to dry my fingers.
“You’re not wearing a nametag,” the man says, his eyes leaving mine briefly to flit toward my coworkers. Both Tyra and Hannah gossip together at the end of the counter, their nametags pinned above their left breasts.
“Um, no. I’m not. I’m…” The words stutter to a halt as his eyes return to mine. “New,” I finish lamely.
“That’s not your name,” he supplies, unhelpfully. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. There’s an aura to him that says he’s not the playful type, but the words themselves are almost flirty.
“It’s Petal,” I supply and wait for the jokes to start. My name has been the source of teasing for as long as I can remember. This serious stranger surprises me though, and merely repeats my name as if the word is foreign to him. Come to think of it, is that an accent hiding beneath his words?
“Petal. It suits you.” His eyes leave mine finally, but only so far as to trail over the part of me not hidden by the counter between us.
Silence stretches, but it’s not an uncomfortable one.
My brain whirls a million directions at once, but somehow, my body feels solidly rooted in place.
The caress of his gaze moving over me is comfortable in a way I don’t understand, but I don’t want it to end.
“So, um, coffee?” I hardly recognize my voice, the husky rasp foreign to my ears.
“Black. One sugar. Please.” The please is tacked on as an afterthought, and I know instinctively he’s not typically one for politeness.
I turn to grab the carafe from the machine, the feel of his stare making me blush when I realize he can see my backside in the tight skirt of my uniform.
The thrill it gives me is as surprising as everything else today.
That doesn’t stop my hands from trembling when I set the thick ceramic mug and matching saucer in front of him.
He lifts an eyebrow at my obvious nerves, his only reaction. Somehow, I sense his amusement, despite the firm set of his jaw. Nothing about his appearance seems welcoming, yet a part of me feels as if I’m meant to crawl into his lap and curl into him.
I give my head a little shake and turn to the kitchen window, checking for orders to deliver. It’s something to busy myself with rather than dwelling on the strange, illogical feeling of safety from this man. He isn’t safe. No guy is.
I refill his coffee every so often, but he never orders food from the menu I slid onto the Formica counter in front of him.
Occasionally, he checks his phone, and his thick fingers flick over the screen, responding to messages, I assume.
The only thing I hear him say, aside from his coffee order when he first arrived, is a rumbly ‘thank you’ every time I top off his mug.
Still, even when his phone’s out and he’s tapping away at it, I feel his eyes follow me around the restaurant.
The weight of his stare doesn’t creep me out as I’d expect it to.
Hours pass, tables come and go, and eventually the man at the counter is one of the last patrons in the restaurant.
I deliver checks to the two tables still lingering and chatting and slip his across the counter next to the half-empty coffee he’s refused to let me top off for the last hour.
He tips his head to acknowledge the bill but makes no move to pay and leave.
His silence after all these hours twinges in my chest, the wrongness of not having heard him speak in so many hours creating an emptiness inside me.
Across the dinging room, the rustle of guests gathering their belongings and shrugging into their jackets reminds me I still have work to do, despite the urge to stand and soak in the inexplicably comforting aura of the stranger.
“Thank you for visiting Pete’s Pastries.
” I murmur quietly. Whoever he is, I doubt I’ll see him again.
This place doesn’t jibe with the dangerous energy that vibrates from him like a tuning fork struck with a mallet.
I rein in my imagination before I spin a dozen stories for why a man who looks like him would spend a day in a dive instead of doing…
I’m not sure. Doing whatever scary men with expensive watches and ankle holsters do with their time.
By the time I finish delivering credit card receipts to the two tables who want to pay and leave, the man is gone. He slipped out as stealthily as he arrived. Tucked under the saucer of the mug he’d nursed all day, together with the check for a two-dollar cup of coffee, is a hundred dollar bill.