Chapter Thirteen
Mia
I may have dragged myself into the shower and washed my hair, but that was the extent of what I planned to do this evening.
No makeup, no effort. I was ready to walk into town and hold my head up high, regardless of looking like a swamp goblin.
The bell rings as we shuffle into Darlene’s Diner.
I breathe in the smell of burger grease and sweetened dairy, noting the milkshake list on the board behind the register hasn’t changed a bit since I left.
The booths look a little worse for wear, the red leather is starting to crack but otherwise, nothing is different.
Even the uniform is the same, pink and white pin striped skirts with a pale pink apron.
When I was a kid I wanted one of those uniforms thinking they’d pair well with my rollerskates.
Seeing the swish of the skirt as the person wearing it brought me my favorite milkshake was always a comfort.
But now the waitress that moves swiftly through patrons, grabbing a set of menus whilst eyeing me up and down, has me swallowing hard.
Because I may not know her, but she seems to know me. I feel my face heating already.
I should have stayed at home.
“I want to sit with Auntie Mia!” Annie yells for the whole diner to hear. Well, at least everyone in town will know I’m back.
Heads turn, and I hear a few tuts and whispers before we all slide into the booth. I try not to let it get to me, but I can’t say it doesn’t sting when the tops of my mom’s ears turn pink.
“What are you going to get to eat, my little lady?” my brother asks Annie.
“Curly fries.”
“You need more than that, Annie.”
“Yup, gonna get a milkshake too.” She grins up at me. “The Oreo is the best one.”
“Oh, I just love Oreos. Maybe we can share one?” I suggest.
“Oh boy, here we go,” my brother mutters.
Annie sits up on her knees and signals me to move closer to her. When I lean in, she pushes my hair away from my ear and whispers at a rate that I’m sure the Richter scale could pick up on.
“I don’t usually share with Daddy because he has a huge belly.” She taps her tummy and points right at my brother as I try to hold in my laugh. “But you look like you have a small tummy, so I’ll share with you.”
“Hey!” My brother scoffs. “My belly is not huge. I have abs, you know.”
Annie covers her face and giggles before blowing her cheeks out along with her belly, doing a fantastic Santa impression.
“Perfect, you look just like your daddy like that.”
“I know, right? I’ve been practicing.”
My mom laughs, and the owner, Darlene, comes and takes our order. Once she’s made her notes, she tucks her pad of paper back into her apron.
“So you’re back then, Mia?”
“Just here for a visit, Darlene.” I spot my brother rolling his eyes. “How have you been?”
“Not too bad. My girls are all grown up now, sixteen and seventeen. ‘Bout the same age you left us, ain’t that right?”
My mom coughs awkwardly, and Annie continues coloring, none the wiser.
“About then, that’s right.”
“Well, good thing Carter Corbin ain’t around. Otherwise, I’m sure you turning up alone would cause a stir.”
“I’m sure me turning up without him here does that enough, Darlene. Nice to see you again.”
In other words. Fuck right off.
I hope she doesn’t spit in my milkshake.
When the food comes, we’ve moved past the awkwardness. But the twinge in my chest reminds me of why I don’t visit often. And if I do, why I don’t come into town.
The jingle of the bell rings out, and I hear Darlene using her sickly-sweet voice to anyone she deems attractive. Some things never change.
“It seems you’re not alone after all, Mia. You always did have a thing for older men, didn’t you?”
She shifts to the right, a smug look on her face, as Alfie Adams comes into view.
My pulse trips, and I look to my family to double-check they’re seeing this too and I’m not just hallucinating him.
His face is stern, almost heated as he holds my gaze a little longer. Then everything softens, his teeth unclench, his jaw slackens, even his eyes seem to warm up. Is it seeing me? Or seeing me look so shit?
“Mia.”
“Alfie.”
“Annie!” my niece calls out, lifting her head from her coloring. “That’s my name.”
The neon light of the diner logo mounted onto the wall illuminates his features in a soft lavender hue.
It perfectly dichotomized the frown and concern etched across his face.
I almost want to smile. Seeing him is a relief in some ways and a heavy ache in another.
He’s come here for me; there’s no doubt about it.
And despite Annie’s babbling and youthful ignorance, my brother and my mom sit and wait for me to do something.
“You wanna order something?” Darlene eventually says.
Alfie doesn’t move. He simply waits a beat and then says, “I’ll take what she’s having,” before sliding into the booth opposite me.
The red leather booths are built for six. But Annie and I took up one side; my mom, my huge-ass brother and Alfie the other. There is something quite odd seeing the two burly men jostling for elbow space.
“We should go and let y’all talk things out,” my mom starts, indicating for everyone to shuffle back out of the booth.
“Nope.” I hold my hand up to stop her wiggling. “We’re gonna eat our dinner and then we’re gonna go back to the house where I’ll talk to Alfie in private. We’re not doing this out in the open.”
Not for everyone to see and hear. The whole town knows far too much about me as it is. I didn’t need anyone talking about why my boss had to fly all the way from Seattle just to get a word out of me.
Awkward conversation and pleasantries resume.
It isn’t like my family hasn’t met Alfie before.
They visited Seattle a year or so ago, and when I last came to visit, Alfie had come to visit Austin and Olivia and had picked me up from the house on the way through.
Back then, my mom thought something was going on between us.
Why would a boss drive nearly three hours out of his way to pick up his staff member, Mia?
But now my mom was certain, you could see the concern on her face.
Narrowed eyes, pursed lips. She thinks Alfie’s hurt me, or rejected me in some way, and I suppose she’s not wrong.
It’s just not quite what she thinks it is.
Given my history with men, and ones in a position of power at that, it’s not unbelievable that she would be extra cautious of Alfie.
Luckily for him, he can’t see beyond the checkered shirt-covered chest of Levi, who is providing protection to Alfie without even realizing.
His eyes are stuck crooning over the four-year-old to my right, who was showing him a godawful drawing of a tiger.
He’s talking to her and admiring it like it’s a damn Picasso.
He even hands it to Alfie to admire, which of course he does.
“Fantastic lines here. You have an excellent grasp on proportions,” he says in all seriousness.
Levi looks at him like he’d just complimented him. Then he pulls the piece of paper back and holds it flat against the surface of the table.
“We’ll keep this one, Annie, what do you think? Should we frame it?”
“Yes, that’s a good one for the gallery,” I say.
“Gallery?” My brother frowns.
“Yeah, we’ve got an artist amongst us,” I nod. “We need a gallery for all the artwork.”
Annie beams at me before lining up her coloring pencils and beginning another drawing.
It’s then that I dare to look at my boss. Alfie’s mouth crooks to the side, his first smile since sitting down. I feel his leg brush against mine under the table, and even though my shoulders shoot up toward my ears, I don’t move. I rest my calf against his, and his crooked smile grows even bigger.
Alfie
I eat my macaroni cheese with a chocolate shake quietly.
How much dairy does one meal need? I swallow down the stodgy food, sucking down the thick shake with such a force that had it been as viscous as water, it would have shot through the back of my throat.
The shake didn’t help the food go down any quicker; it seemed to act as cement instead, clinging to the walls of my esophagus until it threatened to close up altogether.
Small bites, big breaths, dammit. Don’t fucking choke on your dinner when you’re about to ask your office manager/potential something-person to come back to her life in Seattle so you can treat her better.
And don’t do it in front of her six-foot-something brother, who looks like he wrestles cattle for a living.
His goo-goo eyes for his daughter don’t comfort me in the slightest. If anything, it makes him much more frightening.
The man has multiple things to defend in his vicinity. His sister being one of them.
The rest of the meal goes without any drama.
Despite the many heads that turn for a good look at me, or…
Mia? It's not unheard of for small towns to quickly notice an outsider, but the patrons of this establishment seem to be more fixated on her than any intrigue I supply. And there was that subtle dig from the waitress when I first arrived about Mia liking older men. Mia isn’t one to cringe away from confrontation; she deals with my patients after all, who are for the most part safe, but often agitated.
Yet, her chin quivered ever so slightly before she jutted it out in defiance. A well-practiced response? Perhaps.
Mia drove with her family, and I followed in my rental. Her brother had looked between us before jumping in his truck as if to say, why aren’t you driving with him? But Annie, the niece, had cried out that Auntie Mia needed to sit with her, and I’d conceded after seeing her shoulders visibly relax.