Chapter 2 #2
“Welcome to Crumb and Crust.” A young girl greets me from behind a hostess table. Glossy chestnut hair tumbles past her shoulders, and her warm smile seems more genuine than out of paid obligation. “How many tonight?”
“Just me,” I say.
It’s funny how when I was a teenager, the thought of eating dinner alone was the saddest, scariest scenario I could think of, and now it’s one of the rituals I look forward to most. Thank goodness, since for now, eating alone is my only option.
“Wonderful.” She scans the paper in front of her and scratches in a number with the pink pen she’s holding.
“If you want a table, we’re looking at a twenty- to thirty-minute wait.
But if you’re okay with it, the bar is first come, first serve, and a large party just left, so there are a lot of open seats. ”
Not only am I too hungry to wait thirty more minutes, but sitting at the bar feels like the thing someone who just moved to town and is interested in meeting new people would do.
“The bar is perfect, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, before lowering her voice and leaning across the table separating us. “By the way, I love your dress and your shoes…and your hair. You look so hot.”
As someone who identifies strongly as a girl’s girl, you will never, ever catch me dressing for male validation.
You think the care I put into my curls, the four different shades of red lipstick I own, and the carefully chosen color story of my wardrobe is all for a man?
Ew. Yuck. Absolutely not. I’m doing it all for the girls.
“Oh my god. Thank you so much!” I’m convinced my feet are no longer on the ground. I stick my hands into the hidden slits sewn into the skirt to give her the only acceptable response. “It has pockets!”
I’m not supposed to admit this, but even though getting a compliment from another woman will always make my day, the exact same words always mean more coming from the mouth of a teenage girl.
And it’s not that I’m ageist, because I’m not!
It’s that I’m still traumatized from my high school years of not being one of the cool kids.
Fitting in with the youths? Be still my tender heart, it’s like achieving the super platinum level of winning.
Her grin widens. “Adorable!”
Honestly, I could go home right now because I’m going to dine on this for the next three to five business days.
The urge to tell her the long, sordid story about when and where I ordered the dress and ask what leave-in conditioner she uses is almost too strong to overcome.
But I know that in order to fall asleep basking in the glow of a compliment, not ruminating on the way I embarrassed myself, I must fight my natural inclination to be cringe.
It’s not easy and takes more effort than I’d care to admit, but I manage to walk to the bar leaving her—and her perfect hair—behind me.
Not long before I moved, Gabby convinced me to try a new bar near my apartment.
Every square inch of the place was designed with Instagram in mind, and the influencers with their phones glued to their hands were eating it up.
Neon signs with popular sayings hung on gold leaf–covered wallpaper.
Velvet barstools sat in front of marble countertops.
The food looked more presentable than edible, and every cocktail came garnished with floral ice cubes and glitter rims.
This bar is not that.
It’s not a dive bar by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s clear to anyone who enters that interior design came second to the items they are serving.
Priorities that I, for one, very much appreciate.
The heavy wood bar top is reminiscent of the one I used to see when my mom and I watched Cheers together.
Glasses hang from overhead as the busy bartenders hustle back and forth, pulling from the beer tap handles and grabbing bottles of alcohol from the stacked shelves lining the wall behind them.
My hostess with great hair didn’t lie; other than a few men wearing cowboy hats and talking to the TV instead of one another, almost all the seats are open.
I should sit closer to the other diners, but before I can tell myself otherwise, I veer toward the empty seats in the corner of the bar.
I’m still tucking my sundress beneath me on the leather-upholstered stool when a bartender appears in front of me with two menus in his hands.
“Evening, ma’am,” he says, and his thick Texas drawl is the only thing that can distract me from the sting of being referred to as ma’am by someone this close to my age. “Are we eating, drinking, or both tonight?”
“Both, please.” I smile gratefully when he hands me the menus.
“Good choice.” He smiles back, not lacking the Southern hospitality Celestial’s official town Instagram boasted about. “Take all the time you need. If you need anything or have any questions, my name’s Nolan. Just give me a call.”
“Thank you, but I’m starving,” I say, and as if on cue, my stomach starts to growl. “I’m sure I’ll be ready to order in a minute.”
Spoiler alert: I need much longer than a minute to look everything over.
I’m so hungry that all of the food on the Southern-inspired menu looks divine.
There are at least three things I need and five more that I want.
And that’s just the food! The drink menu is equally loaded, but unlike the food where I can, and likely will, order at least one extra meal to go, I can only have one cocktail.
“Ugh.” I toss the menu on the bar, unable to deal with my own bullshit at the moment. Curse my indecisiveness! I know I said I like eating alone, but in moments like this, it would be really nice if I had someone to split things with.
“Can’t make up your mind?” The smooth, deep voice catches me by surprise, and I damn near jolt off my seat.
I was so focused on the menu, I didn’t even realize someone sat in the empty seat next to me. Thankfully, the stealthy stranger also has catlike reflexes and his large hand in the middle of my back steadies me before I go flying off the stool.
Way to play it cool, Luna.
There goes my plan for not ruminating on my cringey behavior tonight.
“Oh my god!” My laughter carries over the country music playing on the speakers overhead and the murmur of sports talk from the TVs behind the bar as I try, and fail, to play off my mortifying little snafu. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Trust me, it’s not you. I—”
I turn to apologize, to explain my long history of overreacting to the barest hint of a threat, but when I face the stranger beside me, I not only forget what I was going to say, but my knowledge of the English language altogether.
In my defense, I’d imagine most people would also be rendered speechless if they, too, were to come face-to-face with someone who is perhaps the most beautiful human walking planet earth… and likely all the other planets too.
I don’t think I can be blamed for this.
I don’t think anybody could be blamed for this.
His flawless, dark brown skin looks as if silk has been poured across the sharp angles of his high cheekbones and chiseled jawline.
A neatly trimmed beard that my fingers itch to touch frames his full, deceptively soft lips.
Onyx eyes so dark and mysterious stare back at me, and even though I’ve been in his presence for mere seconds, something tells me that if it meant I could know even a fraction of the secrets they’re hiding, I would gladly spend the rest of my life gazing into them.
Sinewy arms corded with muscles are at direct odds with the gentle touch of his hand on my back.
And as if all this wasn’t already too much hotness for one person, the mass of long, perfectly twisted locs piled into a messy bun at the top of his stunning head is the cherry on top of an already decadent sundae.
Hard yet soft.
Strong yet gentle.
Wild yet controlled.
His beauty is a living, breathing contradiction, and I don’t know how to look away. Or if I want to.
“Ma’am?” He pulls his hand off my back like it’s on fire, and his apologetic gaze turns wary as he begins to shift uncomfortably on his stool, and that awful word sounds even worse coming from his hot mouth. “Are you alright?”
My first night out in Celestial and I’ve been called ma’am twice and officially turned into a creep.
Lovely.
“I’m fine and, really, I should be the one apologizing.
” I rush out the words and attempt to shake myself free of whatever horny spell his face put me under.
“I startle really easily. Always have, but you’re a stranger, so how would you know?
I actually got banned from a haunted house in high school because of how overboard I was.
My mom used to startle me all the time and she was my literal mom.
It’s one of the things that drove her most insane about me.
I’ve tried to get over it, I even went to a hypnotist once, but I can’t figure it out. Clearly.”
I don’t know what I expected to happen when my brain finally took control of my mouth and told me to shut the hell up, but absolute silence from the man next to me was not it.
This poor man probably just wanted a drink, and instead, some random-ass stranger—me!
—not only openly ogled him, but word-vomited all over him too.
Heat detonates across my face, and I send a silent prayer of gratefulness up to my parents.
It’s in small, horrifying moments like this that I’m reminded how lucky I am that my mom fell in love with a Black man.
Of course I wish he could’ve taught me to ride a bike or read, but if I couldn’t get memories, at least I can always count on the melanin he passed down to prevent my face from lighting up like a neon sign, proclaiming to all who look my way that I, Luna Starr, have embarrassed myself.
Again.