Chapter 8
LIZZY
“How are you supposed to be just friends with your charming, thoughtful, and hot sorta roommate? Asking for a friend,” Lizzy said to Vivianne during a lull. After their first meeting and a few shifts “in the trenches,” as Vivianne put it, they’d become friendly, if not friends.
Vivianne was filling cups of ranch and smirked as she glanced at Lizzy. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about you and Victor, right?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“No!” Lizzy’s voice rose to a squeak as her eyes darted around the mostly empty diner. One of their regulars, Rowen, who owned the bakery down the street, was seated in his favorite booth but not paying them much attention.
Vivianne laughed. “I knew you two were banging with the way you keep eye-fucking each other.”
“We’re not eye-fucking.” Lizzy’s face burned with embarrassment.
Vivianne turned around and leaned against the counter. “Sure, and I’m the founder of Pumpkin Hollow.”
Lizzy resumed cutting lemons to ignore her jabs.
“Forget I said anything. This is totally inappropriate. You’re like my employee or something,” she muttered.
She shouldn’t have brought it up. She’d just come to the recent horrifying realization that she had zero friends and no one to talk to about this other than her mom, and she’d rather eat glass than ask her mom for advice about Victor.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t see you as my boss.” Vivianne cackled as she stacked up the ranch cups into a bin to be placed in the fridge beneath the counter.
“I’m not sure if that’s a relief or if I should be concerned.”
“You’re gone at the end of the month, right? You’re more a temp hire than a boss.” She slammed the door of the mini fridge closed with her knee and turned to face Lizzy full-on. “So spill. I’m dying for gossip with how dead it is in here. Save me from posting another flash sale on socials.”
“I looked at the numbers from that flash sale. We actually made a profit, despite the chaos. I think you should take over the diner’s social media marketing,” Lizzy said as a way to distract Vivianne from her personal life.
“Really? ’Cause I have some ideas… Wait. You’re trying to distract me.” Vivianne jabbed a finger in Lizzy’s direction.
Lizzy sighed, and to delay further, she wiped the already clean countertop. “There’s nothing to share. Just some… flirting.”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Vivianne rubbed her hands together. “Victor must really like you. I cannot think of the last time he dated. He’s so old-fashioned. He’ll probably ask you out to the soda shop or some shit.” She snorted.
“Even if he did, I’m not interested. I broke up with my long-term boyfriend a week ago.”
“That’s great!” Vivianne shouted.
“What?” Lizzy scowled.
“Not the breakup, for the two of you. You’re here a month. He’s a stick in the mud. You can fuck, have a good time, and move on with your lives.”
Lizzy stared at her, gape-mouthed. “You’re joking.”
Vivianne shrugged. “Look, I like Victor, but he works too much and has no life. Especially now that he’s got Brayden. He deserves a little fun, and if neither of you are looking for something with strings attached…”
Lizzy’s stomach fluttered. She’d never been the type to have one-night stands or casual sex.
But that was the whole point of reinventing herself, right?
Doing things outside her comfort zone? Victor seemed interested, and he knew that she wasn’t planning on staying, so he couldn’t have been expecting more…
The bell rang, interrupting that particular train of thought. Brayden shuffled into the diner, school bag slung over his shoulder. He glanced around the diner before taking a seat in one of the booths by the window in her section. She went over to greet him.
“Hey, Brayden. Hungry?”
“Nah. Waiting on my friends. They might order something. I dunno.” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
She was about to walk away when she noticed a familiar character on his screen from a popular Hero Club franchise.
She felt the way Brayden lit up at the sight of it, and her mutual interest compelled her to comment.
“I love Hero Club,” she blurted, pointing at his screen.
He scowled, but his emotional aura said he felt otherwise. He was intrigued, a bit surprised. “It’s rude to look at other people’s phones, you know.”
She laughed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, sorry, I saw Colonel Star and got excited. I’m obsessed with him. I totally ship him and Dark Skull.”
“Right?! They have way more chemistry than Colonel and Lady Mystery,” he said, face lighting up with excitement.
“Exactly. You into fic? I’ve read a few good Dark Star fics I can recommend.”
His eyes widened further, and he’d given up the pretense of pretending not to be interested. “That’d be awesome! I’m surprised you’re into that stuff ’cause you’re…, you know?”
“A middle-aged woman?” she prompted.
“Yeah.”
She shook her head and laughed. “That comic is older than my dad—” She choked on the word but recovered quickly. “Victor loved it too in high school.”
“What, no way! Victor only seems to care about work, just like my mo—” He cut himself off, and she sensed his emotional retreat. But beneath it, was a small ember of hope that someone would ask, would hold out a hand.
“I’m about to start my break. I could get you a milkshake, and we could talk about Hero Club.”
“I don’t like eating. Nothing tastes good since I got bit.”
“Victor seems to always eat everything spicy. Have you tried adding hot sauce?”
He shook his head. “It all tastes like ash, except for the meal replacement drinks. Those have a faint sweetness. That’s why I can stomach them.”
A thought crossed her mind. “What’s your favorite food?” she asked.
“I dunno.”
“Like before, or now. Either one.”
“I think about my mom’s French toast sometimes,” he said, addressing the tabletop. “She used to make this homemade berry syrup and put tons of whipped cream on the toast and powdered sugar.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“I can make that for you,” Victor said.
Lizzy startled and turned around to see Victor standing behind the counter. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
Brayden shrugged. “The guys are coming. You don’t need to bother.”
Victor pulled back the swinging countertop, marched over, and brushed against her as he leaned in closer to Brayden. “I hadn’t even considered sweets. I can’t really taste them, but you can.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Sit down, the both of you,” Victor instructed.
“I’m supposed to be working,” Lizzy said.
“You just told Brayden you were gonna take a break.”
She crossed her arms and scowled at him.
“Sit,” he said in a tone that made her knees shake a little and her thighs clench. Vivianne’s suggestion of just having fun with Victor was starting to seem more appealing by the moment.
“Is he always this demanding?” Lizzy joked with Brayden as she slid into the booth.
“Unfortunately.” He rolled his eyes and she laughed.
Victor caught her eye and smiled. He headed into the kitchen and got to work on Brayden’s food. Vivianne looked at her from the server’s station and mouthed, “Get it.”
Lizzy shook her head and talked with Brayden while they waited for Victor. Brayden told her a bit about his friends and her old high school.
“I had Mr. Brooks for high school English.” Lizzy shuddered. “Man loved metaphors and similes.”
“I have him too. He drones on for hours.” Brayden scoffed.
“He has to be a hundred. He was old when I was a kid.”
“I’m certain a necromancer brought him back from the dead to torture teenagers for eternity.”
“I bet.” She laughed.
Victor emerged from the kitchen with two steaming plates of French toast drenched in dark berry syrup with chunks of macerated raspberries and blackberries, a tower of whipped cream, and a dusting of powdered sugar. Brayden’s eyes widened at the sight.
“It looks exactly like what my mom used to make,” Brayden said.
“Well, dig in.” Victor gestured for them both to eat.
Brayden cut off a piece and popped it into his mouth. She felt the rush of his excitement, longing, and happiness rolling off him.
Victor beamed. “Good?”
“Incredible!” Brayden tore into the food like a man starved.
Lizzy dug in next and savored her first bite of the French toast paired with the tart sweetness of the syrup. It was absolute perfection.
“Victor, this is so good,” Lizzy said.
“I’m glad you like it.” He smirked at her and her heart fluttered.
She tried focusing on her food, but all she could feel was his gaze burning against her face.
Brayden blew through his food and finished just as a couple teenage boys arrived. Brayden waved to them in greeting.
“I’m gonna go sleep over at Aiden’s house,” Brayden told them, then picked up his backpack, but before he shuffled out the door with his friends, he turned to them. “Maybe we can watch the Hero Club movie on your next night off?”
Victor looked stunned but nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’d love that.”
“You should join too,” Brayden said to Lizzy.
“Sure.” She smiled.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” Victor called after him. Then his eyes slid over to her. “I guess it’s just you and me tonight.”
He was standing a foot away, but he might as well have pinned her to the wall with the intensity of his stare. Was she really considering this? The tension in the room was as thick as the syrup coating the plate in front of her. Maybe Vivianne was right, and they had been eye-fucking one another.
“I should clear the table for the next guest.” She picked up her and Brayden’s plates and took them into the kitchen, ignoring the thumbs-up Vivianne gave her as she passed by.
She dumped the plates into the sink that Victor had just fixed a few days before. It was the dishwasher’s job to clean the dishes, but she needed something to do with her hands. Victor had followed her into the kitchen, and it suddenly felt way too small.
“I can do that,” Victor said, trying to take the dish from her. Their hands brushed, and she felt something fizzle up her arm.
“Let me. You cooked, I clean,” she said.
She thought he’d start prep for his shift or go do some office work, but instead, he leaned against the counter next to her.
“That’s the first time since Brayden came to live with me that he’s eaten a proper meal. Or actively asked to spend time with me.”
“Big progress!” she replied, focusing her attention on methodically scrubbing the plate. She was painfully aware of Vivianne somewhere outside that door, listening and analyzing everything they said.
“It’s because of you. I don’t know how you get people to open up to you like that. But he seems to really trust you.”
“Comes with the territory. I can read his reactions without him saying a word.”
“You ever thought about being a therapist or doing that sort of work?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. My mom wanted me to go to college to become a psychiatrist, but then I met my first boyfriend, Tim, and moved to California. I worked in a surf shop he opened.”
“You did?” he asked.
“Yeah, it wasn’t really my scene. We fizzled out. I met another guy, moved to Colorado, and worked at a ski lodge…”
“You’ve lived a fascinating life.”
Why was she sharing her dating history? It wasn’t important.
She abandoned the pretense of washing the dishes and turned towards him, eyes scanning up and down his chiseled form, taking in his arms crossed over his chest. Once again, she wished she could read his emotions, figure out what answer he wanted.
“I guess. I mostly followed whatever my boyfriends wanted.”
“But what is it you want?” he asked.
She knew the answer. It was him in her bed.
But she didn’t think that was what he meant.
Becoming a therapist like her mom suggested wasn’t for her.
But nothing else she’d done up until now felt right either.
Except this, working at the diner. She shook away the thought.
She was being irrational. It was the job honeymoon phase. She wasn’t staying.
She shrugged. “I dunno, I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”