Chapter Four
Chet
“Here comes trouble...”
I glance up from reading the menu, struggling to hide the disgust on my face when I glance up at Trixie, my over-the-top, countrified, sweet-as-sin waitress.
“Over yonder,” she explains, nodding as the cowbell over the door—Jesus, save me from all the cowboy cliches in this one stoplight town already—rings and in walks Grady Palmer himself.
“Ugh,” I groan before I can stop myself, despite the fact that his long, rangy swagger does something to the front of my stylish grey slacks.
Trixie gives a girlish little giggle, the perfect complement to her ginormous breasts, tiny waist, and the mountain of teased blonde hair piled atop her appreciatively nodding head. “I see you’ve met?”
“Only briefly,” I admit, waving to the second coffee mug on the table across from me. “That’s his.”
“But how’d you know?”
I sigh as Grady struts up to my booth, all 6’ 2” of straight, pure, sugar-enriched country boy. “I ... do this for a living,” I explain as she gives old Grady the once-over, the way a cattle rustler might a prime Angus in the pasture. “Better bring that glass of ice now.”
“Sure thing,” she says absently, freshening her cherry cola (probably) lip gloss with a slow, lurid drag of her big pink tongue.
“Howdy, Grady,” she purrs, wriggling her shapely rump like a caterpillar struggling to cross the road.
Suddenly? Her accent is twice as thick, her boobs twice as big, as she gently leans toward him.
“Hey Trixie,” he says awkwardly, not even taking a gander at those giant moneymakers of hers. “How’s that term paper going?”
She beams. “Oh, you know, still getting my footnotes together, but almost ready to turn into Professor Higgins. Fingers crossed.” Then she turns to me with a vaguely triumphant wink. Leaning closer, she stage-whispers loudly enough for Grady to hear, “I’ll go get that ice now, Sugar.”
“Ice?” Grady asks, sinking into the booth across from me as if he hadn’t slammed the door shut in my face less than ten minutes earlier.
“By all means,” I huff, waving a hand across the table. “Do have a seat.”
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.
I frown. “For what? Slamming the door in my face or sitting down without being asked?”
His broad shoulders give an endearing little shrug. Probably meaningless, mind you, but sexy just the same. “Both, I guess?”
“Fine, well...” I bring my hand back across the table, cross my arms over my chest, and regard him coolly. “This is a surprise.”
“Is it though?” he asks, turning his pretty little face into a question mark.
“I mean, obviously.”
He taps the rustic, earthen coffee mug. The one with the cute little cracked egg all over the bottom and the puffy, balloon letter Cracked Egg Café logo along the top. “Then who’s this for?”
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Jesus, I thought cowboys were supposed to be stupid!”
He snorts easily, breezily, a sound that sends a jolt straight to my crotch. I know I said I wasn’t here to get railed by some lonely cowpoke while I was in town, but Jesus, that laugh? I think I came a little just hearing it!
“Hear you go, Grady,” Trixie announces, saving me from wedging my foot any deeper in my mouth as she sets a plastic cup full of ice next to his lukewarm coffee.
“Thanks, but ... this is?”
Trixie spies a trio of new guests coming into the café and hustles away, casting a quick “Your friend there will explain it to you” over her burly shoulder.
“It’s ice,” I explain redundantly.
“Yeah, Chet, I know. I can see that, but ... what’s it for?”
“Your coffee, obviously.”
“Come again?”
I sigh, glancing at my own plastic cup full of creamy iced coffee. “When I first came in, all I wanted was an iced coffee. Obviously, this dive doesn’t sell any, so Trixie told me she’d bring me a cup of ice and ... Wala.”
“Iced coffee,” Grady finishes for me. “I get it now. But ... it’s not a dive.”
His stern tone braces me. I glance around the café, as charming as it is busy, and concede on that point at least. “Fine, not entirely a dive but...” I wave the menu at him. “Have you seen this?”
Grady sighs and wriggles as if to get more comfortable on his side of the booth. “Only about a million times, Chet. Why? Not up to your usual Beverly Hills standards?”
“It’s not that,” I bluff because if this guy could see my one-bedroom studio apartment back home, he’d laugh me out of the state itself. “I just...”
“Are you a vegetarian?” he asks as if he already knows the answer.
“No.”
“Vegan then?”
“No.”
“Gluten-free?”
“No, Grady, I just ... don’t want to consume three thousand calories at the moment, that’s all.”
He beams. “So you’re watching your figure then?”
“Yeah, actually,” I huff. “Not all of us are eight feen-ten with good bone structure.”
He snickers. “You think ... I have good bone structure?” When I start to protest, he waves it away with one of those big, capable hands of his. “Forget it. Listen, order the Ranch Hand Special.”
“What?” But Trixie is already sashaying our way, a vaguely impatient look on her face, and with good reason. I’ve already waved her off half a dozen times so far. “Fine,” I huff when she asks if I’m (finally) ready to order. “I’ll have the ... Ranch Hand Special.”
They both snicker like they’re in on some joke. “What? What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, Sugar,” Trixie mutters, struggling to keep a straight face. “But ... i’ll have to check your ID first.”
“I ... huh?” She and Grady chuckle a little more before she simply walks away, scribbling in her little white notebook the whole while. “Aren’t you having anything?”
Grady nods toward Trixie’s predictably swishing backside, not ogling it the way most guys might. “She knows my order.”
I nod out the plate-glass window at our side. “Wow, this town really is small, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Chet.” He sighs wearily, as if he’s known me forever and is as sick of my shtick as everyone else I’ve ever met.
“It’s a small town. We’re all hicks. The food here is greasy, calorie-dense, 10-4 Good Buddy, we all know you’re some fancy city slicker who wouldn’t be caught dead here if it wasn’t for work, so. ..”
“I ... I never said any of that,” I huff, although he’s not entirely wrong.
“You don’t have to,” he says, our eyes meeting intensely across the cozy café table. “It’s written all over your city boy face.”
I stiffen. Bristle. Then ... sag. “Yeah.” I sigh, unable to protest any longer. “I do that. I’m sorry. I just ... I have a lot riding on this gig, Grady. And this morning? Wasn’t exactly, uh ... confidence inspiring, if you know what I mean.”
He nods, eyes still warmly meeting mine. “I’m sorry about that,” he insists, no longer coy or playful. His voice, when serious, is only slightly less sexy than when he’s being a playful cowpoke smartass. “You’re right. I should have been more prepared, studied up...”
“How about ... remembered I was coming in the first place?” I tease.
Grady looks around anxiously, as if afraid someone else might hear. Fat chance, I muse to myself, considering the volume level in this crowded little breakfast joint rivals most music festivals I’ve been to. “Listen, real talk?”
“Obviously,” I tease. “You think I’d admit defeat to just any old cowboy?”
He chuckles, soft and low. “Anyway, I ... yes, I work at the family firm, and yes, that was my office back there, and yes, my name is, technically anyway, Mr. Palmer, but this time last week? I was still at Kentucky Eastern, sharing an off-campus apartment with some slob named Booger McGee, so if you could just cut me some slack and give me a little grace period here, I...” He swallows as if forcing himself to say the next line, “I promise you won’t regret it. ”
“Booger McGee?” I chuckle, watching him sag with relief. “I already do!”