Page 12 of Pining for You

The work boots she’d been wearing yesterday had been replaced with a pair of black boots that looked like Doc Martens. While her red top draped loosely over her chest, her black pants accentuated her curvaceous butt and muscular legs.

Before she’d entered The Alleys, Chloe spotted me through the window—probably because I held up my hand in acknowledgment. I half rose as she seated herself. Her gaze flicked over me, gauging my plaid flannel shirt—okay, it’s cliché attire for an arborist, but it was comfortable. It didn’t have any holes, and best of all, it was clean.

“Hey.” Her beaded earrings that dangled darned near down to her shoulders caught the light as she glanced around the restaurant area. “Have you been waiting long?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She glanced pointedly at my nearly finished beer and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, I got here about twenty minutes ago and I felt like I had to order something before they kicked me out.”

“Twenty minutes? Is that normal for you, or were you that desperate for a beer?”

“It’s my first.” And now would be my last. “I got here early because I wanted to make sure I got a good booth.” Should I point out that I’d been here enough times that I’d discovered this booth was in the quietest part of the restaurant, so you could hold a regular conversation without shouting?

She studied the menu, then closed it and noted my still closed menu.

“I already looked it over.” I frowned. I decided not to use the old Come here often phrase because I did come here a lot and hadn’t seen her here before. It boggled my mind that she’d been in town for over a year, yet I hadn’t run into her or seen her. Normally I couldn’t walk down the street or go to a restaurant in Port Paxton without meeting someone I knew, or who knew me.

As if on cue, the waitress hurried over and took Chloe’s order—the Five Pin Burger, hold the onion, with veggies on the side, along with a ginger ale. On a separate bill.

Nadine shifted to face me. “What’ll you have this time, big guy? Your usual?”

What the hell was Nadine playing at? I had tried nearly everything on the menu at least once, so my only usual was that I came here a lot. “I’ll have the Ten Pin Burger with all the fixings,” I reconsidered, and added, “hold the onions—” who wanted to kiss a guy who smelled of red onions? Not that I expected to kiss Chloe tonight but a guy could have hope “—and a side of the pulled pork poutine.”

Nadine’s, “Sure thing, Brad,” as she gathered our menus had Chloe raising her eyebrow at me. “Okay, you caught me. I come here a lot but for the record, I don’t have a usual.”

The sound of someone rolling a ball down one the four remaining alleys rumbled its way across the room, followed by the smash of the ball hitting pins, and a shout of “Strike!”

To change the topic from my dining out habits or my hope that I might get to kiss her tonight, I gestured with my head toward the alleys. “D’you bowl?”

She shook her head, which set her earrings in motion, catching the light, then frowned. “A couple times. I used to bowl five pin as a kid, and ten pin a few times when I was in university, but it’s not my thing. You?”

I was an open book, and I found it paid in any kind of relationship not to act like you had anything to hide. “My parents enrolled all of us in a league when we were kids.” They’d started me in kindergarten. I thought I was all grown-up because I got to play like my brother and sisters. “I think it kept us out of their hair on Saturday mornings. Gave them a bit of a break.”

“All of us?”

Before I could answer, our food arrived. Chloe stopped talking and leaned back in the booth as Nadine set the plates on the table, along with Chloe’s drink. Once we were alone, I finished what I was saying, fiddling with the burger and wondering the best way to bite into it without getting any crumbs or condiments stuck in my beard.

“Yeah, I’m one of five. Two older sisters, and older brother, and a younger sister.” I turned it back on her, since it seemed to be the order of the day. “You?”

“I’m an only.” She speared a piece of broccoli, ate it, and asked, “So that makes you…the fourth?”

I shrugged and squeezed the burger a little so it would fit in my mouth easier. “Yes. And youngest son.”

“Does that make you more spoiled or less?”

I snorted. “My brother claims that I was more spoiled than him, but he got a lot of perks I didn’t.” I spread out one hand in a “who knows” gesture while balancing the burger in the other.

I wondered if my sisters knew Chloe. I needed to hit them up for details if they did.

As if really interested in what I had shared, she shifted forward in the seat and asked, “That’s a lot of kids for these days. As one of the younger ones, did you feel like your parents still had time for you or…?”

I carefully bit into my double burger as I considered her question. “Never really thought about it.” I took another bite and chewed slowly, trying to figure the motive behind her questions. Was it to find out more about me or to avoid talking about herself? “I don’t feel like I was ignored. Both my parents worked, so my elder sisters were in charge of us a lot, but I had a lot of friends so I was usually out playing with them when I wasn’t in school.”

A pattern had definitely formed. Whenever I asked her a question, she gave me short answers or deflected the question back to me. I wasn’t used to a woman of few words—not because she was a woman, but because every person in my family talked a lot. Which made me wonder if she didn’t trust me or if she was a really private person?

We turned our attention to our food, allowing the conversation to pause. Once she finished her salad, she pushed the plate to the side, excused herself and headed toward the washrooms. I will admit I checked her side of the bench to ensure she had left her sweater and wasn’t planning to flee out the back door.

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