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With what had just been running through her head, Anna was relieved Tiffany couldn’t read her thoughts. She picked up the plate with the pie on it. “Well. Closing time can’t come soon enough. My feet are killing me.”

“It’s no wonder. Your shoes are practically falling off your feet. They probably have no support.”

“Not to mention I have a blister the size of my fist on the bottom of my foot.” She couldn’t wait to take her shoes off and have a nice long soak in a steaming tub when she got home—another nice fantasy.

“Girl, you need to get yourself some new shoes.”

She appreciated Tiffany’s concern, so assured, “I will soon. I promise.” She nodded at the plate she held. “The faster I deliver this, the sooner we can get out of here.”

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, setting the pie down in front of her mystery diner.

He looked down at it—unadorned and unheated, just the way he liked it. “No.”

Yeah, she didn’t think so. She set his check face down on the table as he reached for his fork. His hand was big, dwarfing the utensil and looked strong with veins and muscles flexing under the sun-roughened skin. She wondered what he did for a living that he was so fit. Construction? Maybe. Or hell, maybe he was a professional bodybuilder. With his physique, she had no doubt he could bench press at least three-hundred pounds.

Banishing those thoughts, she awkwardly cleared her throat as ifhecould read her mind, and said, “Well, just holler if you need anything.”

She left his table to make her rounds, checking on her other customers. A few minutes later she was back behind the counter, side-eyeing Mr. M until he scraped his plate clean. Covertly, she watched as he got up, left money on the table, and walked out the door.

She waited until the door closed behind him before grabbing a rag to wipe down his table. She wasn’t prepared to see a hundred-dollar bill in place of the twenty he usually left. Her eyes flew to the window, but again, all she saw was her reflection even though she strained to look past it to see into the darkness.

A hand landed on her shoulder and Tiffany whistled. “I’m not gonna say I told you so, but a guy doesn’t leave a tip like that for someone he’s not into.”

Anna fingered the bill, almost afraid to pick it up.

“Now you can buy some new shoes.”

Anna shook her head. “I can’t keep this.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It just feels… wrong.”

Tiffany snatched the bill off the table and shoved it into Anna’s apron pocket. “Don’t be stupid. You need it, and he obviously wanted you to have it or he wouldn’t have left it for you.”

From experience, she knew it was pointless to argue with Tiffany, but Anna knew she wouldn’t keep it. Rational or not, she would feel like she owed the man something or the man would think sheowedhim something. Either way, not how she wanted to feel.

Of the don’t-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth school of thought, Tiffany wouldn’t understand her reasoning, so Anna let the matter drop and would try to find some way of giving the money back the next time she saw Mr. MwithoutTiffany knowing.

Tiffany nudged her with a shoulder. “Come on, there’s only one customer left. Let’s start cleaning up so we can get out of here a little early.”

Liking the prospect of going home, Anna tipped her lips up mischievously. “It’s your turn to mop.”

After tightly screwing the cap on the last saltshaker she’d just refilled, Anna collected them onto a tray and went around setting one on each table.

Cleanup and prep for the next day was officially done, and she’d never been so happy. After working a solid six days, she had the next one off and planned to be lazy for the second half of it after cleaning her apartment and doing her weekly grocery shopping.

She glanced at the clock—eleven-thirty. Not bad. Usually when she had the closing shift she didn’t get out before midnight. She and Tiffany had really hustled.

Anna went to the back room to grab her coat and purse. Tiffany was already there, digging in her locker.

“You ready to blow this joint?” she asked, shrugging into her jacket, covering her uniform of black tee-shirt with the word Red’s printed in scarlet script across the chest.

“I’ve never been more ready,” Anna said, going to her own locker to gather her things.

On their way out, they waved to Steve, the night cook, who was busy scrubbing the range. “You ladies have a good night.” He waved at them with a rag, soapy water flying through the air to land on the floor.

“Oh, you can count on it,” Tiffany said, hustling Anna out the back door, obviously in a hurry to get home to her boyfriend, Luke. They’d been dating for over a year but had only moved in together the month prior and were still in their honeymoon phase.

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