Page 9 of Deck the Fire Halls

Who the hell would want to deal with a guy who was one minor inconvenience away from getting into his car and driving away from his entire life?

I had issues. I had a problem with how the world worked, and I was cynical and angry at a system I couldn’t change.

No prospective guy wanted to deal with that on top of me working ninety hours a week.

Hell, I didn’t even want to deal with me.

I could have hooked up. I could have used a dozen apps to find a random one-nighter, but I didn’t even have the energy for that.

Or the libido.

I had nothing left to give.

And the only reason I noticed Soren was because he was my neighbor. And because he woke me up with his stupidly loud motorcycle. And because he worked across the street from me, wearing that damn firefighter outfit, washing his sexy red fire engine.

He was a cliché and I was a mess.

That’s all it was.

I shook my head at myself and walked to the diner. Katie told me it was the best place for lunch. She also told me my lunch was at 11:30 because the usual lunch hour was when people came for doctor appointments, and Doctor Humphries preferred to have an early lunchinstead of a late one, so that was now my lunch time as well.

Hard to argue with that logic.

Kinda hard to argue with Katie at all. She was efficient in everything. When Soren had said she ran the clinic, he wasn’t joking. She had lists for every single thing and ran the time schedule like a drill sergeant. She clearly liked routine and schedules, and honestly, so did I.

Patients greeted her warmly, and she treated every person the same. She was also the no-nonsense type and I appreciated that the most.

So, I took myself off to the diner. It was like something out of a movie from the 1960s, with a door that chimed overhead, and vinyl booths and retro tables and chairs. Only it wasn’tretro, it was original in impeccable condition.

Places in big cities paid a fortune to replicate this, most not even coming close.

It was also warm and smelled amazing and the few customers looked happy. There was a guy behind the counter with brown floppy hair and a warm smile. “Good morning,” he said with an accent.

English? South African?

“What can I get for ya today?”

Australian.

“Uh, hi,” I said, trying to scan the chalkboard menu above the counter, not sure where to start. “Uh...”

“Just made a fresh batch of roasted tomato soup,” he said. “Lunch special with grilled cheese.”

Damn.

“Sounds perfect.”

He grinned. “Take a seat, I’ll bring it over.”

I slid into the furthest booth, hiding away as I usually did, and a few minutes later, I had a huge bowl of the best-tasting tomato soup I’d ever had. The grilled cheese was the thick kind of bread with oozing cheese. It might have even been pan-fried inrealbutter.

Best lunch I think I’d ever had.

God, living in Seattle, my entire life had been green, clean, and lean. Jeez, some days I consumed enough calories to make myself function, and sometimes not very well.

“How was it?” the guy from behind the counter asked. Except now he was standing beside my booth with an anticipatory smile.

The fact I’d stopped short at licking the bowl clean told us both how much I’d enjoyed it.

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