Page 19 of The Disputed Legacy
I raked my hair back over my head and sighed as I strode for the same stool I’d occupied every time I came here. Halfway there, though, I spotted a couple of older men at the front counter. One of them had taken my spot, so I had to deviate.
Instead of taking another stool at the counter, which was her responsibility, I debated where else I could get a good look at her. It didn’t matter how much I kept her in my line of sight. She never wavered and never succumbed to point out that I was staring, never demanded to know why I was watching her, never put me in my place to get out and stop bothering her. Without any acknowledgement or spoken words, she accepted that I’d noticed her.
And still, she did nothing about it, just doing her job and not engaging with me.
One day, she’d have to cave. She had to be curious, at least. But it wouldn’t be tonight. I saw how busy she was, clearly going through some kind of cleaning and re-inventorying effort with the things hidden behind the front counter. Having no desire to bother her unnecessarily, I moved off to the side and sat in a booth instead.
She still came up to me, dutiful to serve me. “The usual?” she asked.
I nodded. Chicken BLTs had never been my favorite, but since it was what she’d suggested in the first place, I let it become my “usual”. Just to savor the connection to her.
As she went about her work, I couldn’t help but notice a young boy in the booth next to mine. He’d been here before, talking to some of the waitstaff and a man who was probably a cook. But until now, the brown-haired boy was just part of the background. Seated closer to him, he was more fully in my line of sight.
When he dropped a crayon and it rolled toward me, I leaned down to pick it up and handed it to him over the back of my booth seat. Twisting to lean around the frame of the booths as I returned the blue crayon to him, I noticed the word search he was working on.
“Thanks, Mister,” he replied kindly, not looking up from his paper.
It wasn’t much, but I couldn’t help but be impressed by his manners.
“You’re welcome.” I sat back down and glanced at Red, seeing her handling a customer at the other side of the diner. No matter what she did, she was somehow so inherently graceful and sexy that it stole my breath.
Standing. Talking. Delivering food. Looking at me. Not looking at me. Ringing out a customer. Helping her coworkers. It seemed this woman just had to exist and breathe and I would be smitten.
When the boy sighed, letting his frustration be known, I smiled and leaned around the booth again. “It’s going backward from the bottom corner.” Because the font was so huge and the word search was simplified, I couldn’t help but notice he was looking forautumnon the page.
No longer stumped, he smiled and circled the word. “Thank you.”
“It’s tricky when they make them have words backward, huh?”
He nodded, turning to face me fully and letting me see the freckles on his face more fully. “It is. My mom says only observant people get those tricky ones.”
“That makes sense. I like to observe things.” I’d caught myself from admitting that I observed people. I didn’t need to spook this kid and have him telling someone that I was here watching people.
“I do, too!” he said. Then, noticing something behind me, he furrowed his brow like he had been caught doing something bad because he frowned and turned from me. “My mom also says I shouldn’t talk to strangers, Mister.”
“She’s a smart woman.” Getting more curious by the second, I wondered who his mother was and why she’d let him hang around here so much. Connecting his sheepishness with the people I knew to be on the other side of the diner, I smiled as it clicked.
“Is your mom here?”
He nodded but kept his head down as he got out another piece of paper from a backpack. “Yeah. And she doesn’t like me talking to strangers.”
Before I could look up, Red was there. I felt her presence, and the hint of vanilla that seemed to come from her was stronger when I glanced up at her standing next to my booth with my food. “Here’s your usual, sir,” she said, furrowing her brow at the boy.
“For the last time, Red,” I told her with all the charm I could manage, “my name is Saul.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, defiantly matter-of-fact and determined not to budge an inch. If it weren’t for that sassy smirk she almost failed to hide, I would’ve believed her act of wanting nothing to do with me.
Once she walked off, after she gave another glance at the boy and smiled at him, I sighed and hated the distance I couldn’t cross to her. Some men loved that dominance shit, of being calledsir. With all this time I’d put in here to see her, I would give anything just to hear her say my name. Or give me more than point-five seconds of her attention.
“Her name isn’t Red,” the boy piped up.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because she’s my mom.”
I refrained from raising my brows, catching myself in time from showing how much that surprised me. I knew nothing about this woman who’d captured my attention. Only privy to what she looked like and how she moved, how hardworking she was, I was desperate for more information.
Especially this new nugget of a fact that she was a mother.
