Page 2 of More Than Nothing
Wow, this table has the collective smarts of a chicken nugget.
Tyson’s eyes flared. “Just do your fucking job, Elephant.”
“I’ll be right on that, Typhoid,” she murmured, giving him the fakest of smiles as she turned from the table.
Same shit, different day.
Some shifts felt so much harder than others. It wasn’t even mid-morning and Elenie wanted to throw up her hands and surrender. Every time a customer held their purse tighter and gave her a suspicious side-eye, stiffed her on a tip, ignored her, snapped ather, or even moved their small child closer, it chipped away another fragment of her self-worth. Four years of this job would be enough to break anyone’s spirit.
One day, things would be different.
One day, she’d slide into a booth, in her own clothes and with well-rested feet. She’d place her order with another waitress. She’d sit with friends and a partner who looked at her like she lit up his world. Like he couldn’t take a proper breath without her nearby. Like... well, like the heroes in her favorite romance books. Who didn’t exist.
Simple dreams. Impossible dreams.
And if I’m going after the impossible, make it him, please. The sexy stranger. Cool, calm, and charcoal-wrapped in gray.
It was a particular form of torture to have him listen, missing nothing, while Chief Roberts talked to her like a diseased possum. Elenie squeezed the mugs, pancakes, and bacon onto a tray and dragged her attention back to the present, wondering for the millionth time if her miserable boss would ever convince a second waitress to last more than a week.
“Here we are, gentlemen.”
Roberts didn’t bother to acknowledge her. He continued his monologue—something riveting to do with budgets—around a mouthful of bacon, stuffed into his mouth the moment the plate was laid in front of him. Manners of a pig, potbelly of a wild boar.
Mr. Sexy Forearms was a different beast entirely, radiating powerful wild-panther vibes. Fluid, alert, and contained. When he leaned back from the table to give Elenie space to finish unloading the tray, her hand brushed so close to his arm that her pulse took a little jump shot.
“Thank you.” His smile was another small lift of his lips, but it was friendly. Surprising enough to make her pause, handsomeenough to make her stare. His eyes, so dark it was hard to make out the pupils, studied and evaluated until Elenie felt way too exposed.
His face wasn’t perfect. It was a little too drawn, hollowed around the cheekbones. The fine line of a well-healed scar ran just below the curve of his jaw, yanking him by the collar out of “Aftershave Ad” territory and into “I’ve Seen Some Things In My Time.” His nose wasn’t quite straight either. Maybe he’d broken it at some point, maybe it had always been that way. Maybe she should stop staring at him now.
Elenie poured the chief’s coffee and moved away. Going from table to table, order to order, she made herself focus on the work, her surroundings, the customers—and was successful, to a point.
At the counter, Brody McAlpine, owner of the local gun and rod shop, gossiped with Nathan Reyes from the liquor store. Neither looked her in the eye as she delivered their breakfast sandwiches; unsurprising, as both had little reason for a favorable opinion of Elenie’s family. Peggy Winterburn held court at a table of older ladies, complaining about the unnecessary power of her neighbor’s security light. And, just inside the door, a gaggle of teenagers with a free first period took on caffeine to fuel their day at Pine Springs High.
Diner 43 was, as the chief said, the best place in town for breakfast.
Ringing up another check, Elenie saw that someone from the local business guild had dropped off a small pile of flyers for their gala dinner, so she shuffled them into a neat stack by the cash register. Taking two from the top and grabbing some clear tape from beneath the counter, she fixed one to the wall next to the coffee machine and took the other to the entrance. Taping it to the inside of the glass, she pulled open the door to check it was straight.
Expertly dodging the foot that Dean stuck out to trip her on her way back, she elbowed him in the head without breakingher stride. Younger than Tyson, Dean was softer in looks than his brother and Elenie found him marginally less irritating. But he upheld the family tradition of making consistently bad choices because he was slow on the uptake, hadn’t been taught any better, and had friends who were all losers.
As she cleared her stepbrothers’ table, hoping to encourage them to leave, Tyson flicked out his hand, catching the underside of the tray. The four tall glasses rocked and tumbled, a spray of ice cream and chocolate milkshake remnants showering Elenie from chin to waist and soaking her shirt. The float glass rolled over the edge and smashed on the floor.
Delia’s head popped through the serving hatch, habitual glare in place.
Thanks for the concern—I’m fine!Globby droplets of vanilla dripped from Elenie’s forearm.
Ty studied the puddle by her feet. “That’s a health and safety hazard, sis. I’d get onto that if I was you.”
Her toes curling inside her sneakers, she fought the urge to hit him smack in the face with the tray, walk her sticky feet through the door of the diner, and never come back. Instead, face impassive but throat tight, Elenie fetched a dustpan and a cloth to clear up the mess, suffering a roomful of eyes on her back as she swept and wiped. When a pair of black lace-up boots appeared at the edge of the broken glass wasteland, her eyelids fluttered closed for a brief, strength-seeking moment.
“Can I help you?” Hands filled with the wreckage from the floor, she tilted her chin to look up at the hot stranger—a long, long way up, into a face of shadows and angles.
Lean, but muscular, his trim, strong frame filled out his uniform like it was bespoke. She had a ridiculous urge to poke her finger into his stomach just to test how much give there was. She would bet on meeting a solid wall of resistance.
Elenie kept her finger to herself.
“I’d like to pay when you have a minute.”
“Of course. Let me just get rid of this glass.”
