you I’d love to see you while you’re in town. Call me … please.”
Curiously, hearing her voice hadn’t moved him in the least. But her apology and her request to see him again had elicited a very specific response: Hell no.
He opened the door and stepped aside so his friend could precede him inside. “Something tells me you’re getting a bit soft around the middle.”
Dari rubbed a rock-hard six-pack.
“Not that middle.”
They chuckled and walked back to Dari’s office in the front of the building.
While Mace could make light of his relationship woes when the situation called for it, there was nothing but heaviness in his heart at the memory of Janine’s betrayal.
“So, Rocky’s Diner after I close up shop here.”
He nodded. “Rocky’s Diner. Meet you there in an hour.”
They shook hands and gave each other a bro hug. Then Mace headed out to the parking lot where his rental car waited, trying not to think about Janine … or the phone call he’d gotten from her that morning.
He failed.
GENEVA DAVIS TOOK three meat loaves out of the industrial oven, swiping the back of one of the oven mitts across her brow after placing the last on the stainless-steel counter. Two of the kitchen staff had called in sick this afternoon, leaving her and one of the other waitresses to pick up the slack at Rocky’s Diner. Monday’s Meat Loaf Mania was one of their busiest nights when all staff was present. Handling it with two people short was going to make the evening hell on earth.
Trudy Grant, the mercurial owner who was a combination of Betty White witty cuteness and Bea Arthur brashness, hung up the phone on the wall near the door. “Cindy just called in.” She shook her head. “This damn flu is going to put me out of business.”
Make that three people short.
Of course, Trudy’s proclamation was an exaggeration; something or other was going to put her out of business at least three times a day. Still, somehow she’d managed to keep the diner’s heart beating for the past twenty years when she’d bought the previous owner out.
Tiffany, the other waitress, breezed by with warm pies to stock the counter displays in the other room. “Cindy ain’t sick. Cindy has a blind date tonight.”
Geneva shared a smile with Mel, the main cook, but didn’t say anything as she slid off the mitts and gave the large pot of homemade mashed potatoes a stir. As expected, Trudy went off like a bomb, filling the kitchen with inventive curse words. Everyone moved around her, giving her the wide berth she required. They all knew the steam would dissipate and Trudy would be operating on full throttle again soon without risk of being scalded.
Geneva moved around Mel, where he tossed burgers, to turn off the alarm for the French fries. She took the basket out of the oil and hung it on the rungs above to drain.
“Oh, and Gen?” Tiffany poked her head back inside the kitchen. “Your Baby Daddy Dustin just took up residence in his usual place at the counter,”
Geneva stood perfectly still for a moment, staring unseeingly at the golden potatoes, battling back a sudden surge of nausea.
“You okay?”
She glanced at where Mel had leaned in to quietly ask the question.
“Yeah. Fine.” She smiled. “Thanks.”
She removed her hand from where it lay against her stomach, a spot she often found it resting lately, and then tipped the fries out onto two plates and salted them.
Lately, it was getting harder and harder to face Dustin. She didn’t know how to explain in a way that would register with him that just because she was pregnant, it didn’t mean they were a couple. And that she didn’t expect anything more from him but to be a good dad. But he seemed determined to make something out of nothing. And his unwanted attention was eroding what had once been a great friendship.
A friendship that had accidentally become more for five whole minutes a little over two months ago.
It wasn’t that the sex had been bad …
Okay, maybe it had been.
But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to be anything more than a joint parent with him. They were friends—period.
And the one-nighter had happened on the day she’d buried her mother in the ground and her sadness in a bottle of tequila.
“I remember my wife couldn’t even keep crackers down during her first try,” Mel said, putting two cheeseburgers onto buns and then handing the plates to her.
“Thankfully I haven’t been sick once.” She smiled as she dressed both burgers and then balanced all four plates on her arms. “I only feel like I’m going to be.”
All … the … time.
Trudy gathered her wits. “With my luck, your first time will be all over one of the tables. A full one.”
“Knock wood,” Geneva said, edging through the swinging doors to deliver the burgers to Table 6, passing Tiffany as she went.
“Trade you Table 7 for 3,” the too-pretty nineteen-year-old said.
That meant there was someone male and attractive at Table 7, one grouped in her regular station. She didn’t even glance that way. Instead she took in Table 3. A crowd of rowdy teenagers.
“Pass.”
“I’ll share the tip with you. Fifty-fifty.”
Geneva kept walking.
“And you can keep the other tip.”
She let her silence speak for her.
She genuinely didn’t have it in her to deal with the other table just then. Not after pulling a double shift and working all last night to get in a rush job to design a last-minute sales flyer for Johnny’s Jalopies car dealership.
She said hello to Dustin as she passed without stopping to hear what he might have to say, then waited with a smile for the couple at Table 6 to move their joined hands before placing the burgers and fries down in front of them.
“Anything else I can get you for now?” she asked.
“Ketchup,” the girl asked.
“On the table.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Are the pies fresh?”
“Always. Today there’s blueberry, apple and, of course, Trudy’s chocolate marshmallow.”
“I’ll take a piece of the blueberry,” the girl said.
“And I’ll have Trudy’s,” the guy added.
“Very good.
