by Finn, Emilia
4
Eric
What’s that thing they say about beautiful women and their ability to swallow a man’s soul from first sight?
What if they’re nothing but strangers who pass in the day; they’re just familiar faces in a small town, but you don’t know each other? Does she still have that power to eat you up and promise a world of… I don’t know… something?
And what does it say about a man when he knows she’s a succubus, and he knows he’s screwed, that it’ll probably hurt like hell, and it won’t be an easy ride, and yet… he takes his soul again and offers it up on a platter anyway?
That’s what happened the first time I walked into Franky’s Diner and sat my ass down in search of a burger and quiet. I needed time out; I needed peace for just a moment to help figure out my next move since everything at work was going to shit, but all I got was a front row seat to the dark-haired beauty whose smile lit up a room – or, well, a diner, I guess.
She wore faded blue denim wrapped snug around wide hips, white sneakers on small feet, a black shirt that emphasized her trim waist, and a half-apron that she stuffed a pen, paper, and snacks in.
She wears a bandana more often than not to keep her luscious hair back while she works herself to the bone and serves everyone but herself, then she plops her ass down next to a boy, a teen who looks so much like her, there’s no denying they’re from the same gene pool.
I didn’t understand it, because she sure as hell doesn’t look old enough to have a teen kid, but the matching dark hair and dimples beneath their bottom lips tell a different story. I could have assumed they were siblings, but that was squished within seconds when he called her mom and blew my world open.
I sat in my red and white booth with my hands clasped tight while I watched her sashay a delectable ass across the diner to grab a coffee pot and make a beeline for me. For a single moment, the succubus in her eyes told me lies. She told me she found me irresistible and just had to come on over because she was as drawn to me as I seemed to be to her, but reality arrived à la pen, paper, and a quiet hello when she took my order with a stiff smile and my eyes remained on her heavy breasts.
Sometimes, when a man has laid his soul out on a platter and inadvertently swallowed his tongue, he forgets his manners.
That was me that first day. Eric DeWhit: manner-less, tactless, not at all smooth, and desperate to take back my first impression and replace it with something suave and irresistible. Unfortunately for me, I’m kind of a dork to most who know me, and I have zero suave bones in my body.
So each time I come back in here, I aim for mysterious instead. And if that isn’t working, I try a lame joke and pray for a smile.
Tonight, with what I suspect might be a broken collarbone, mystery and jokes are tossed to the wayside when the greasy-faced, oily-haired, bad-mannered motherfucker lifts a hand and snaps his fingers like that’s all he has to do to get the beautiful waitress to serve him.
What’s worse is it works.
Smiling and backing away from me, Katrina nods and turns sheepishly. “I’ll get your meal out to you just as soon as it’s ready. And if I remember, I’ll bring you a fresh ice pack.”
“You know where to find me.” One-handed, I snap my newspaper open and pretend to read the back pages, but my eyes and attention remain on Katrina’s ass as she moves away with her coffeepot and an air of dread. She doesn’t want to go to that table, but she goes anyway, as though ignoring him would be a bad move.
I’ve been in this diner enough to know Katrina is kinda the boss around here. It’s not her diner, and the man who owns it sits in his office at the top of the hall writing out her paycheck, but if you asked who was managing the place on a day-to-day basis, the answer would come back that Katrina is in charge.
She’s here every damn day, cleaning the counters when I come in the mornings for coffee, and bussing tables when I come back for dinner. All day, she runs herself ragged for mostly appreciative customers, but this oily fucker sets my teeth on edge the second Katrina’s eyes cloud and her shoulders bow.
Stopping by his table, she forgoes the pen and paper when she asks him what he needs, and instead starts pouring coffee without asking if he wants it. I don’t hear their words, just mumbled “yes” and “no.” His glittery eyes make me think he might be in here sobering up, her jaw grinds when his no’s become louder and louder. Tossing a fast glance over her shoulder, Katrina’s eyes shoot wide when we meet and she realizes I’m watching, then she goes back to him, placing her body in such a way as to shield the dude from my vision.
“Not tonight,” she leans closer and hisses. “Absolutely not.”
My coffee is flavorless as I sip. My newspaper holds no interest as I flip backwards and favor my bad shoulder.
“Zeke! It’s a school night, and he’s already in bed, you can’t–”
My eyes are drawn toward the kitchen when a large cook with an overextended belly stops by the door and folds his arms over his chest. He watches Katrina and this Zeke with a deeply etched scowl and firmly pressed lips. Gripping a spatula in one hand like a weapon, and eagle eyes watching, he draws my attention back to Katrina, but I feel the gun I carry concealed beneath my coat.
I don’t want to shoot a motherfucker at eleven at night in Katrina’s workplace, but it’s there just in case. I’m here just in case.
“Zeke! Absolutely not.” She takes a step back when he tries to take her hand. “He’s in bed, and you have no right to demand–”
“Yes, I fuckin’ do!”
I bound out of my chair the second his hand wraps around her wrist and squeezes. The cook takes a single step forward but stops when I steamroll across the diner and slam my hand over Zeke’s arm and snap him loose. Katrina gasps at my fast movement, but she doesn’t cower away when I step between them and jockey her back. “Problem with your coffee, sir?”
“Get the fuck outta my space. Who is this prick?” Zeke tries to look around me, tries to scowl at Katrina as though he wants his power back, but I move each time she does, blocking her from his sight and gritting my teeth when she bumps my shoulder. “Katrina?” Zeke screeches.
“Eric.” Grabbing my bad arm and yanking, she gives me a second to excuse her accident in my mind, until I realize she’s doing it on purpose. She’s hurting me on purpose, because it’ll move me where she wants me. “Eric, you need to sit down.”
“Eric?” Slowly unfolding his body, Zeke steps out of the booth and stops when his forehead reaches my chin. He expected he’d be bigger. He expected I’d shrink away, but nobody scares me. I’m best friends with the devils themselves. There’s no one on this planet more fucked up and dangerous than the guys I consider my brothers. “You have something you need to tell me, Kat?”
“No!” She yanks my arm and pulls me back. “Absolutely not. Eric, go away.”
“If you’re fuckin’ this dude, then we need to discuss who you invite into my son’s life. We need to discuss the kind of examples you have in your home.”
I guess I expected this dude was her ex. It’s obvious she’d only have this one kryptonite, and he’s ready to ride her for it.
“I’m not fucking him, Zeke.” Her words are a hissed whisper as she tries to pull me back. “I’m not with anyone, but even if I was, you don’t get a say in it.”
“Fuck I don’t.” Standing taller, he tries to intimidate me with his angry glare and rotting breath. “I’ve been cool about you and Mac. I don’t interfere because I’m generous like that. But if you’re bringing strays into his life, then I might have an opinion about it.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” No longer trying to pull me back, Katrina turns feral and forces me to pull her back. “You aren’t cool about me and Mac. You aren’t doing us any favors. You’re a deadbeat dad who runs from his responsibilities. You don’t interfere because you don’t give a shit.”
“I’ll challenge you for custody.” He throws his hands into the air. “I’ll take my son and show him a re
al man.”
“You won’t do shit, because fourteen years of unpaid child support is too much for your stingy ass to repay. You won’t do shit, because you don’t give two fucks about the boy you helped create. You won’t do shit, because you’re too damn lazy to take your ass to any law office and fight me on this. Get out of my diner, Zeke, and stay the hell away from me.”
“Mom?”
We spin as one when the bell above the diner door jingles and the boy I know as Mac Blair steamrolls forward in self-appointed protector mode. He’s fourteen, broad, and tall for his age. He shed boy a long time ago, and is now filling out his man body, and when he finds me holding his mom back, he doesn’t know where to point his anger.
It takes only a nanosecond for him to make his decision, for him to step between Katrina and Zeke and shove the fucker back so hard, Zeke’s abused body slams back into the booth with a grunt. “Fuck off, Zeke! Don’t touch her again.”
“Boy, I’ll take you home and show you the buckle of my belt.”
The telltale cock of a shotgun makes our group pause. Turning, I come eye to eye with the one and only Franky of Franky’s diner as he points the rifle at Zeke’s pounding chest. “You won’t touch that boy. And you won’t come back into this diner again.”
“I’m just trying to talk to my kid!” His nostrils flare with rage. “You nosy fuckers need to back up and mind your own business.”
“Everything that happens in this place is my business. And before you get it in your head to take this to the street, know that everything that happens with her and Mac is my business. Full stop. They’re my family, and my protection extends everywhere they go, so I suggest you take your stupid ass and put it on the other side of the state border. Leave them be, or you’ll find out what buckshot feels like.”
“This is none of your business, old man!”
“Try me.” Franky slowly makes his way forward with a steady hand and a promise to take this fucker out. His body is getting on in age, his shoulders not as broad or strong as they once were. His cheeks are puffy, his hair receding. But his eyes… they know what’s going on.
Katrina shakes in my arms, not from fear, but from anger. And in front of her, Mac stands guard and refuses to let his own father closer.
“Try me,” Franky growls. “Do it, because I’ve wanted an excuse ever since that girl walked into my diner all those years ago with tears in her eyes and the determination to work herself to death. Nobody should have to work as hard as she does, so if you’re here to make shit harder for her, I’m gonna exercise my right to defend my property and family.” He racks his gun and reinforces his threat. “The only smart thing you can do right now is get out. Walk away, and leave them be.”
Zeke’s glaring eyes study Franky, then Mac. They come back to Katrina as I pull her back so she’s flush against my chest. Then slowly, with pure hatred in his glare, he comes to me. “You need to learn to mind your own business.” Stepping around Mac with a shoulder barge, and stopping in front of Katrina with wild eyes, he brings a hand up and points so close to her face, it takes everything in me to not snap it and teach him a lesson about manners. “I’m going to get a lawyer. Then I’m gonna take him from you. You’ve had him all this time, so from now until he’s a legal adult, he’ll be mine.”
“You won’t do shit,” she spits out. “You’ll go home and cry into your bottle of Turkey. You don’t get to make any decisions for my son, and you sure as shit don’t scare me. Get yourself a lawyer, Zeke, then have fun paying back all that child support. It might make a small dent in his college fund.”
Pushing past us when she refuses to submit, Zeke slams his shoulder into mine and reminds me it might be broken, then he kicks the diner door open with his boot and makes the glass crack and web.
“Fuckin’ prick,” Mac hisses. Turning, he grabs Katrina’s arms and takes her from me. “I’m sorry he’s a dick, Mom.”
“Why are you here?” Throwing her son’s hands off, Katrina shoots forward and snaps up the coffee pot that’s all but cold by this point. “Why are you here, Macallistar? It’s a school night, and you’re supposed to be in bed. You had to walk here, at eleven at night!” Zooming across the diner and refilling the shocked elderly couple’s coffees, she pushes the mugs closer with shaking hands and forces the dark liquid to spill onto the table. “You want me to trust you, but you’re walking around at nearly midnight on your own. You’re fourteen!”
“I came to walk you home,” he croaks out. “I was in bed, but didn’t fall asleep. The car is being dicky, and I knew your shift was ending, so I came to walk with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that, baby! I can’t focus if you’re out in the middle of the damn night and not tucked away in bed.”
“I’m sorry. I was just trying to take care of yo–”
“I didn’t ask you to take care of me!” Spinning to the cracked door, Katrina chokes on a cry when the breeze outside blows it closed and makes the cracks worse. “I’m so sorry, Franky.” Rushing forward, she closes the door securely so it stops moving with the breeze, then she turns back and meets my eyes. Hers water with rage, fear, maybe a little humiliation. “You don’t ever get to step up in front of Zeke again.”
“Me?” I point at my chest, as though she must surely be talking to someone else. “He was twisting your arm.”
“He was twisting your arm?” Mac explodes. “He had his hands on you?”
“I don’t need you to step up and make it look like something it’s not!” Katrina snaps. “My life is already a mess, and I don’t need a man walking in thinking he has big balls and making my shit worse. I had Zeke under control!”
“I didn’t know he was your ex, Katrina. I just knew he was coming down from something; he was crashing and angry, and his hand was on you.”
“Do I look hurt?” She throws her arms up and spills coffee onto her apron. “Did I look like a sniveling little idiot, or did I have it under control?”
“Well… I dunno.”
“It was under control!” Storming forward, she slams the coffee pot back on the warmer and pins me with a glare. “It was under control, but now I gotta replace a broken door, deal with phone calls tomorrow while Zeke pretends he has a lawyer, and in between that, I gotta talk to my kid and help him come to terms with the fact he pushed his own father tonight when he should have been at home in bed!”
“Mom…” Stepping forward while he wrings his too-big shirt between his hands, Mac places himself between me and his raging mother. “You don’t have it under control. We have a broken door at home because he was a pushy dick last week too. Phone calls tomorrow are better than eating breakfast with him when I find out he slept on the couch because he’s homeless and crashing. And the car is a mess because he said he could fix it, but he made it worse. You don’t have this under control; you just keep slapping Band-Aids on it like that’ll protect me.”
“A thousand days to go, baby. A thousand! Then we’re free.”
“I’m not gonna wish the next three and a half years of our lives away in hopes he doesn’t try to step up as a father. Zeke is a deadbeat, Mom! He’s not gonna step up. He literally can’t afford to, so you’re pausing your whole existence for something that doesn’t exist.”
“I’m not pausing! I’m working, eating, sleeping, trying to raise a decent human being.”
“And now you’re crazy-lady-screeching in the diner in the middle of the night while Franky holds a rifle and your own customers wipe up the coffee you spilled. How’s that working out for you?”
“Stop being a smart ass!” Pointing a dangerous hand toward an unoccupied table, Katrina swings past a still-loaded Franky and slaps a slice of pie onto a plate. “Sit down, eat, be good. It’s time to start cleaning, then we’re going to bed.”
Accepting the plate with a shrug, Mac turns and faces me with a small grin and makes his way to the booth with a limp. “I’ll be waiting, Mom. Then I’ll walk your stubborn ass home and make sure you get ins
ide without any weirdos jumping out of the bushes and scaring you.”
“You are fourteen, Macallistar!” Snatching up the burger I ordered what seems like forever ago, Katrina swings by my empty booth and slaps the plate down. “Eat your damn food; don’t leave a mess, then get out. Don’t step up for me again. You made it worse.”
With narrowed eyes but the good sense to go back to my booth, I slide in so Mac and I are back to back, and when Katrina helps her elderly customers up and through the broken door, Mac lifts to his knees and peers over my shoulder. “My mom can be a little cranky sometimes. She’s proud, and if Zeke had his hands on her, you stepping up would make her feel like a girl. She doesn’t like that. But I’m on your side. You can keep stepping up if I’m not around. You won’t get attitude from me about it.”
I turn with a frown and meet a pair of green eyes exactly like his mother’s and a boyish grin. Extending a hand over the back of the seat, Mac flashes two cute dimples and a whole lot of trouble. “Macallistar Blair. The psycho is my mom, but fourteen years means I know how to press her buttons exactly right.”
I accept his hand with suspicion. “Hi, Macallistar Blair. I’m Eric DeWhit. I’m just an innocent bystander.”
“That’s what they all say,” he snorts. Releasing my hand, he reaches forward and snatches one of my fries. “I know who you are, too. They call you Cap; you’re a cop, and you eat here all the time. You also smile when my mom walks through and laughs at one of Ray’s jokes.”
“Most of that is true.”
He narrows his eyes. “Retired cop. Retired badass motherfucker. You’re friends with my friends, so we can be pals so long as you don’t break my mom’s doors.”
“I promise to never break any doors.”
“Then we’re square.” Turning, he drops down and clangs his cutlery together while Katrina pulls out a heavy roll of gray tape and secures the broken glass door. “Don’t help her, Cap. Don’t offer. Let her be proud for tonight. She needs control like she needs air.”
