by Nikki Wild
“Don’t I know it,” she softly smiled, nuzzling into my hard chest, listening to promises given so carefully, with such undying conviction.
But I failed her.
Because by the time I finally came back to Arizona, Kate was long gone…
Three
Kate
Two Months Ago
Waitressing the overnight shift sucked.
It meant that I always had to deal with the sloppy drunkards that wandered in off the street, eager for food just as much as a nice piece of ass to squeeze.
Waffle Shack, with its giant, glowing interstate sign, was a godsend to truckers in for the long haul. At least the out-of-towners knew when to quit ahead when you stopped playing along.
The locals thought you owed them.
When regulars started leaving larger than average tips, my pocketbook loved it, but my soul dreaded it. That meant it was only a matter of time before they expected the flirting to go a little bit… further.
After all, they were being generous.
The least you could do was let them have a little touch, right? Let ‘em have a bit of a friendly pat?
Wrong.
That’s not the kind of girl I am.
Sure, a little sexual harassment comes with the job, especially in the Deep South. But I didn’t sign up in this dump to serve platters of hash browns and grits, only to make myself the main course.
It didn’t even pay that well.
Only six weeks into this crummy job, and I already had to remind some of the older, overly friendly customers that there were strip clubs just a few exits down that offered what they wanted.
Sometimes, the customers were the least of my problems…
I was stuck on the bullshit overnight shifts because I was on probation, thanks to the shit-stain assistant manager, Clyde.
The problem was that I’d been naïve.
When Clyde started making advances not three days into the job, I’d politely warded him off. I was used to that kind of attention here, after all, and I really needed this job.
What I had failed to understand was that I was the novelty. I was the cute girl from out of town with the thick skin who could dish it out as often as I got it.
Hot plates optional.
But Clyde hadn’t taken too kindly to that. He’d taken that as playing hard to get.
His bulletproof plan was two-fold. Part one was a heaping of snide little sexual comments that were somehow supposed to make me drop on my knees in his office, giving him some of that Southern service with a smile.
The other part was automatically giving me the best shifts and days off because he liked me, and it made me owe him.
Or so he thought.
The other waitresses, much more senior than I, didn’t care for that. I couldn’t turn to them for help, because every time I happened upon them smoking outside, they were bitching about my special treatment.
It came to a head when Clyde cornered me in the cooler one lazy Sunday afternoon, eager to wet his whistle, and I gave him a piece of my goddamn mind.
Oh, he got the picture alright.
Then the lecherous fucker smacked me with probation. So now, I was working the lazy overnight shifts, scrambling for tips from the drunken fuckers and broke college students stumbling in off the street.
The saving grace was Muriel, the other overnight waitress, a career server around seventy who took a liking to me. The woman could have been my grandmother, both in age and hospitable attitude. All she was missing was the tray of warm cookies every night.
So, the money sucked, and the rest of the scheduled servers thought I was first blowing their boss, and now getting uppity about putting out – no matter what I said.
On top of that, the late-night customers weren’t used to having a younger, attractive waitress on their beck and call. So, they acted up for me.
But there was Muriel to tell them off.
At least I had her.
One of the nights that I didn’t have her, I was stuck with a real uppity bitch from the late morning crew. Chloe had it out for me from the start, and I never figured out why.
But she was one of those who thrived on the sex appeal. Freshly eighteen, she cooed and played into the drunken fuckers, getting tips that could make me weep.
She’d even intentionally sat my asshole of an ex-boyfriend in my section tonight, him and his little group of cronies.
Mark was a little older, a heavy-set guy with a protruding beer belly, premature balding, and a leering grin. When we’d dated, he’d been kind of attractive. A broad build went a long way, and he’d been better than my previous string of asshole biker boyfriends.
Until he wasn’t.
“Whatcha want?” I angrily asked as I whipped out my pen and notebook, casting a filthy look over at Chloe as she poured coffees at the countertop and watched smugly.
Bitch.
“Hiya, Sunshine,” Mark grinned stupidly. It was obvious that he’d already downed his usual six-pack of his favorite domestic piss. “I wanna get a round of coffees for the crew.”
Oh yeah.
The crew.
That’s what he called his bullshit friends. While they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, I didn’t know what they saw in him. Then again, I wondered what I had ever seen in the asshole, too.
It didn’t help that they were all part of a motorcycle club here in these parts – the Bayou Boys, they called themselves. I didn’t know a whole lot about ‘em – the backwater chumps in my booth were recent additions, somehow all passing initiation.
All I knew is that I didn’t want any part of any club that willingly took these stupid strays in.
“Coffees, right up,” I muttered.
Of course, I felt the firm slap of his hand against my ass when I turned to walk away.
Just suck it up, I groaned.
You’ll only encourage him…
I moved for the coffee machine, only to realize that Chloe hadn’t bothered refilling it when it started getting low. Great. That meant five minutes waiting on it while Mark and his crew watched, open to heckle me at every opportunity.
“Ohhh, sorry about that,” Chloe smirked over her shoulder while taking an order.
Yeah. Sure you are.
I didn’t even notice the burly fellow wander into the diner, taking his seat two booths over from my ex-boyfriend.
One of the crew piped up: “Honey, we’re thirsty, tired men. You gon’ hurry up with that there coffee anytime soon?”
“Waitin’ on the machine, darling,” I sarcastically quipped.
Another one snipped up.
“You gonna get our orders, or what?”
We all knew that they liked their drinks before they ordered, but I played along. Wandering back to their table reluctantly, I pulled out my notepad and began transcribing.
Mark grinned up in a leer, dropping the menu down onto the ground.
“You getting that?”
I resisted a sigh, carefully bending down so that I wouldn’t show my ass to them. Didn’t stop him from giving another solid smack, and I almost banged my head under the table on the way up.
“Are you done?” I asked, hand on my hip.
The crew burst into laughter, and I just shook my head. Animals. They’re all a bunch of fucking animals here.
Mark snatched the menu back, looking over the large, glossy, laminated sheet. “Yeah, I’ll take the All-American Platter, extra bacon, extra cheese on the hash…”
After I was done taking their orders and poured them coffee, I went ahead and updated the cook on the new itinerary.
I liked him.
Geoff was a friendly kid. No older than twenty-two, the high school dropout was a savant when it came to running a kitchen alone. He might lack in book smarts, but behind a grill, he was the best I’d ever seen. I imagined him running his own restaurant one day, knocking the critics dead with crazy recipes cooked to perfection.
That might be his future, but at the
moment, he was covered in bacon grease and taking a second to read the annoyance on my face.
“Mark again, huh?”
I nodded bitterly.
“Don’t let ‘em get to ya, Kate,” he smiled sympathetically, simultaneously snapping open waffle grids and flipping eggs. “They’re real assholes. You did good by dropping that sack of shit.”
“Yeah, I like to tell myself that,” I sighed. “But he’s never gonna leave me alone. His bullshit crew knows everyone in this town. I can’t get a job in a fifteen-minute radius of Lafayette without him showing up two days later.”
Geoff wiped his hands clean on his perpetually stained apron front. “You deserve better than what you got. If it were me–”
Chloe’s shrill voice called out.
“Customer! Booth!”
Great. Not only did I miss someone walking in, but now the entire restaurant was going to blame me for not serving him… let alone it being her fucking turn.
“Be right back,” I groaned.
While he started slathering more bacon on the flat griddle, I walked back behind the countertop and out to the restaurant lobby, grumbling all the while.
“You as bad a server as you are a lay, sweetheart?” Mark sneered from off to the side, and his booth roared with laughter.
I tried to ignore them. They were going to make me miserable and leave me high and dry when it came time for the tip. If I was going to make a living, I needed to impress some real customers…
And the man who made himself at home in a corner booth certainly looked real.
Real big… anyway… The menu he held up did nothing to hide his massive arms and tall frame.
I tugged my greasy notebook and a pen from my apron pocket, walking over to greet him.
“Welcome to Waffle Shack,” I cheerily started. “My name’s Kate and I’ll be serving you tonight. What can I–”
The menu lowered as the stranger lifted his gaze, and the surprise hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water.
I could say that the years had been kind to Grizz, but that wouldn’t be doing justice.
The years had worshipped him, carving his strong, thick frame into something a Greek sculptor might have captured in marble. Broad shoulders, massive tree trunk arms, a thick beard, and a chiseled face bearing those same, piercing pale blue eyes gazed up quietly at me.
One glance from those eyes, in that body, and my panties didn’t stand a fucking chance. I could already feel my body react, betraying any hope that I might be able to hold myself together.
He wasn’t supposed to be here… He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere.
“…Kate?”
Four
Grizz
When the hand moves you, it doesn’t provide a list of directions and a fucking map. God opens a door, and you make a choice.
Impossible things happen all the time. Most people pawn this shit off as accidents or simple coincidence.
I know the truth.
There’s no such thing as coincidence…
Nothing else could explain why Kate was standing here with her polite expression faltering mid-sentence. This is why I’d been sent East. I just found my purpose inside a dirty Waffle Shack.
I wasn’t about to question that… I’m not a man who taps the stone twice.
“Yes, that’s my name,” she replied, finally breaking the silence and casting a shaky glance down at her nametag. With a broken voice, she quickly added, “What would you like to drink?”
Something changed in the air with the booth behind her, but I was preoccupied with this utterly shocking moment.
I shook my head, struggling to clear it. “Water, please,” I finally managed.
“Coming right up,” she replied calmly.
With those words, I watched an invisible veil fall over her soul, closing off the light in her eyes to me. Kate turned on her heel and was away from me in an instant, both in closeness of her flesh and her heart.
I felt a dark chill inside, and shuddered. The door to my destiny was closing, and I’d just asked for a glass of fucking water.
Something felt wrong here, and it wasn’t just this ghost from my past – no matter how strangely she was acting. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the oxygen was being sucked out of the damn room. My instincts had me on edge as I tried to make sense of it.
“Here,” Kate muttered, dropping a glass of water off at my table. Without any ice, the straw bobbled uselessly in the lukewarm water. “Want anything else?”
“Kate,” I responded patiently, gazing into her eyes. “I know you remember me.”
“Can’t say that I do,” she shrugged, but I could see the hesitation insider her. I could see the way her pretty hands trembled on the little pad of paper she was carrying. “So, are you gonna order something?”
“What are you doing in Louisiana? The last I heard of you, you were still in Arizona. You made one hell of a wrong turn on your way to New York.”
The rowdiness at the other booth had hushed down. They were listening to every damn word I was saying, and I quickly recognized why this place was making me feel so uneasy.
Eyes were on me.
Kate noticed them too, tensing up without turning. “I told you, pal. I don’t know you. Now, are you going to order anything, or do I need to have you tossed out? We don’t take to overnight squatters here…”
My eyes filtered over her shoulder and to the other waitress, popping bubble gum and watching with mild amusement. As we made brief eye contact, she winked slyly, licking her lips.
I ignored the open invitation. “I’ll take…” I lifted the menu again. “How’s your steak?”
“It’s shit,” Kate shrugged.
“…Oh.”
I glanced quickly over the rest.
“What about your pork chop?”
“This is Waffle Shack. Do you seriously think you’re gonna get a prime piece of meat at a place called Waffle Shack?”
“Point taken. Waffle.”
“What kind of waffle?” She smirked.
“Your best kind.”
Kate glanced over her shoulder and called over to the enclosed kitchen. “Chocolate chip waffle, peanuts on top.”
“I have a nut allergy,” I reminded her.
“Oh, you do?” She turned back, disguising a sly glint of amusement in her eyes. “Good thing you told me, I’d have never guessed.”
Before I could remind her of when I’d nearly choked to death on my seventeenth birthday from a grocery store cake, she quickly shouted over her shoulder again.
“Junior Shack Waffle, the works, hold the nuts!”
Kate turned to me again.
“Any sides?”
“Hash browns,” I answered civilly.
“We’re out.”
I glanced around her at an elderly woman at the countertop, happily scooping a heaping of cheesy bacon hash browns into her mouth.
“Fresh out,” Kate clarified coolly.
“Sausages, then.”
She smirked. “You don’t want them.”
“I don’t?” An eyebrow lifted.
“I don’t know, do you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I retorted.
“Trust your waitress,” she chuckled. “I know what goes on with the meat back there. You don’t want ‘em.”
I watched a nearby, cheery older trucker pause, a half-eaten chunk of sausage on his fork, and stare at it with confusion.
“Fine,” I replied. “What about grits?”
“I thought you didn’t like grits?”
A half-smile crept across my face as I watched the cogs spin. When she realized what she’d done, she narrowed her eyes.
Kate growled to the kitchen.
“Add a side of sausages!”
“That’s a little more like it,” I muttered, taking a sip of the finest warm tap water this side of the Mississippi river.
The tension was still in the air, but I kept to myself at that point. With time, it started to
fade down, and I even heard the backwater punks in the booth behind me riling up a bit when Kate sauntered over with their side plates.
While they were preoccupied, I turned slightly and summed them up.
The brutish ringleader of the pack stunk of self-righteous bullshit. He was giving Kate trouble, trying to swat at her ass or pinch at her until she put him in his place. Even when she verbally knocked him down a few pegs, he’d drunkenly laugh it off.
But there was something dark about him, and I noticed her body language. She was afraid of him. I couldn’t help but feel like he had hurt her before, either physically or mentally, but I couldn’t be sure.
I made a mental note of this and glanced at the others in his group.
There were three of them, all cut from the same kind of cloth. Like slobbering dogs given human form, the animals were eager for a piece. While they came in different shapes – one tall and lanky, one short and gruff, the last one broad but stupid – they were all parts to the same beast.
It was a beast to steer clear of.
The entire group disgusted me. As I noticed the stupid one plainly looking at me with a boorish smirk on his face, I calmly turned my gaze away from their table.
I heard the scuffle of boots against the tiles. I sighed inwardly, resigning myself to violence.
It was my own fault.
I had been watching them for too long.
“You got a problem, asshole?”
It was the brains of the operation talking, if you could call him that. I was taller than most, but he had two inches on me… and six inches on my stomach thanks to his lazy ass beer belly. I could tear this man apart limb from limb, but I didn’t want it to come to that.
“No problem,” I responded calmly.
“Then why’re you lookin’ at us?” He demanded, a slight slur to his words. “Think I’m pretty? Somethin’ on my face? What is it, asshole?”
“I’m not here for any trouble,” I replied honestly. “Nothing to do in this joint, thought I’d take a look around.”
The thug looked like he was going to try something, but just laughed. “Yeah, they broke the damn jukebox a while back… fucking morons. Can’t enjoy a goddamn meal in peace with my boys on the juke anymore…”
