Rose frowned as she realized that he was now watching her with an amused smirk, as if he somehow knew that she found him attractive. She blushed and quickly shook herself out of her daze. “This is a café, not a bar,” she muttered as she pulled a notepad from her apron.
Kallias raised his eyebrow at the woman’s snarky attitude. He rarely encountered men or women bold enough to speak that way to him. Most humans either felt too intimidated by him to speak that way or were too busy desperately flirting with him. He wasn’t sure whether he found her unusual reaction to him amusing or annoying. “A cola will be fine, I suppose.”
Rose scowled and began patting her apron and the pockets of her dress pants as she searched for her pen. She remembered having it just a moment ago. The man suddenly stood, and she took a startled step back as he dwarfed her. That half smirk still tugged at his lips as he reached toward her and pulled the pen from behind her ear. She shivered as his hand brushed against her ear, and she swallowed hard as she tried to ignore the sensations his touch had caused. He held the pen out to her. She blushed and snatched it from him.
Kallias returned to his seat, chuckling at her reaction. He glanced at the nametag on her shirt, reading the four white letters. “So, your name is Rose?”
Rose paused in writing on the notepad and scowled at him. “No, it’s Cleopatra. I just wear a nametag with Rose on it for no apparent reason.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Does sarcasm usually earn you big tips, Cleopatra?” he asked, his light brown eyes dancing with amusement.
“Massive,” Rose answered sarcastically.
Kallias laughed, a little entertained by her sassiness. As he noticed the deep, purple circles underneath her big, blue eyes, he wondered if there were a reason that she hadn’t been sleeping enough, a reason that related to Theron’s sudden interest in her. “So, have you seen any scary men lately, Rose?”
Rose froze and narrowed her eyes at him. “You mean besides you?”
“You think I’m scary?” Kallias laughed.
Rose closed the notepad and scoffed, “You don’t scare me.”
Kallias chuckled, “Yes, I mean aside from me.”
Rose continued to scowl suspiciously at the stranger. “What kind of question is that anyway? No, I haven’t, not that it is any of your business.”
Kallias frowned as the woman turned on her heel and marched toward the kitchen. He ran his hand through his hair as he wondered why Theron would be looking for this particular woman. He knew for a fact that sassy women were not Theron’s type. Theron preferred compliant, docile types like Phoebe, the type of women he could manipulate. As a matter of fact, Theron would have already lost his temper and killed this woman if she had acted that way toward him, and since the woman was still alive, Kallias figured it was safe to assume that Theron hadn’t actually met the woman yet, which once again begged the question of why Theron would be hunting this woman that he’d never even met.
Rose opened the door of the kitchen and frowned as she noticed her friend Owen sitting in a tall chair behind the counter, spreading icing on a cake with a spatula. Since Owen was also a server, he wore a similar outfit to hers, although his dress pants and button-down fit closer to his lean body than her own uniform. He wore his short, ashy blonde hair gelled and spiked. His gray eyes seemed focused on the cake, and he bit his lip in concentration as if he were conducting an experiment, rather than putting icing on a cake. Of course, Owen did major in biology, so that might not have been too far from the truth.
Rose tucked her notepad into the pocket of her apron and walked over to the counter to take a closer look at the cake. “What are you doing?”
“I have no customers,” Owen explained. “So, I’m baking a cake.”
“Oh,” Rose said, nodding. “I didn’t realize you knew how to cook.”
He placed a slice of the cake on a small, round plate. “I don’t.”
Rose laughed, “Oh.”
Owen dug his fork into the slice of vanilla cake with white frosting and held out the bite of cake to Rose. “Here, try a bite, and tell me what you think.”
Rose raised her eyebrow at the cake that looked a little too mushy. She leaned forward and sniffed it. “I can’t. You know that I am on a diet.”
“You’re always on a diet,” Owen complained. “Don’t worry. With any luck, you will get food poisoning from it, and you won’t keep it down anyway.”
“Nice advertisement,” Rose said. “You should put that on a billboard.”
Owen stood and held the fork closer to her mouth. “Just one bite.”
“Fine,” Rose sighed, but as she opened her mouth to eat the bite, Owen shoved the rest of the cake into her face, causing the mushy cake and icing to smear all over her lips and nose. She glared at him as he nearly doubled over in laughter. She wiped the cake off of her face as much as she could with the back of her hand and licked the gooey mixture from her lips.
“Are you angry?” Owen laughed as he licked the cake from his fingers.
“Not at all,” Rose said sarcastically, grimacing at the taste of the cake.
Owen walked over to the sink to wash his hands. “How did it taste?”
Rose tried to think of something nice to say. “The icing was all right.”
Owen laughed. “Probably because Betty Crocker made the icing,” he said, pointing at the container of store-bought icing on the counter.
Rose grabbed a white washrag from a cabinet and took it to the sink. She ran hot water over the washcloth. “Did you even put it in the oven?”
“I did,” Owen said, frowning, “for a few minutes anyway.”
Rose glanced back at him. “I think it takes more than a few minutes.”
“Probably,” Owen said, bracing his hands on the counter behind him.
Rose wiped her face with the washrag, trying to clean the cake off of her face as well as she could with no mirror. She dipped the washcloth under the warm water again. “Thank you, Owen. I’ve always wanted icing in my nose.”
“You’re welcome,” Owen said as he crossed the room and froze by the kitchen door. His eyes widened as he peered through the window on the door that opened into the restaurant. “Holy shit! Is that your customer?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately,” Rose grumbled, her voice muffled by the cloth.
Owen spun back toward her. “What is wrong with you? He’s hot.”
Rose scowled at Owen. “You have a boyfriend,” she reminded him.
“It doesn’t mean I’m blind,” Owen muttered. He grinned at her. “Oh, now I understand why you’re so afraid to date anyone! Someone must have told you that sex makes you blind. It doesn’t. I promise.”
Rose tossed the washrag in the sink and turned toward him, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the sink. “You’re hilarious,” she muttered sarcastically. “Why are all of my friends so concerned with my love life lately?”
“Because you don’t have one,” Owen answered.
She pursed her lips. “How do you think Jared would feel about his boyfriend calling another man hot?” she asked with a disapproving scowl.
“He’d want to see for himself,” Owen said with a grin.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t think he is that attractive.”
“Uh-huh,” Owen said skeptically. “Then why are you blushing?”
“I’m not,” Rose said indignantly. She turned back toward the sink and turned on the water again to wash her hands so she could fix the strange man’s drink. “He’s probably a criminal. He looks dangerous, and he has a tattoo.”
“You have a tattoo,” Owen reminded her in an amused tone.
Rose scrubbed her hands irritably. “Well…yeah…but mine’s smaller.”
Owen started laughing. “Okay, now you’re just grasping at straws.”
“He’s creepy,” Rose said. “He asked me a weird question.”
“A weird question? We should call the police,” Owen mocked.
Rose
glared at him as she dried her hands on the white towel. “Jerk.”
Owen just laughed and returned to his failed experiment at making a cake. He slid onto the stool as he watched Rose fix her customer’s drink.
Eleanor emerged from her office, standing with one hand on her hip and the other on the doorframe. “Does anyone know Mike’s number?”
Rose turned around with the full glass to look at her boss. Eleanor wore her sleek black hair bound in a tight bun. Her long, purple dress complimented her smooth, dark, African-American skin and her full-bodied figure. “Sorry, I don’t know it,” Rose answered. “Why do you need it?”
Eleanor sighed. “I wanted to see if he wanted to work this weekend.”
“If you need someone, I could come in for you,” Rose offered.
Eleanor pursed her lips. “Honey, you need to take a day off every now and then. You’re working yourself to death. When was the last time you slept?”
“I have coffee to keep me going,” Rose said.
“No offense, but I’m not sure coffee is doing the job, sweetie,” Eleanor laughed, her brown eyes scanning Rose’s body, lingering on the dark circles under her eyes. “You need to use this weekend to get some sleep.”
Owen jotted down a number on a notepad and handed it to Eleanor. She glanced at the number and thanked him and then returned to her office.
Owen scowled disapprovingly at Rose. “What kind of person willingly gives up their off-days every week? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“No. Not at all, actually,” Rose answered.
“So, let Audrey drag you off to a party, for once,” he suggested.
“Um, no,” Rose said, her eyes widening in horror. “Besides, Audrey is going to see her grandparents this weekend. And I ran out of books to read.”
Owen laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find more. But…if you want, you could stay at my apartment this weekend. It’s been forever since our last sleepover. We could marathon The Lord of the Rings movies and then go to the bookstore.”
Rose’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Now, that is an appealing offer.”
He grinned. “I figured you’d think so.”
“I don’t know, though,” she said, suddenly frowning. “What about Jared? Are you sure he’d be okay with that? He doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
He sighed, tiredly rubbing his head with his fingers. “No, no, it’s not that. Jared doesn’t dislike you. That is just how he is. He treats everyone like that.”
Rose raised an eyebrow. “The most he’s ever said to me is ‘Hello, Rose.’”
Owen shrugged. “He’s a man of few words.” He cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Except in the bedroom, of course. He’s a bit more talkative there.”
Rose grimaced. “Owen, there are things that I don’t need to know.”
He laughed loudly. “Sorry. I’ll be more considerate of your virgin ears.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “They’ll be grateful.” She glanced down at the glass in her hand and sighed, “Crap, I’m a terrible waitress, aren’t I? I better get this drink out to him. Did I get all of the cake off of my face?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Yeah, you’re good.”
Rose nodded and pushed the door open with her shoulder, making her way to the strange man’s booth. She set the glass of cola on his table and attempted to ignore the way that his light brown eyes scrutinized her. She pulled out her notepad and clicked her pen. “Are you ready to order your food?”
Kallias glanced back at the menu. “What do you recommend?”
Rose shrugged. “I eat salad.”
He watched her expectantly. “And…is the salad good?”
Rose stared at him blankly. “It tastes like salad.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Right.”
“Rose, be nice to the man,” Eleanor scolded as she joined Rose by the table. “How are you going to get a husband if you keep talking to men like that?”
“My mistake,” Rose muttered. “I thought you hired me to wait tables, not to audition for a husband. It must have been the apron that threw me off.”
Eleanor ignored her, apparently used to this. Instead, she just stared at Kallias. “Oh my, you are an attractive one, aren’t you?” she commented.
Kallias chuckled at the older woman’s bluntness.
“A big, tall man like you would probably like the Breakfast Platter. It has plenty of bacon,” Eleanor suggested, pointing at the picture on the menu.
“It is 10:30 at night. Why would he want breakfast?” Rose asked.
“It has bacon,” Eleanor answered, as if that explained it completely.
Rose smiled and shook her head at Eleanor as the older woman patted Rose’s back affectionately and turned around to return to her office. When she turned back toward her customer, she realized he was staring at her with that infuriating smirk of his again. She narrowed her eyes and snapped, “What?”
Kallias stood, causing her once again to take a startled step back. He took another step toward her so that his body nearly touched hers. The soft scents of honey and vanilla clung to her hair and skin, filling his senses as he moved closer to her. Her bright blue eyes widened as she watched him curiously, wondering what he could possibly be planning to do. His eyes gleamed mischievously as he lifted his hand and ran his thumb across her full, pink lips, surprised to find that her lips felt as soft as they looked. She froze, obviously stunned by his actions. He raised an eyebrow and pulled his hand back to show her the icing on his thumb.
He wiped the icing on a napkin. “Your dessert was on your lips.”
Her cheeks flushed a dark pink. “I’m going to kill Owen,” she muttered.
He collapsed back into his seat. “The Breakfast Platter sounds fine.”
“Fine,” she said curtly, writing on the notepad. “I’ll be back with it soon.”
She turned on her heel and marched back into the kitchen, flinging the metal door open so quickly that it continued to swing back and forth for several moments. She ripped the slip out of the notepad and handed it to the cook at the other end of the kitchen. She noticed Owen peering through the window into the restaurant and marched over to him, glaring murderously at her friend.
“Damn, he really is the hottest man I have ever seen,” Owen muttered.
“I’m going to kill you,” Rose warned, “slowly and painfully.”
He spun around at the sound of her voice and held his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender, quickly backing away from her. “Whoa! Relax, tiger,” he laughed. “It was just a tiny white lie. There’s no need to resort to murder.”
Rose tore off her apron as she approached him. “Lying is a severe offense,” she argued. “You purposely let me go out there with icing on my lips.”
“Oh, come on. You should be grateful,” he said. “That sexy man out there just touched your lips because of me. I think that makes me the best friend ever.”
Rose backed him into a corner. “I think it makes you a manipulative liar.”
Owen laughed as he leaned against the wall. “Any normal woman would be thanking me. Do you even like men, Rose? I can’t say I haven’t wondered. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t noticed the way you look at women. You are my closest friend, after all.”
Her eyes widened. “Way?” she sputtered. “What way? There’s no…way.”
He chuckled at her flustered stammering. “If you say so,” he snorted.
She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Yeah, I like some women,” she admitted irritably, “and some men. Just…not that man.” She jabbed her finger in the direction of the dining room. Then, suppressing a smile at his teasing, she turned and walked back to the counter, perching herself on top of one of the stools.
He sat on the stool beside her and smiled. “But I think you do,” he said in almost a whisper, leaning toward her conspiratorially. “I think you are being overly judgmental of him because you don’t want to like him.”
<
br /> She rolled her eyes. “What would you know?”
“I know you,” he said, “and I know sexual tension when I see it.” He leaned closer to her again, as if he were going to tell her a secret. “And Rose?”
“What?!” she snapped, much louder than she’d intended.
“You’re tense,” he whispered, his lips curling into a triumphant smirk.
“I am not,” she muttered, practically pouting. “He’s not even my type.”
“Uh-huh,” Owen said skeptically. “And who is your type, Rose? Ethan?”
Every bit of humor faded from her face. “No. Not Ethan.”
Owen’s hazel eyes softened with regret. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I just hate that everyone keeps mentioning him. It was two years ago. Break-ups happen. It’s not the end of the world.”
He grimaced. “Break-ups may not be, but what he did to you…”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Rose interrupted.
“Yeah, of course,” Owen said sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”
She hopped off of the stool and grabbed her apron, tying it around her waist as she walked to the back of the kitchen where the cook was preparing her customer’s food. She felt someone come up behind her. “It’s fine, Owen.”
“No, it’s not,” he sighed. “I feel like an asshole for mentioning him.”
“Don’t,” she said tiredly. “I’m fine. I’m not a fragile little girl.”
He slung one arm around her shoulders. “I know.”
Eleanor chose that moment to walk out of her office. She stopped in the doorway and stared at them, placing a hand on one hip as a strange smile came over her face. “You two would make such an adorable couple.”
The Stone of the Eklektos Page 7
