Bad Cruz(4)

Yup. She went there. She actually mentioned Bear.

A bullet of anger pierced my gut.

“Well, if you were just a little bit prettier, maybe you wouldn’t have come in third on Miss America.”

I smiled sweetly.

Clearly, I was willing to go there, too.

Gabriella’s eyes watered and her chin wrinkled and danced like Jell-O as she fumed.

“I would like to speak to management!” she cried out.

“Oh, you mean the big boss?” I asked. “The one in charge of this entire culinary empire?” I made a show of moving half an inch to turn to Jerry. “Management! Table three wants to speak to you.”

Jerry rounded the counter, spitting his tobacco into a nearby trash can, already looking alert while I turned back to the happy couple.

“Anything else I can do for y’all?” My silky smile was as big and fake as Gabriella’s breasts. “Maybe offer you some complimentary white truffle oil while you wait? Perhaps some foie gras?” I made sure to pronounce the ‘s’, to keep that uneducated bimbo label alive.

I definitely wasn’t doing myself any favors. But dang, getting sexually harassed by a kid my son’s age and patronized by my baby sister’s friend just about hurled me to the breaking point.

“Yes, actually. I can’t believe Trinity—”

Gabriella’s scathing remark was cut off when a choking sound came from booth number five, the one occupied by Grabby McHandson himself.

“Oh my gosh!”

“Jesus! No!”

“He’s choking! He is choking on the straw!”

Karma must’ve heard my prayers and decided to intervene, because the guy who’d pinched my ass was now lying on the floor, clutching his neck, his eyes wide and red as he kicked his legs about, trying to breathe.

The whole diner was in a frenzy. People ran back and forth, chairs toppled, women screeched. Someone called 911. Another suggested we flip him on his stomach. And one of his friends was recording the entire thing on his phone, as if we needed more reason not to put our trust in Gen Z.

And there he was.

Dr. Cruz Costello, running in slow-mo to the kid, his sandy hair swooshing about like a Baywatch montage.

He performed the Heimlich maneuver on my assailant and made him cough out the piece of straw he was choking on, saving the day once again.

The jukebox, on cue, started belting out Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long”.

It wasn’t like I genuinely wanted the kid to die.

Being a gasshole was not a sin punishable by death. But the fact that the entire diner glossed over the overt sexual assault I’d been subjected to was jarring, if not completely depressing.

And then there was the fact that Cruz Costello was standing there, tall and muscular and alive, bathing in the compliments everyone around us showered upon him.

“…saved the boy’s life! How can we ever thank you? You are an asset to Fairhope, Dr. Costello!”

“…told your mother when you were three that you were going to become someone important, and whaddaya know? I was right again.”

“My daughter is coming back from college next year. You sure you’re set on Gabriella, sugar? I’d love for you to meet her.”

I leaned against the counter, narrowing my eyes at the scene.

One of the teenager’s friends called his mother, who was going to pick him up. Jerry tried to calm everyone down by announcing everyone would be getting complimentary ice cream, and Gabby clung onto her boyfriend’s arm like she’d been surgically glued to it, fussing in his ear, urinating all over her territory.

Cruz tried to pay Jerry, but Jerry shook his head exaggeratedly.

“Your money’s no good here, Dr. Costello.”

Luckily for Dr. Costello, his money was good and welcome in my pocket. I pushed off the counter and strutted toward him, stretching my open palm up.

“I’m ready for my tip now.”

Gabriella’s mouth fell open.

Something mean was about to come out of it—the fact that my sister and she were best friends, that we were both going to be Trinity’s bridesmaids in less than two months, didn’t matter.

Today had reinforced the notion I was fair game in Fairhope, and everyone had the agency, the God-given right, to be mean to me. But Cruz stopped her, patting her flat ass with a lazy, lopsided grin.

He knew I loathed his golden boy act.

“Go on and wait in the car, honey.”

“But Cruuuuuuz.” Gabby stomped her foot, dragging his name out with a pout.

“I’ll handle it,” he assured her.

“Fine. But don’t be too nice,” she sulked, catching the car keys he threw into her hands, and sauntered out of the diner.

Cruz and I stood in front of each other. Two cowboys waiting to draw their weapons.

“Aren’t I going to get a thank you?”

His whiskey-soaked voice stirred something warm and sticky and unwelcome behind my ribcage. He had that Justin Hartley kind of body you just wanted to feel pressed against you.

“For what?” I mused. “Being alive, being a doctor, or being a royal pain?”

“Saving that kid.”

“That kid pinched my butt and took a picture of my panties.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said evenly.