Chaos and Control(7)

The older waitress comes to the table with three plates of food. She stops when she sees me sitting there, her eyes practically falling out of her head and rolling onto the table. Preston waits patiently as she sets one plate down. There’s a hamburger steak on an otherwise empty plate. The second plate holds only mashed potatoes, no gravy. And the third has onion rings. I watch, fascinated as he lines the three plates up so that they are equal space apart and perfectly aligned.

“Thank you, Audrey,” he says as the waitress disappears.

Before I can comment, Angela Louise appears with my bacon cheeseburger and fries crowded together on one plate and sets it down in front of me. She looks back and forth between the two of us. “Did you want something else to drink?” she asks.

“No, thanks.”

She hands over a few napkins and heads back toward the kitchen, but not before glancing over her shoulder at us.

“What the hell are they gawking at?” I ask while grabbing ketchup off the next table and squeezing some over my fries.

Preston stares at my plate, a tiny line appearing between his heavy brows.

“I’ve never eaten here with anyone else,” he says.

I stop, a glob of ketchup balanced on a french fry suspended halfway between my plate and my mouth.

“Never?”

He shakes his head.

“Huh. No big deal,” I say. Though somehow I know that it is a very big deal. I glance at the counter and find both waitresses blatantly staring. Preston notices them, too, and drops his eyes to his plate, seeming embarrassed by their gawking. “Take a picture or something,” I shout. The two women scramble away.

I grab my cheeseburger and take a huge bite. A long and low, almost pornographic moan escapes my lips. I’m sure there is a mess on my face, but I don’t care. This tastes amazing and just what I need to feel human again. When I glance up, Preston is staring.

“What?”

His posture is still rigid, and his eyes leave my face only to snap back a second later. His lips part, and I wait for words, but nothing ever comes. I wipe my mouth with a napkin and continue eating while Preston does the same.

“You don’t talk very much,” I point out.

He eats all his mashed potatoes first, cleaning the plate with his spoon. Next, he eats the onion rings one by one with a fork and knife. There seems to be a rhythm to his lunch, and I find myself getting caught up in the number of times he chews.

“Why did you come back?” he asks between bites.

I put down my burger and sip my coffee. I’m running from a huge mistake named Dylan. I was scared. I wanted to be with people who care about me. I needed something familiar. All these confessions race through my head, but they don’t make it out of my mouth. I don’t want to lie to him, so I stick with what’s simple.

“It was just time.”

I watch as he cuts the onion ring with the knife and spears the bite with his fork. His lips close around the prongs, and he pulls the fork from his mouth. Preston chews twelve times.

“What happened?”

“Why do you think something happened?” I respond defensively. Of course something happened. I throw a couple of fries into my mouth in an effort to buy some time, before licking the ketchup off my fingers. Preston stares at me again. His eyes follow each and every movement. “Maybe I was just tired of traveling and wanted to sit tight for a while.”

“Maybe.”

He takes another bite. I count. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, swallow. There are thirty seconds of silence in which we chew, we stare, and silently challenge each other.

“So, do you have a girlfriend? A wife? A lady friend? Please tell me you’re not gay. All the pretty ones are gay.”

“Why do you insist on calling me pretty?” he asks without meeting my eyes.

“Because you are. There are other words I could call you, but you’d be equally offended by all of them.”

“It’s just not the most accurate word,” he says, laying his fork down on top of the paper napkin.

“Are you critiquing my choice of adjective?”

“I am.”

“Fine. What should I call you, Preston-who-avoided-the-girlfriend-question?”

“Ruggedly handsome.”

I tap my chin and look at the ceiling before snapping my gaze back to him. “No. I think I’ll stick with pretty.”

Preston narrows his storm-cloud eyes and frowns. If he’s trying to be intimidating, it’s completely ineffective. Instead, it stirs a deeper, more primal feeling inside me.

“How do you like working with Bennie?” I ask.

“Gave me a job, a place to stay. She’s good in my book. Bennie is pretty much my only friend here.”

He frowns again, eyes darting from the diner window to my face and back. There is so much behind his guarded expression, so much swimming in those eyes that he won’t share. Preston presents a challenge, and there’s nothing I like more.

“Bennie’s the best. She’s the only thing I missed from this place.”

“What about your family?”

I frown at him and drop my eyes to my plate. “What about yours?” I ask.

“Okay.” Preston shakes his head. “No talk of family.”

“What are you hiding?”

“What are you hiding?” he repeats. He slides his fork back and forth in the same spot four times before abandoning it.