The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(79)
Tammy rolled her eyes and I chuckled, unlocking the door to welcome Mr. Korbe inside.
And so the morning went. I refilled coffee and served up plates of scrambled eggs and pancakes to the same faces I’d seen day in and day out for years. I took a picture with little Sammy Jones, who was dressed up as an “Army guy GI Joe,” in his own words, and listened to Mr. and Mrs. Boone tell me about the new vegetables in their garden. I helped Tammy top off the ketchup and mustard when breakfast faded into lunch, and tried not to cringe when the old man known affectionally as Scooter checked out my ass as I passed his booth — it was hard to do, since I’d sat on his lap when he played Santa every year until I was ten.
Yep, it was a completely normal day.
Until it wasn’t.
I heard the faint chime of the bell as I cashed out the Boones. “Welcome to Papa Wyatt’s, just grab any open booth and I’ll be right with you,” I called without even looking up from the register. One finger pushed my glasses back up my nose as I popped the register closed and hurried back with the change, offering the Boones one last smile and letting them know I’d see them on Sunday. Which I would.
I always did.
My eyes were on my hands as I pulled the notepad from my apron pocket and the pencil from behind my ear, feet moving on autopilot to the newly occupied booth, but when I looked up at the person sitting in it, everything stopped.
Everything.
Time, my heart, the greeting that was two seconds from leaving my lips.
We had plenty of travelers stop in the diner on their way through town — hard to escape that when we were less than two minutes from I-10 — but those travelers usually fit a code. They were the spring break road trippers on their way to the beach, or lonely truck drivers with sad, weary eyes, or a family of four with kids bouncing in their seats and throwing apple sauce while the parents begged me for more coffee. None of them, and I do mean none of them, looked like him.
His sandy-blond hair was tussled, one hand absent-mindedly running through it as he looked over the menu. From the view I had of his profile, I noticed the deep dent of his cheeks, the smooth squareness of his jaw, the long slope of his nose, bent just a little at the top, like it’d been broken before. He was dressed like the men on the magazines lining the grocery store checkout lane, sporting a cerulean blue sweater over a button-up, plaid dress shirt, the sleeves of both shoved up to his elbows. My eyes followed the fabric down to where it gathered above the light brown belt around his hips. When he dropped the menu to the table, I snapped my attention back to his face.
Which was now angled straight up at me.
His eyes were deep honey pools, bright and intense where they lay sheltered by thick, dark eyebrows. And there were two, small, perfectly symmetrical lines creased between those eyebrows as he looked up at me, like he’d asked a question I hadn’t heard, like he’d been asking questions his entire life without finding a single answer.
In a whoosh, reality sucked me back into the restaurant and I blinked in rapid fire, clearing my throat as I flipped to a new page in my notepad. “Can I start you off with a drink? Coffee, tea?”
I tried to keep my eyes on the notepad, waiting for his response, but he was still staring at me. I lifted my gaze to his, tracing those two creases right above his nose. He wasn’t necessarily scowling, but he certainly wasn’t smiling.
“Sir?”
He blinked, but his eyes never left mine. “Coffee. Black.”
His voice was low and modulated, like a smooth pour of the drink he’d just ordered.
I nodded, rolling my lips together. “I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu.”
When I was back behind the counter bar, I refilled the two customers there before pouring a steaming cup for Mr. GQ, massaging my thigh as I did. It was more out of habit than pain, but Tammy eyed me with concern from where she was piling plates on her arm in the kitchen window.
“You okay, Coop?”
I was still in a fog, and I stopped pouring the coffee just before it tumbled over the lip of the small, white, porcelain mug. “Huh?”
Tammy nodded to my leg, and I looked down at my hand still massaging the muscle. It looked normal, under the corduroy black fabric of my work pants, but beneath it was the scar of my loss, the muscle weak and small in comparison to my other leg. Phantom pains still made themselves present from time to time, reminding me of what once was there — before the accident, before life as I knew and understood it had been altered beyond recognition.
“Oh.” I stopped, smoothing the same hand over my apron before carefully balancing the saucer and cup, already heading back to the booth. “I’m fine. Phantom pains, I barely even notice them anymore.”
She forced a smile. “Okay. By the way, what’s the story on that tall glass of water in booth nine?”
I shrugged, pretending like I hadn’t noticed how attractive he was, the blush crawling up my neck betraying me. “Dunno. He likes his coffee black, that’s about as far as our conversation has gone.”
“You should ask him where he’s from.”
“And you should deliver those pancakes.”
She grinned. “You think he’s cute.”
“I think he’s hungry.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Shut up.”
She laughed as I slid past her and back onto the floor, hands shaking slightly as I checked in on my other booths before placing the full cup of coffee in front of my new customer. He wasn’t looking at the menu anymore. He was simply staring out the large windows of the diner, eyes distant, brows still slightly pinched.