Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(76)

“Avery!” the mother scolds. “I told you to sit still—I’m really sorry.”

I think that last comment was meant for me.

I turn my head only slightly, not enough to see the woman, but enough she knows I heard her.

“It’s fine,” I say and go back to reading the newspaper.

Three more times—in addition to the probably ten others before that one—the little boy bangs against the back of my seat, until finally the mother hurriedly leaves with him, apologizing to me again just before she walks away with her young son’s hand clasped in hers. And yet again, I told her it was fine. What I didn’t tell her though is that I, in a strange way, welcomed the nuisance. I tend to appreciate the simple, and otherwise irritating things in life—after a night of torturing someone, an innocent little boy beating the back of my seat, being a little boy, is a nice change of atmosphere. I envy this ‘Avery’. What kind of man would I be today if I had been allowed to dine with my mother and not care what the man sitting behind me thought about my head hitting the back of his seat? Perhaps that briefcase underneath the table would be filled with paper and a packaged lunch rather than needles and knives and pliers and poisons and rubber gloves. Perhaps there would be another woman in the world who could love and understand me.

“Ready for a refill?” I hear a sweet voice say.

I look up, pulling my mind back into the moment, to see my waitress whose nametag reads ‘Emily’, holding a pot of coffee in one hand.

“No thank you.”

She smiles down at me from an oval-shaped face with kind lips and kind hazel eyes and cream-colored skin.

“Are you going to have your usual today?” she asks. “Two eggs scrambled. Three slices of bacon—crunchy not flimsy—and a glass of lemon water?”

I glance at her. “No, I won’t be having breakfast today.” I look back into the newspaper.

Silence fills the space between us.

Finally, she says, “Well maybe tomorrow then—”

“No, I won’t be here tomorrow, either.”

“Oh.”

The silence begins to stretch. I never look up from the paper.

“Well, OK I’ll…leave you to your coffee.”

The waitress named Emily, who has been my waitress every other morning for the past three weeks, begins to walk away, leaving her bright personality on the floor behind her.

“Wait,” I call out in a normal voice, and she stops to look back at me. “I uh…”—I look at the table, and then my coffee mug, and then back at Emily—“…yes, I think I’d like to have my usual this morning.”

Her beautiful smile returns, her hazel eyes shining underneath her golden-brown hair.

“Great,” she says nodding, “I’ll be back in a few.”

She’s been trying to talk to me for two weeks out of the three I’ve been coming here, but I’ve always avoided her. She’s beautiful and kind and sweet and that’s precisely why I’ve not given in to her attempts at casual conversation—she’s not the kind of girl I could f*ck and walk away from, with no guilt for her hurt feelings.

I’m not sure why I stopped her.

Ten minutes later she comes back with my breakfast on a plate in one hand and a glass of lemon water in the other. She sets them on the table in front of me as I move the newspaper out of the way, folding it up and laying it on the seat.

“Do you work nearby?” she asks as she jots something down on her order tablet in the palm of her hand.

“No,” I say as I sprinkle pepper onto my eggs, “I just enjoy the breakfast.” And I quite enjoy the sense of normalcy having breakfast in the same diner every other morning gives me, I don’t say out loud.

She rips off the ticket and places it face-down on the table.

“Well, I’m happy to be your waitress every other morning,” she says with a pretty smile that suggests something else.

She’s shy, but she’s trying to be brave and I find it endearing.

The silence begins to stretch again.

“Well, enjoy your meal,” she says and then slips her ticket book inside the pocket of her apron.

“Thank you,” I tell her and offer her a small smile before turning back to my meal.

She nods and glances at the ticket just long enough for me to catch her. Feeling like she wants me to look at it before she walks away, I take it into my fingers and turn it over to find a phone number written across the front, instead of my meal or how much I owe.

She blushes underneath her smile. “You can give me a call if you want to go out sometime”—her blush deepens and it alone intrigues me—“that is…if you’re single. Or even…interested.”

She’s very nervous and growing more-so the longer she stands there and I don’t say anything.

“I mean, you’re not married as far as I can tell”—she glances nervously at my ringless ring finger—“but if you’re not interested—”

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” I cut her off so she can shed the regret and humiliation she had begun to feel. “And no, I’m certainly not married. I’m very single.”

She smiles, close-lipped. I notice another waitress standing by the register, watching us, and beaming. She looks away when she sees that I’ve noticed.