“What can I get for you, today?” she asked, her blue pen suspended just above her pad of paper, not bothering to see the face behind it. She knew it was a man from his large hands.
“Well, I don’t know how ‘bout some company.”
Slowly, the paper came down and Nathan sat smiling at her, his face clad in sunglasses as usual.
“Nathan,” she smiled. “Weren’t you just in here last week and you’ve already been by for supplies this month.”
“Yeah, but you’re never on the menu,” he quipped, his lips twitching into a smirk but somehow she knew she’d seen an even better smirk before, a well practiced one. Nathan’s wasn’t as natural, she could tell he did it more to get a rise out of people, she found it oddly charming. When she first got a glimpse of him she never figured him to be so calm and humorously engaging.
“Forgive me, if I’m not amused that you’ve categorized me down to one of your ‘supplies’.”
He laughed at her attempt at a serious gaze. “No, believe me I would never make such a claim. I like to think of myself as a smart man, a man who wants to live past this meal.”
“Then I wouldn’t eat the meatloaf today,” she joked leaning in.
“I heard that,” George called from behind the counter not even looking at them.
Nathan started to pick up his plate looking under it and glancing under the table.
“What are you doing?” she asked put off by his sudden behaviour.
“Checking for the micro bugs, because there’s no way that man’s hearing is that good.”
A snort carried over from the counter.
“So can you take a break?” he asked suddenly serious.
“Uh….”
“Sure, she can, honey,” Suzie spoke out of nowhere as she breezed by them.
“But I already took my….”
“Oh shhh,” Suzie waved her cloth at her while smiling kindly at Nathan.
“The girl works so hard she doesn’t know what she’s sayin’.” Suzie gave her a light push and she fell into the seat across from Nathan who had an amused expression on his face. “Here, I’ll get you a refill.”
Suzie reached for Nathan’s cup and somehow she knew they wouldn’t be interrupted again for quite some time even though Suzie called behind her that the coffee was on its way. For the past month the whole family had been pushing her and Nathan together. Suzie had said she had noticed some kind of connection between her and Nathan immediately, that never had she seen her smile so quickly in all the time she had known her.
So when Nathan started to show up more regularly they always put her on his table. Always, got him to stay longer, always seemingly giving her breaks around the same time. She had a feeling that perhaps Nathan was in on it himself. He was showing up more frequently and they had already been out on one seemingly date when he had offered to walk her home one night and when later that had turned into coffee itself.
It was weird but she found herself not fighting it at all. For someone so guarded she found drawn to him and no thoughts that she was kidding herself would invade her mind. Their conversations always flowed so effortlessly. However, still there was a dark part of her mind that told her she was kidding herself, that this wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed, but for now she found it was nice to pretend to be normal because for the most part she found she wasn’t pretending in how she felt around him.
“So that was completely not obvious at all,” he started.
“Or not awkward,” she finished for him.
He leaned over the table. “I must be a bad person then to say I didn’t find it awkward and I enjoyed the way you blushed a bit as Suzie hustled you into the booth.”
“I didn’t blush,” she found herself protesting, her lips quirking into a small smile as she realized she was getting worked up.
“Then perhaps I ooze more sexuality then I thought, because you sure did look flushed then.”
Her eyes rolled on their on accord. “You’re such a Casanova. So full of yourself,” she observed shaking her head in amusement.
“Hey, with this hair,” he indicated as he arched his eyebrows so they passed above the rim of his sunglasses. “You tend to develop a complex very earlier on.”
“I suppose,” she smiled biting her lip to keep from laughing at the pitying look on his handsome face, like a puppy dog even with out the view of his eyes. “But I’ve told you I like it. At least you’ve never been called Stripes.”
“Now who called you that?”
“A bus driver once.”
He gave a small gasp in supposed outrage. “See now that’s not right, no imagination, if it had of been me I would’ve gone with skunk-head.”
“Charming,” she responded dryly. “And that poor sense of humour of yours is it a complex too?”
“Nah, there’s only so much you can put on that. My uncle…” he gave a small pause almost straining against the word. “He says I developed it out of a need to overcome my father’s anal retentiveness.”
A burst of laughter escaped her lips.
“I’m glad that amuses you.”
“Your uncle sounds like a funny guy.”
The smile on his face thinned. “I don’t think anyways ever referred to my uncle as being funny in the way your thinking, although his points on my father through out my age somehow have stuck with me. Like the fact that apparently I was not my father’s first son, instead the stick up his ass was evidently his first born.”
“You know you’re painting such a pretty picture of your family to entice her with,” Stan interrupted them as he twirled around on one of the stools, a playful gleam to his eyes. “Come on Sam, you already know my family and all the cons and pros and the cons, ditch lover boy and runaway with me.”
“I have an upstanding lifestyle will you be able to provide for me?” she asked him with a similar gleam to her eyes.
“Baby, our love will provide for us,” he drawled, winking at her.
Nathan snorted. “You can’t even afford to wear clean jeans, Stan.” Stan pouted as he spun around on the stool. “Your fly is undone by the way.”
Stan glanced down at his lap as he spun around which caused him to become un-balanced and he fell off of the stool. “Oww.”
“Real smooth,” Nathan retorted.
“You still love me baby, don’t you?” Stan professed as he opened his arms wide still sitting on his ass on the floor with a goofy grin on his face.
“Grease stains and all,” she remarked.
“Get up off of the floor, Stan,” Suzie directed as she walked back towards them with two fresh cups of coffee finally in her hands.
“Yes mother,” Stan spoke jumping to his feet with a mock salute as he winked at them and ran off.
“You sure you didn’t drop him on his head when he was younger,” Nathan smirked behind his cup of coffee.
“Oh, be quiet you, or I’ll tell your father what a public disturbance you’ve become down here.”
“Of course,” he answered. “Thanks for the coffee, Suzie.”
“Thanks,” she threw in half-heartedly not liking the way Suzie beamed at the two of them as she walked away.
“You know you could work up a bit more enthusiasm.”
She snorted. “I’m always enthused can’t you tell.”
He coughed on his coffee. “God, your wit is drier then mine, maybe my uncle would get a kick out of you.”
She smiled. “So why don’t you get to the part about why you’re really here?”
“You get right to point don’t you?”
“Eventually,” she responded slyly.
“Well, you see I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me on an outing after you’re done work.”
“You mean a date?”
“If that’s what the kids are calling it these days.”
She paused a moment as she reflected over her coffee. At the diner she could pretend that she was a full person, that she had a life, but when she went home she was always reminded about how empty she felt and knew she was. She wondered how long it would last when she started to run out of answers to his questions, but for one brief second the darkness of the pod flashed before her eyes and she realized she didn’t want to make another prison for herself.
“I would like that,” she smiled as she answered.