Good Gods

Chapter 6

At the time, I was working as a waitress at a local breakfast dive. When he walked into the place, I was filling in behind the hostess counter. I took one glance at him and dropped all the oversized menus I'd been juggling. Yah, smooth huh?

It's not like I hadn't already spilled those darn things two other times the same day. They were really obnoxious being three foot long, more billboards then menus and they were all glossy so they slipped around when stacked next to each other.

I tried to recover by bestowing him with my biggest sunny-side-up smile, per our customer service training, but I did so while bending over to try and contain the flying-out-of-my-hands menus. And see, we had to wear these ridiculously short diner-types of skirts with tight white blouses, and well, I think I flashed him. My top, not my bottom, to be clear. Still mortifying. I kept smiling because, at that point, I'd already made a fool out of myself, what else was I supposed to do?

He'd just stared at me from the doorway and blinked. His face actually relaxing a little, like he was pleasantly surprised by my antics, verses horrified like anyone else would be. Then, he glanced over his shoulder to the door, like he couldn't believe my attention was directed at him and not a person behind him.

When he turned back, he stood there a second longer kind of like a statue coming to life, before he got down on his knees to help me gather the rest of the menus. When he handed them over, I noticed he had really large hands—even for a guy his size. Like, super strong defined masculine hands. And his palms were really warm when they brushed against my skin, gave me goosebumps when he just barely touched me.

Gazing into his eyes, I found them dark and alluring. He was one of those rare people who owned his space, and even kneeling next to me, I felt a force about him that could push others away and pulled me chillingly closer.

That restaurant was the world's greatest cure to the common hangover, so our patrons were more the scruffy college types. We never got his kind of living, breathing models in there. I think, that's why he knocked me for such a loop. Because I instantly found him attractive, in a dressed-all-in-black kind of way.

"Welcome to Egg Us," I said with menus in hand. That's the restaurant's name, Egg Us. Demeaning? Yes. Give the place a break, it brought us together. "Will you be needing company for breakfast?"

Then I heard what I said well after it was good and away from my mouth. I tried to fix it. But like there was no fixing that. So I dropped a few more of my menus. Because fate and gravity often conspire against me.

This time, I wisely left them on the floor.

"Thank you, it will be just me," he said with a funny little twist of his lips I was fairly sure hid a grin.

Secretly, I cursed Polly, our regular hostess, who'd called in hung-over and left me to this very fine pickle.

I stopped to study the hostess seating chart to find him a place out of my section. I really did. Mostly, because I didn't want to risk embarrassing myself in front of him again as I felt that road had been well traveled. Like I said, fate has it out for me, especially that morning. Because the restaurant was the best cure for too many libations, unless one worked there, like Polly the missing hostess, it was a busy Sunday morning, and the only free table was in the middle of my section. My stomach dropped to my feet. Of course, it was the only one available.

Roman took it all well, with me fumbling all over the place. He just kept studying me with his coal dark eyes like he expected me to be acting differently, such as making less of a fool of myself. I asked him if it was his first time at Egg Us. Because that's what the training manual said we should do. At that point, I was grasping for the protocol to calm my shaken nerves. I knew he'd never been in before. Hello, I would have remembered if he had. And by all the open mouth gasps from my co-workers, he was a new sight to them also.