“How’s your room?” Holbrook asked, drawing my attention back to him.
“It’s umm…” I floundered, not wanting to insult him by letting him know that I thought it was a total shit hole.
“Bit of a dump, right?” he asked with a chuckle, removing his hat and setting it next to him on the seat before opening his menu. I watched as he trailed his fingers through his short hair, smoothing out the indents left by his hat, and couldn’t help wondering if it was as soft as it looked.
“Something like that,” I responded distractedly, my fingers twitching with the desire to touch him.
Thankfully, Betty saved me from having to come up with any other witty repartee as she shuffled back to the table with our drinks. The steaming cup of coffee that she set down in front of me was a god send, and I eagerly wrapped my fingers around the hot mug.
“You folks ready to order?” she asked, once again retrieving the stubby pencil from her hair and pulling her notebook from her apron.
“Umm…” I stalled, flipping over the menu, ignoring the way it stuck to my fingers and smelled of imitation maple syrup, and picked the first thing my eyes landed on. “I’ll have the French dip with fries.”
“Chicken fried steak, eggs over easy, sour dough toast,” Holbrook said quickly, efficiently.
I wonder if he fucks the same way, my mind piped up, the suddenness of the thought making me choke.
Flushing all the way to the roots of my hair, I prayed for the ground at my feet to open up and swallow me whole, saving me from further embarrassment.
Way to go, Genius! my inner voice cheered with no small amount of sarcasm. Somewhere deep inside the wolf was rolling her eyes at me and huffing in frustration at my lackluster seduction tactics.
Don Juan, I am not.
“Anything else?” Betty asked, her eyes narrowing as she looked at me as if she could sense the depravity of my thoughts.
Trying not to choke on my tongue I just shook my head, blushing even more at Holbrook’s questioning look.
Someone just shoot me now.
“I’ll put your orders in,” she said slowly, still looking at me with suspicion as I slid down in my seat.
Watching Betty amble away, I let out an embarrassed huff and busied myself with doctoring the cheap diner coffee into something drinkable.
“So, whose Wheaties did you piss in?” I asked after a while, breaking the silence while stirring creamer into my coffee.
“What do you mean?” Holbrook responded, dumping an ungodly amount of sweetener into his tea.
“Well, I figure you had to have seriously pissed someone off to end up on a babysitting detail,” I mused, wrapping my hands around my cup, relishing the warmth seeping into my fingers, before taking a sip.
Some old pain flickered across his face, there one moment and smothered the next by his brilliant smile.
“Nah, it’s nothing like that. Just low man on the totem pole I guess,” he said with a shrug.
While his easy smile made him seem relaxed enough, there was something withdrawn in his eyes that said I had hit a nerve. Not wanting to alienate the only agreeable human company I’d had in months—if not years—I let the subject go.
Silence descended on the table and I turned my attention to neatly stacking the empty creamers one inside the other, doing anything I could think of to keep my hands busy and firmly planted on my side of the table, rather than tearing Holbrook’s clothes off and ravaging him on the spot. My thoughts were running away with me, and I could feel my cheeks darkening with a mixture of embarrassment and desire.
“You okay?” he asked, rousing me from a particularly sordid daydream that involved me riding him like a stallion while he wore his hat and boots.
Hi ho, Silver!
“Yeah, why?” I said, amazed that my mouth was capable of doing anything besides drooling.
“You look a little…flushed,” he replied, his expression full of professional concern while the curve at the corner of his mouth made me wonder if I’d been making lewd gestures with my hands of exactly what I wanted to do to him.
“Must just be from the cold.”
“Uh huh,” he mused. I hated that his smile was so damned sexy. It seemed so unfair somehow.
At that moment Betty came over and set down our food, once again saving me from myself. She was quickly being elevated to sainthood in my mind.
She is getting the biggest tip ever! I thought as I tried in vain to ignore Holbrook smirking at me from across the table, and instead concentrated on drowning my fries in ketchup.