Roiling under CeCe’s fa?ade, I swell and shrink rapidly like a fast beating heart. CeCe’s voice sounds breathless as she asks, “Need some help?”
“And you are?” he asks with a voice so rich it encourages gooseflesh.
Absorbed in his killer eyes and auburn hair, I hear my carbon-copy’s voice squeak, “CeCe?”
GAIRE
The desire I have for the woman in front of me is shocking. Blinking away the uninvited feelings, I flip a spatula laden with bacon and pick up an aluminum steak-weight to press them to the grill.
“Are you asking me, or telling me … CeCe?” I say, and can’t hold back a throaty chuckle.
The cute little brunette—all bare tummy and energetic tits—curls the corner of her lip in a half smile that makes my stomach clench.
My nostrils flare with a strange scent underlying coconut oil on her skin—damp, dark, musky, and cold—one I am not familiar with. Red flags may be waving all over the place, but my body sure as hell isn’t acknowledging them.
“I guess I’m telling you,” she says, and then adds, “I didn’t pick the name, or the parents.”
This time I can’t temper my amusement. It burbles from deep inside my stomach and comes out in a loud boisterous laugh. The sound of my own laughter brings back memories of high school, a bell like giggle, and a wisp of a relationship filled with curiosity and adolescent desire. It also brings back the smell of death, savage and cruel.
CeCe plants her fists on her curvy hips under a waist I could easily circle with my hands, and before she can cut loose with the temper I see lighting her eyes and rising on her cheeks, I say, “Yeah, well, I won’t be giving you my full name either. It sounds like a hair rejuvenating product off an infomercial. You can call me Gaire.”
My full name is Rogaire. It sounds like my parents expected big things from me.
The pucker on her full lips blossoms into a Colgate grin and my knees almost buckle, past mistakes conveniently forgotten. Nothing else exists around me. My eyes focus on hers. She moves her mouth to form words, and...
“Gaire! Man! You’re killin’ me! I got a clock to punch in thirty-seven minutes!” One of my regular’s huffs and puffs and blows down the four walls we’ve put up around us.
“Just slapped ’em on a plate, buddy!” I yell, all of my senses fighting to stay focused on the girl in front of me, and slide four slices of bacon next to a stack of pancakes on a plate in the window.
“Well, how about you trot ’em on out here?” Gary’s demand ratchets up the rest of the patrons.
“Not like I’m not wasting away here, either!” Henrietta’s excitement distracts me with a mix of days-old-sweat and stale perfume on the muumuu she’s worn the last three mornings in a row.
I wipe my hands, rip off my apron, reach for the plate, and freeze.
CeCe saunters over, unburdened breasts bouncing and beckoning, and snags a dishtowel off the counter. I watch her tuck it into her low-riding, Levi cutoffs under a navel ring I would kill to run my tongue over.
What the hell? I don’t do this kind of shit. I try to shake away the fog between my ears.
You can’t do this kind of shit; my brain tries to argue with my fast beating heart and the tightness forming under the belt of my jeans.
“So,” CeCe says, and rich brown eyes twinkle with naughty. I swallow hard. She circles hair into a knot at the back of her neck and cinches it with a red pencil she plucks off the counter. “You wanna point me in the direction of the man at the other end of that very loud and very obnoxious voice.” She grabs the plate of pancakes in one hand, a pot of coffee with the other, cocks out her hip, and waits.
I must have stood there too long—have no idea what I was thinking—because her shoulders bounce, and she struts around the counter into the dining room all long tanned legs, and strappy sandals clicking. I’m dying here.
“Sorry, I’m late,” I hear her purr, and just about burn the heel of my hand as I lean over the grill to catch sight of her. “I passed the place two times—damned road construction.”
The whole dining room grumbles a shared mawkishness.
“So, who ordered the pancakes?” CeCe asks.
Nostrils flaring, I take in the remnants of her scent and lean around the order tickets to find the dining area dead quiet, all eyes directed on the chick with the coffee pot.
Mesmerized, my regular, Gary, has his hand raised shoulder level, fingers wiggling. A shy smile spreads under his pink cheeks.
CeCe places the plate in front of him, turns his coffee cup over, and pours. I watch in awe as Gary empties a creamer into the cup.
CeCe shouts, “Who needs coffee?”
Hands shoot up, and she uses every inch of her five-feet-six-inch body to get everyone’s attention as she bends and pours her way around the room.