“Oh, good morning, Dennis,” Grace called out from the grill. “We’re still ticking here. You going to surprise us today, or just stick with the usual eggs and bacon?”
“Nobody burns it like you, Grace. I’d be a fool to get anything else.”
“Cup of coffee, Denny, or you had your fill at the shop?” I asked.
“Never enough, babe. The new guy drinks it as much as me, so I have to rush my way through to get some before it’s all gone. I’m not used to fighting for it, and he’s got more than a few inches on me. Pick your battles, right?”
I didn’t exactly love it when he called me babe, but I let it go because he was a good man. He didn’t mean anything by it. And he was the fairest mechanic in town. He’d never charged me for the work he did on my beat up excuse for a car after Phil left, and I haven’t charged him for a coffee since. Never the arrangement, I just couldn’t think of a better way to return the favor. I don’t think Grace knew, but if she did, she wouldn’t care. Dennis was in every morning for breakfast and it was a pleasant way for everyone’s day to start.
“How is your new helping hand? You’re not working him too hard, I hope?” Grace called, as she fought the smoke billowing from Dennis’s burning bacon.
“Well, he’s a bit of an acquired taste, that kid,” Dennis chuckled. “One hell of a mechanic, though. Knows his way around a vehicle and doesn’t need to be told twice how to do something, if at all. Took a little while, but he’s warming up. Anyway, he’s just finishing a cigarette outside. You can judge for yourself when he comes in. And we all know how you ladies like to judge.”
“Hush,” Grace said to him as she passed me the plate of burned bacon.
Before I even turned around, I felt a presence walk through the door. It was as if the room had been filled, but I couldn’t see what with. As I set Dennis’s plate in front of him, two massive, grease streaked hands gripped the counter and slid the body attached to them onto the stool behind it. I could see his forearms ripple underneath the tattoos as he leaned in. He spoke to Dennis, but he looked at me. I didn’t look back.
“Goddamn, Denny, you didn’t tell me this town had girls that looked like this. I would’ve been in here for breakfast every day. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
I was almost afraid to look up to see who, or what, was sitting in front of me. Not because of the catcalling. Being a waitress anywhere, let alone a small town, gives you some pretty thick skin, not much phases me, but because I could already tell that this guy was different. I felt something, I don’t know why, but I knew he had a darkness and a power behind him that I had never come across in my life.
“I thought waitresses were supposed to be all chatty and shit? Can I at least grab a coffee off you, darling? Unless you got a beer you want to throw my way. That’d be all right, hey, Denny? A little breakfast of champions?” He patted Dennis on the back and grabbed his shoulder.
While this sounded like the usual jackass with an ego and a drinking problem that I was used to shrugging off, there was something behind his words that felt forced. It was almost as if he was playing a role. Regardless, I learned long ago not to give this behavior any more time or attention than it deserved. Just keep your head down and do your job, that’s what I told myself, and they take the hint eventually. This guy would too, if I kept my cool. I kept my eyes focused elsewhere and calmly walked to the coffee maker and poured him a cup. I could feel his eyes burning into the back of me, and I tried to shake the feeling it gave me.
I poured the coffee with my back to the counter, and whispered, just to myself, “this is all you’re getting off me, so just keep talking your big talk.”
I realized I was saying it to convince myself.
Dennis cleared his throat. “We do our drinking off the clock, Hunter, but I’ll be happy to put that coffee on my tab. You had a hell of a first week, boy. And ladies, don’t let this guy get to you. Like I said, he’s an acquired taste. And as for you, boy, let go of my shoulder. What are we using vice grips for when you’ve got those things?”
“Ah, Denny I’m only trying to get a rise out of the girls here. My apologies, sweetheart, if I offended your delicate self.”