3
Loki
The diner Thorpulled into wasn’t one I’d been to before. I’d never seen it, let alone eaten at this place, but by the smile on Thor’s face when he yanked off his helmet, he had. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a small building with big windows along the front and a flashing red sign in one of them that said, Mac’s 24-Hour Diner. From what I could see with the first rays of sunlight, the red paint on the restaurant looked new and there were already a lot of customers in there even though it was barely five thirty in the morning.
“You been here before?” I asked when Thor inclined his head toward the glass door. I followed him into the building and the smell of bacon and pancakes hit me like a brick wall, and my stomach grumbled violently with a reminder that I’d barely been awake longer than an hour.
“Yeah, one of my favorite places to eat when I head this way.” He raised his hand in a wave at the waitress in a ruby uniform, and her face lit up. She blew him a kiss before turning her back to us to help other customers. Her lipstick was nearly as bright as the color of her dress and she had her blonde hair tied in a braid that she’d wrapped up on the back of her head. She was pretty, with a diamond shaped face and a curved nose, but not Thor’s type. He preferred cock only—or I might’ve had to do something about her.
Thor led me to a booth near the corner of the diner, and I took the seat opposite him with a frown. There was a framed picture of Elvis Presley on the wall on my side and a few old round records on either side of it. Other booths had something similar. The theme of the diner was music, apparently.
“Okay. Explain. You’ve never told me about this place.” I crossed my arms and leaned back, brows raised. Thor loved food and ate every chance he got, but in the past when he’d found a good spot to eat, he always shared it with me.
“I discovered this place when I first came to the city with a beaten up Harley and no money.” He shrugged. It wasn’t often Thor talked about his past or when he first came to Pleasant Beach, and curiosity had me leaning my elbows on the table as I listened intently. “Back then, I’d walked in hungry and searching for water, but the owner—Steven—gave me a five-star meal for free instead. He fed me until I was ready to burst.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place?” I murmured.
He shrugged and fell back against his booth. His body was massive compared to the small area we’d crowded in, and I took a moment to appreciate the long, hard lines of the muscles, his shoulders, and the parts of his stomach I could see every time his shirt pulled tight across it. “Never needed to.”
“You could have taken me here. Odin wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t come to this side of the city often.”
He snorted and grinned. “You’d be surprised. Steven was how I met Odin. After I’d eaten the food he gave me, he asked me what I had planned for my life. Told him nothing.” His face softened. “He pointed at my Harley and asked me if I enjoyed riding bikes, and when I told him I did, he said he might have a job for me. He called up Odin. Odin rocked up an hour later and offered me a job as security at the Night Garden. Took him two weeks to ask if I wanted to join the Lords.”
I smiled, remembering the exact moment I’d laid eyes on Thor. I’d been seven, just lost Mom, and lonely. As much as Damian tried to keep me company, nothing he could do cheered me up. And then I’d seen Thor. At first, it was an innocent curiosity. I followed him around, obsessed with the new man in the house. Wherever he went, I wanted to go.
As I got older, around the time I began having marathon jerk-off sessions, I started realizing Thor was hot as fuck and bulky. It was like my wet dreams had come to life. One day he’d smiled at me and had given me a salute and my heart had taken off in a gallop. At thirteen, I didn’t know much about sex except what other boys had told me, but I remembered thinking about how I wanted to marry Thor; I’d even told him that once. I’d been naïve. Young. But Thor had been sweet when I’d asked him if he wanted to hang out. It’d been Odin who’d slapped me over the back of the head and told me a twenty-four-year-old Thor didn’t want to spend time with children.
Well, the joke’s on Odin now. Thor didn’t just “spend time with me,” he fucked me into oblivion, too. It took a while for him to admit he wanted me, sure, but it happened eventually.
“Anyway, Steven took care of me. Since then, I came here once a week to get food, even though it was out of my way.” He shrugged again, but the smile on his face told me whoever this Steven was, Thor cared about him.
“Where is he?” I looked around, eyes meeting the waitress’s face again. She winked at me and fluttered her fingers in my direction, and I gave her a small wave in return.
“Steven’s dead. Died a few years back from emphysema. I told him the smoking would kill him, but he smoked like a chimney.” His shoulders slumped as grief washed across his face. He turned and nodded at the waitress. “That’s Mary Beth, his daughter. She’s been running this joint with her brother since Steven died. She’s good people, like her father.”
As if she’d heard her name, Mary Beth made her way toward us, her shiny red flats clicking on the floor. She stopped in front of us and threw the order pad on the table. “Come ’ere, Thor.” Opening her arms wide, she grinned.
Thor laughed, the sound working its way through me. He stood and took her into a bear hug. Compared to him, she was an ant, but she gave it back as good as he delivered it, and I decided then that I liked her. It was rare to see Thor’s face light up, and even though jealousy pooled inside me like poison because it wasn’t me who’d made him react like that, anyone who could make him smile was all right.
“Mary Beth, I’d like you to meet Loki.” He gestured toward me after they’d finished their hug, and she turned, her puffy dress swinging with her.
“Loki?” She grinned, flashing me her white straight teeth. “Well, aren’t you two a match made in heaven? Thor and Loki.”
“And we’re not uncle and nephew like the Norse mythology, if you know what I mean,” I teased.
She laughed loudly, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Don’t you mean brothers?”
I huffed out a half grunt, half laugh. “Nah, they’re not brothers.”
Thor gave me an exasperated look and shook his head. “Trust me, Mary Beth, if anyone knows, it’s him. He can tell you every story about Loki. Don’t get him started on anything about the mythology. He’ll talk your ear off.”
I shrugged unapologetically. “It was my name. I wanted to know about the god I was named after. Maybe one day live up to him. That bastard gave everyone hell.”
“Oh my gosh.” She shifted her hand from her mouth to her chest, still chuckling. “I like him. Keep him, Thor.”
“I’m seriously rethinking my choices,” he muttered as he took a seat in the booth again.
I gave him the most innocent smile I could muster, which to some people was a trap, but to guys like Thor who knew me, it was nothing more than a ploy. He rolled his eyes.
