Page 39 of Airhead

She was saved from having to come up with a response that wasn’t the full embarrassing truth by the waitress, who stuck her head out of the door and hollered, “Get your toasted buns in here, you two. The dinner rush is going to be here any minute.”

Knowing to take an escape when it was offered, Katie started toward the door. She made it two whole steps before Frank fell in beside her, the back of his hand brushing against hers. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world for her to intertwine her fingers with his as they walked through the door and into absolute chaos.

Chapter Twenty

Frank had been to four alarm fires that were calmer than Vito’s during the dinner crowd. Hell, he’d played in the legendary annual firefighters vs. police hockey game that had more penalty minutes called than there were minutes on the clock when the first period started, and it had felt less frenzied than the past hour and a half.

The orders were finally slowing down, though, and he actually had enough time between burger flips and dropping tenders to look through the order window and watch Katie with her latest table.

She was, without a doubt, the worst waitress he’d ever seen.

She‘d delivered a tray of drinks to table six that should have gone to ten, tipped over an entire basket of newly wrapped silverware, and had forgotten to take table thirteen’s order after dropping off their chocolate shakes. The customers should have been irate.

Instead, they were smiling and laughing with her.

He had no idea how she managed, through force of personality, to get everyone in the diner to follow her lead, but she did. He pitied the fool who crossed Katie Madigan.

His pulse picked up when she ripped the top page of her order pad, told the table she’d be right back with their drinks, then headed toward the kitchen.

“Order in, Red,” Susie said, snapping her gum and getting to the window a few steps before Katie.

Frank must have told the waitress his actual name twelve times. She’d looked at him like he had Corn Flakes for brains and told him she only learned the names of the fry cooks who were staying for longer than a single shift.

“I need three eggs wrecked and two Noah’s boys for one, and then flop two and a heart attack on a rack,” she said as she clipped the order to the turnstile. “Sweep the floor with both.”

He nodded, his gaze never leaving Katie. “Gotcha.”

Susie made a little harumph of acknowledgment and went to check on one of her tables.

Katie stepped up to the window, her dark eyes bigger than the white plates she’d be carrying out to her table. “What did all of that even mean?”

“Three scrambled eggs and two slices of ham on the first plate,” Frank translated for her. “Two fried eggs over easy with biscuits and gravy for the other. Side orders of hash browns for both.”

She planted a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “How do you know that?”

“My mom’s parents own a diner out on Severn’s Avenue,” he said, flipping the burgers that would be going out to the pair of guys sitting at the counter. “I was folding silverware at eight, serving coffee refills at eleven, and started the grill at fourteen.”

She rested her forearms on the window ledge and leaned in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “What other secrets are you hiding?”

He fought the urge to confess how much he thought about her, how he’d planned a million ways to talk to her before Marinos, how he’d spent way too many nights afterwards going over every moment in his head, trying to figure out what he’d done to make her ignore his calls. He wanted to tell her about the miniature crystal elephant he’d seen that made him think of her, and how it was in the glove box of his Firebird right now because he hadn’t been able to not get it for her.

Saying any of that would be an utter fucking disaster, though, so he kept his big mouth shut and just shook his head.

“Come on,” she pleaded like a kid asking for an extra chocolate chip cookie before dinner. “Just one.”

His mouth overrode his brain. Again. “My mom’s romance books keep disappearing during mandatory family brunch on Saturdays. She thinks it’s my sister stealing them, but it’s me. I’m almost done with Skye O’Malley.”

Katie let out a gasp of surprise.

Fuck. Was it too late to claim he’d gotten hit on the head with the massive fire extinguisher hanging on the wall and didn’t know what he was saying?

“That book is totally excellent,” she said, excitement speeding up her words. “I mean, it’s mega-outrageous, but I couldn’t put it down. You’re really reading that?”

Frank admitted the one thing he’d told himself he’d take to his grave. “Every. Page.”

He should have regrets about his confession.

Katie could tell her brother Collin, who would tell everyone else at the firehouse, which would mean his brother and dad would find out and rat him out to his mom. At that point, he’d not only get a new nickname at the station, but he’d be on his sister’s shit list for letting their mom think she was the book thief. No one wanted to be on Jenny’s shit list. Not ever. The stakes were pretty damn high.