Page 17 of Monster Diner

“I’ll get Victor,” she said and turned to go make the call when she collided with the man himself. She was nearly flung backwards, but he caught her from hitting the clogged sink by grabbing onto her waist and pulling her close to him.

“We’ve gotta stop running into one another.” He grinned.

“I was just about to call you. The sink is clogged.”

His gaze flicked over to the sink. “Not again. Well, I can fix it.” He gently moved her aside to reach the sink. Jason stood by the flat top, arms crossed.

“It happens every night!” Jason said.

Lizzy watched their exchange, like she were underwater. Both their words and Jason’s feelings felt a thousand miles away. Her focus might have continued to drift, but Victor kneeled in front of her. She looked down, flushed. He was almost in line with her crotch.

“Excuse me,” he said with a smirk.

“Oh, sorry.” She backed up and watched as Victor pulled a bucket out of the supply closet, placed it beneath the sink, and then proceeded to unscrew the pipe with his bare hands. Her panties were instantly damp.

“You can fix things and you cook. Why ever are you single?” she asked, aloud. As soon as the words were escaped, she placed her hand over her mouth to try and cover them up.

“Why? Are you interested?” He looked up at her, and seeing him from this position caused her mind to fill with filthy visions. She swallowed hard. And attempted to laugh it off.

“I’m a mess. You don’t want all this.”

“I could handle you.” He smirked.

She laughed again, gaze flicking over to where Jason had been, but he’d left the kitchen. It was just the two of them.

“You’re joking,” she said.

He tilted his head to the side, moving closer. “Do you want me to be joking?”

Her heart fluttered. Did she? She was freshly single and desperately out of her depth. She wasn’t about to get entangled with her sort-of roommate, was she? Right, bad idea. No more rushing into relationships. She needed to defuse this situation. “How can you do that with your bare hands?”

“I have control of my body at a cellular level. I can turn off pain receptors. I can harden limbs to use them like tools and even change the dexterity of parts of me.” He crooked two of his fingers, bending them in a way that had her pressing her thighs together.

“Interesting,” she said. But it was more than interesting, it was downright dangerous.

8

LIZZY

“How are you supposed to be just friends with your charming, thoughtful, and hot sorta roommate? Asking for a friend,” Lizzy said to Vivianne during a lull. After their first meeting and a few shifts “in the trenches,” as Vivianne put it, they’d become friendly, if not friends.

Vivianne was filling cups of ranch and smirked as she glanced at Lizzy. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about you and Victor, right?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“No!” Lizzy’s voice rose to a squeak as her eyes darted around the mostly empty diner. One of their regulars, Rowen, who owned the bakery down the street, was seated in his favorite booth but not paying them much attention.

Vivianne laughed. “I knew you two were banging with the way you keep eye-fucking each other.”

“We’re not eye-fucking.” Lizzy’s face burned with embarrassment.

Vivianne turned around and leaned against the counter. “Sure, and I’m the founder of Pumpkin Hollow.”

Lizzy resumed cutting lemons to ignore her jabs. “Forget I said anything. This is totally inappropriate. You’re like my employee or something,” she muttered. She shouldn’t have brought it up. She’d just come to the recent horrifying realization that she had zero friends and no one to talk to about this other than her mom, and she’d rather eat glass than ask her mom for advice about Victor.

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t see you as my boss.” Vivianne cackled as she stacked up the ranch cups into a bin to be placed in the fridge beneath the counter.

“I’m not sure if that’s a relief or if I should be concerned.”

“You’re gone at the end of the month, right? You’re more a temp hire than a boss.” She slammed the door of the mini fridge closed with her knee and turned to face Lizzy full-on. “So spill. I’m dying for gossip with how dead it is in here. Save me from posting another flash sale on socials.”