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Nodding at Zoe, he said, “Go on, love.”
“I’ll have a cheeseburger, well-done, fries and a chocolate shake. Hold the pickles, onions and tomatoes and can I have mayo?”
“Black cow, frog legs, hockey puck and walk it,” the waitress shouted, then raised her brows at him. “What about you, sweet cheeks?”
He perused the menu while the waitress, whose name tag proclaimed her to be Betty, waited with one hand on her hip. She was wearing orthopedic shoes and had fluffy pink hair that reminded him of cotton candy.
Zoe looked under her brows at him and covered her mouth.
“Make it two. No lettuce.”
Betty shouted out another slew of diner lingo and walked away without another word. The noise level in the diner returned to normal.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
“Get used to what, sweet cheeks?” Her eyebrows wiggled.
“Very funny.” He tapped her on the nose. “People staring when we walked in.”
She drew back and scooped up their menus, dropping them into place behind the mini-juke box. “They’re not staring at us because of who you are.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what people in a small town do. They stare at people who are new in town. Heck, I’ve done it.”
He stretched his arms along the back of the booth, wishing he’d sat on the same side as her, but it was easier this way. Easier to keep his hands to himself. Tapping her nose didn’t count. Her eyes met his and she gave him a sweet smile.
His heart stopped. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t make out the words.
“What?” he asked, snapping out of his daze.
“Why don’t you get along with Sebastian?” she repeated.
Betty brought their food to the table. Zoe grabbed a couple of fries while he gulped down a good portion of his shake.
“You kids enjoy.” Their waitress didn’t wait to see if they needed anything else and shuffled off, her cotton candy hair barely moving.
Setting his milkshake down, he tilted his head and shook it, waiting for his brain freeze to thaw before he answered. “Because he’s the serious one, the golden child, etcetera,” Christian said, “I don’t think I’ve had a polite conversation with him beyond ‘hello’ and ‘nice to see you’ in years.”
“To sum it up: Christian, bad. Sebastian, good,” he said. “Who’s your favorite sibling?”
She finished chewing the bite of her cheeseburger. “They’re all my favorites.”
“Liar.”
Smiling she took another bite of her burger. A small dab of ketchup accented the corner of her mouth.
“You’ve got something right here.” He swiped a finger at the corner of his.
After watching her attempt to wipe it off and somehow missing it, he leaned over and wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. She turned at the last second and kissed it.
“Thank you,” she murmured before her pink tongue licked at her full lips.
His gut clenched in response. “Anytime. Speaking of time, can’t you extend your stay?” There. He’d put it out in the open. “Or you could come out to LA and stay…with me. I’ve got plenty of room.”
“That sounds fun.”
“But…”
She shifted in her seat. “I don’t think you and I are on the same page when it comes to relationships. And I’m not trying to start a fight or argue. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, like you were with me. I need a man who’s going to support my career, wants to settle down and have kids with me.”
“And you seem to be at, ah, a different point in your life,” she added.
Honest or not, Zoe was trying to scare him away. He was sure of it. No woman in her right mind would talk marriage to a man she’d just met. “I fail to see how your ultimate goals could be derailed by spending time with me.” His jaw hurt from clenching it so tightly.
She grabbed his hand. A pleading look came into her eyes. “How long would I stay with you in L.A? Until the novelty of us wore off? I’m not emotionally equipped for that kind of arrangement. I need permanent, not temporary.”
“Like that worked with Gabriel.” He pushed his plate away, his appetite gone.
“I didn’t love him, not like—”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ah, the man-child that broke your heart. Gabriel had to pay for his sins as well.”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “The only person that had to pay was me. And your attitude is exactly why we’d never work out. Anytime you don’t get your way, you fall back on insults. Grow up, Christian.”
“While you punish every man who dares to scale your wall of perfection. So you got screwed over, we all have.” He shook his head. “At least when it happens to you, the entire world doesn’t know. People don’t go around writing shit about you and making money off of your misery.”
Her face turned pale, her dark eyes rounding and standing out in stark contrast to her skin. Good. He hoped to God he‘d given her something to think about.
Betty shuffled over with the bill, her gum still snapping, crackling and popping. “There you go, sweet cheeks. Thanks for coming by. Why don’t you take the wife on down to the general store and check it out?”
Zoe only nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind.”
After paying the bill and leaving Betty a tip, they exited the diner. Zoe paused in front of the restaurant, her hands coming to rest on his chest.
“Let’s not argue anymore, okay?” The vulnerability on her face was his undoing.
Tugging her closer, he kissed her on the forehead. “Whatever you want.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You two looking for a place to stay the night?” the cashier asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Every store in town closes in five minutes. Well, everything, but Fred’s, that is.”
“Hadn’t planned on it,” he said, knowing full well Zoe wasn’t planning on it.
Christian paid for their purchases, which consisted of old fashioned peppermint sticks, a lacy fan for Zoe’s niece, a PEZ dispenser in the shape of a certain infamous coyote, and a pound of fudge.
When they’d first walked in Zoe had informed him that the items in here would put Cracker Barrel to shame. When he confessed that he had no idea what that was, she’d looked at him with undisguised pity.
