AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not all that easy when he was sitting two feet across from me.
To his credit he didn’t clear his throat or shift uncomfortably. He did nothing to get my attention except for exist within close proximity. In the end, that proved to be enough. I set the book down and looked up.
Where Prescott could best be described as beautiful, this new arrival was far from it. Which wasn’t to say he was ugly, by any means. He was…ugly handsome? Was that a thing?
If it was, it was looking right back at me, with intense whisky-brown eyes and a frown.
“Cade.” I played it cool.
“Tallulah.”
The waitress returned and asked Cade for his drink order. She was about to walk away when he asked for a menu. I didn’t bother telling him he
hadn’t been invited to stay. He was already sitting here. I might be a dick, but I wasn’t enough of one to make him eat alone.
Plus I secretly didn’t mind that he was here.
As he perused the menu, I gave him a once-over. I hadn’t seen him in a couple months, and in that time he’d changed in subtle ways. His typical crew cut had grown out slightly, letting his dark brown hair show that it could become curly, given half the chance. This also told me he hadn’t been back to his temple since we’d last seen each other. Cade only trusted the temple to cut his hair.
He wore an olive-green military-style jacket and a plain black T-shirt. Stubble darkened his cheeks, and his broad nose resembled that of a seasoned boxer, as if it had been broken several times and never quite healed right. Seth help me, but he looked good, and though I’d never admit it out loud, I was glad to see him.
He ordered BBQ duck and Szechuan noodles.
When the waitress was gone, his attention gravitated back to me, and we stared at each other across the table.
“How did you find me?” I asked, when I felt like I was starting to blush.
He made a dismissive, snorting noise and glanced around the restaurant, his gaze pausing on the red lanterns and mural of a Chinese pagoda. “Give me a little credit.”
He knew me well enough to be aware of my habits by this point. The kind of motels I’d gravitate towards. The restaurants I usually frequented. His showing up at both was a not-so-subtle way of telling me he’d been paying attention.
Cade was a few years older than me and had been out in the field before I’d left my temple. We’d seen each other in passing, but it wasn’t until I was out in the real world that I’d actually gotten to know him. His job and mine often intersected, unluckily for me.
Literally.
“How’s Ardra these days?” I picked at the corner of my book’s cover, trying to ignore the knot of hunger gnawing away at my stomach. If my food didn’t get here soon, I might start eating the pages.
Cade’s mouth formed a narrow line, and he nodded, agreeing with a statement I hadn’t made. I used to love poking fun at the unfortunate hand he’d been dealt, but after a while the jokes had stopped feeling so funny. I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and I knew a lot more about the burden he carried than I had back then.
Ardra, the goddess of bad luck and misfortune, was not a popular designation, for obvious reasons. While Cade himself was not particularly unlucky, bad news tended to follow him around like a cloud.
That was why our paths crossed so often. When storm water broke levies, when trees crushed roofs, or lightning struck a home…that was usually Cade. Unlike me, who typically answered prayers to end droughts, the prayers Cade answered were often for third parties. People wished for terrible things to befall their friends and neighbors, and Ardra loved to fulfill those prayers. The dirty work of which often fell to the man sitting across from me.
Typically he bore it well, but today he looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes.
“Sorry.” Though I hadn’t teased him, I felt bad for bringing up Ardra when he was so obviously worn down.
The waitress returned with our food, giving us a reprieve from the awkwardness. I’d worked adjacent to him for twelve years, but sometimes he felt like a stranger to me. He was so quiet and withdrawn I never knew if he actually enjoyed spending time with me or if I was merely a familiar face he gravitated towards. I liked having him near me when he did show up, in spite of his unlucky nature. There was something about being around Cade that reminded me I was a person instead of a cleric. He brought out the Tallulah side of me, beyond my Rain Chaser title.
My dinner was delicious. I scarfed down the whole plate of sweet and sour pork before bothering to look up at him again. He was watching me appraisingly, barely half-finished with his plate of noodles. I’d never learned to be ladylike, and I wasn’t about to start now. If he was disgusted by me, that was just too bad.
A small smile twitched the corner of his lips. “You eat like you’re the last of fifteen kids. I’ve never met anyone who could eat like you.”
This sounded so close to a compliment I stuffed a honey garlic chicken ball in my mouth and smirked. Once I was done chewing, I said, “It’s the all-carb, all-fat, all-MSG diet.”
“It’s doing wonders for you.”
Heat suddenly swelled inside me, a faint, dizzying sensation of pleasure and awareness. I blushed and started eating again so I didn’t need to answer him. Was he flirting with me? Yet another thing I hadn’t been taught at the temple. All we’d learned there was No boys, stay pure for your god.
