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“I would love to have dinner with you.” She had to admit she was curious to see her dad’s place. She was definitely interested in learning more about her father. He seemed like a genuinely kind man, and he had some interesting stories.
Cassidy reached out and put a hand over hers. “Are you okay, honey? You have a sadness in your aura today.”
Auras were another thing Cassidy believed in, and apparently she was right. “I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not,” Cassidy said, her voice quiet. “What happened?”
“Nothing important.”
“Was it those boys? Did they make you feel bad? I heard something about it, but I was hoping it was only gossip.”
There was gossip? “What did you hear?”
“Well, I heard that the boy who fixes things and the boy who pours drinks had a fistfight in the parking lot of the Movie Motel.”
Elisa shook her head. “They did not.”
“I heard that you kicked them out of bed and they were naked in the parking lot, and Hale might have frozen his willy off.” Stella put a mug of coffee in front of her.
“How did you hear anything at all?” She was sure she’d gone a nice shade of pink.
Cassidy waved off that worry. “Everyone knows what happens in a small town.”
“Everyone knows something happened, but usually by the time it gets out to Mel and Cassidy’s it’s morphed into something else.” Stella leaned over to speak to the person in the booth behind her. “Beth, did you hear about anything happening at the Movie Motel this morning?”
A pretty woman with brown hair turned slightly and smiled. She’d been in the middle of spooning oatmeal into her baby girl’s mouth as she sat in a high chair. “Oh, I heard there was a sasquatch sighting and Van and Hale tried to fight him off and that’s why they were half naked in the parking lot.”
Gossip really moved fast in this town. “There was no sasquatch involved.”
“Are you sure? This is not their mating time, but they do sometimes come out when it snows,” Cassidy said. “I blame Gene. It’s the cinnamon rolls. Sasquatches are attracted to the scent of cinnamon, and he parades Stella’s rolls by every day. It was only a matter of time.”
“My cinnamon rolls do not attract sasquatches, Cassidy,” Stella argued. “Well, except during Woo Woo Fest when I do sell a sasquatch special twelve pack to help draw them out. It does work then. But only for the tourists.”
“You are playing with fire, Stella. They will come for you one day and then you’ll be serving a bunch of sasquatches right here in this diner,” Cassidy pointed out.
“You know my policy. If they’ve got money, they’re welcome. Hell, I’ve served Max Harper all these years. The sasquatch should be simple,” Stella announced. “Now would you like the usual?”
“Yes, that would be wonderful.” All of Cassidy’s sternness had disappeared. Apparently that was only around for sasquatch advice. “Elisa, honey, have you ordered? Hal makes the most wonderful pancakes. He infuses them with beets.”
“That’s the Cassidy special,” Stella explained. “We also have beet-free pancakes.”
“I just want some bacon and eggs and toast.” She handed over her menu. “Thanks. And sorry about the gossip. They needed to leave early this morning. They had work to do. Nothing more.”
Stella nodded and then strode back to the kitchen to put in their orders.
“I really am sorry I seemed to have made a scene.” That was the last thing she’d wanted. “I didn’t mean to embarrass anyone.”
“Why would you embarrass someone?” Cassidy asked. “Are you talking about me and your dad?”
“I’m sure he didn’t think he would meet his adult daughter and she’d immediately spend the night with two men.”
Cassidy seemed to think about that for a moment, as though processing the words and trying to find their real meaning. “You think I would be ashamed of you for doing something normal like dating? Like having a nice night with some handsome men? Why would I be ashamed of that?”
“Because most parental figures would be.”
“I’m not most people,” Cassidy replied. “I know people see me as weird and they think I have mental problems, but you should know that I see things in a different way than the rest of the world. I don’t understand the concept of shame. I guess I might feel it if I did something bad, something that hurt someone else. But I would never feel it over someone I love, and certainly not when they do normal things like trying to find connections with the people around them.”
She wished they hadn’t gotten into this because now she was getting emotional again. “I did more than find a connection. Or rather the connection that felt real turned out to be entirely physical.”
“Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Just my feelings. It didn’t end the way I hoped it would.”
