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About twenty to thirty minutes went by. The snobby couple had eaten and left. Aimee was back to her water, now a fresh cup, and sipping it gratefully. The leather clad Greek god left the mechanic’s and stopped on the sidewalk. He looked up the street one way, then back down the other.
“No, don’t come in here,” she said to him, knowing full well no one could hear her. The diner was empty, and she was the only waitress working. If she had to talk to him…
He smacked his thigh with his skullcap then looked forward at the diner.
“No,” she breathed. Then, as he crossed the street toward her, she just kept repeating, “No, no, no, no, no, hi there! One today?”
He wrinkled his nose and looked around, taking in his surroundings before answering her. It was clear from the look on his face that he was less than pleased.
“Yeah, one,” he said absently.
When his eyes finally landed on her he stopped and smiled. “Just me,” he added, as though that were necessary.
Was he looking at her? Like, was he really looking at her? Even just the threat of the possibility made her giggle and she had to hide it by picking up a menu and walking ahead of him.
Aimee was a larger girl, always had been. It wasn’t something that bothered her. It’s how she was made. Besides, in this middle of this desert there really weren’t many options for jazzercising. To have someone as gorgeous as Mr. Motorcycle even look twice at her was the highlight of her day. Hell, her week.
After giving him the rundown on the specials, he ordered pie and a coffee. Even though she should’ve left him to eat after dropping off the pie, she couldn’t just let him go that easily. She was never going to see him again, that much was obvious. She’d be damned if she’d just let him walk out of there.
“Saw you pull up,” she said. “Your bike was spewing quite the cloud there.”
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Blew something a few miles back. Just riding along, then bang! I think the mechanic is trying to weasel a bunch of money out of me, but I don’t care. As long as he gets it fixed.”
“Jimmy? Oh, no, he’s no weasel. We don’t get a lot of repeat business around here, as you might imagine, which makes his reputation even more important.” She laughed. “He’s probably the most honest person in town.”
Mr. Motorcycle smiled up at her as he sipped his coffee. “That right?” “Well,” she said bashfully, but couldn’t think of anything to say as a follow-up. Suddenly she realized she had no idea what to say next, and the embarrassment was mounting by the half-second.
“Enjoy your pie,” she said in an attempt to escape the horror of what she’d just done to herself, but he reached out and stopped her.
All he did was place his index and middle fingers on her wrist, but just his touch was enough to stop her dead in her tracks.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She smiled at him, and there wasn’t an ounce of plastic in it. “Aimee,” she said. “It’s on the nametag.”
“I know,” he said, “I saw. I just wanted to hear you say it. I’m Xavier.”
“Wow,” she whispered, then laughed and shook her head. “I mean, that’s cool.”
“It was nice meeting you, Aimee. Fate, maybe.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said, bashfully tucking a bit of hair behind her ear.
Turning, she walked back to the kitchens to hide her face. She touched her fingers to her cheeks and felt the heat despite the ovens and stoves going off back there.
What just happened?
Xavier shuffled papers around on his desk. It was an idle motion and one he had no thought or emotion in. These papers could all just go up in flames for all he cared. He had a business to run, but all he could think about was the adorable waitress from that café.
Everything about her made him feel alive. He was no stranger to women and the effects they have on a man. Hell, he’d been in plenty of relationships before. Some long, some short. Some really short. Never, though, had a woman made him feel quite like this. It had been such a short conversation with her, but talking to her, hearing her voice, it had made everything settle inside of him.
He’d never been quite so taken by surprise by a person before. It was alarming, but beautiful. In his experience, women were always interested in him just for his money. Sometimes they found him attractive physically as well, which was always nice, but nine times out of ten, when they found out he was a billionaire, that’s when the hot jets flared on. A woman was only unsure about a man until she found out her life would be secure with him, then there go the fires!
At least that was how it always felt.
As he always had to do before, Xavier stopped what he was doing and froze his thoughts. That wasn’t fair. He couldn’t compare every woman in the world to one another just because he’d had some bad experience. He was sure, somewhere out there where normal people lived, there were beautiful well-rounded women that accepted a man for who he was regardless of his bank account. Those women existed, he had to insist to himself, regardless if they didn’t exactly exist in his world. It sure would be nice to meet one of them, though.
Xavier leaned back in his office chair and drummed his fingers along his desk as he stared out the window at the city he basically owned. What if. Those two words were a dangerous thing, but to a business man like him, they were often the spark that ignited great thoughts.
