AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Feel better?”June asks.
“I think,” he says, lifting his head for the first time, “I’ll survive the day.”His eyes are slits against the harsh overhead lights, and his jaw is stubbled.I tell myself I don’t actually want to run my fingers over it to feel the bristles against my skin.
“Well, thank god for that,” June says.“Haunted section’s yours.”
She bustles out, ignoring Jonesy’s cry of “Hey, no fair!”
When he looks up at me helplessly, I stand and hold out my hand to haul him to his feet.He rises in a surprisingly graceful motion for someone so clearly hungover, but he groans and clutches his head once he’s fully upright, leaning against me for support.It’s all I can do not to wrap my arm around his waist and pepper him with a million questions about what—or let’s be honest,who—he did last night.Instead of doing either of those things though, I say, “Someday, one of you hasgotto tell me what makes that section haunted.”
“Cold spots.Silverware that rolls off the table when nobody’s touching it.”His voice is a croak, but his gaze is slightly more alert.“A pervasive sense of doom.”
“I thought the pervasive sense of doom was the whole restaurant,” I say lightly.
“Right, right.My mistake.”
I watch as the rest of his brain starts to come online, and as the animation returns to his face, so does a flicker of wariness.
“Everything okay?”I ask.
He blinks, then nods jerkily.“Yeah.Uh, yeah.”As he turns to his locker to grab his service apron, he says, “Everything good with you?”
He tilts his head to watch me out of the corner of his eye, and I glance away so he won’t see the color creeping into my cheeks.
“Of course!”Just a relaxing evening watching my new sexual fantasy bring a roomful of women to their knees and then a restless night dreaming about him doing the same thing to me in my bedroom.
Jonesy looks up after securing the strings around his waist and offers me a tired smile.“Okay.”His gaze moves over my face, and he apparently sees what he wanted to see because the tension in his shoulders falls away.“Okay,” he says again.“Let’s do it.”
He holds up his fist for a knuckle bump, which I deliver even though it’s a bro-y, buddy-buddy gesture that makes me die a little inside.I need the reminder that he’s like this with everybody, not just me.But at least being around Jonesy makes snake-hips Santa recede into the background, which I’m grateful for.
When the doors open for the day, I watch with interest as a subdued Jonesy works his tables.He’s so… normal.There’s no joking, no wild flirting with the old ladies, no origami napkin art.
“It’s spooky, right?”Marcus says as he pauses at the hostess stand, nodding toward Jonesy.He’s frowning as he writes down an order for the family of five fueling up before a Christmas tree-buying expedition.
“Right?What on earth was he doing last night?”
Marcus laughs.“With Jonesy, who knows.An orgy?All-night video games?A midnight yacht cruise on Lake Michigan where he was the one driving the yacht?”He wiggles his bushy black brows at me.“The world may never know.”
Three hours later, I can tell things are getting back to normal when I lead a group of teenagers in church clothes to the three tables we’ve pushed together in Ariel’s section, and I find Jonesy juggling spoons for a quartet of forty-something women on their third mimosas.
I drift closer to watch, as enraptured by the sight of a hot guy tossing and catching cutlery as the guests are.
“You ladies didn’t know you’d be getting dinner with a show, did you?”I say over Jonesy’s shoulder.He glances back at me with a glint in his eyes.
“It’s like you’re new here,” he says, effortlessly switching from the smooth toss pattern to a two-up, one-down rhythm.After a beat he catches the first and second spoons in his right hand and launches the third one into the air in a tall arc.With a wink to the table, he thrusts his left hip forward and pulls his apron pocket open, neatly catching it as it tumbles back to earth.The women loudly applaud the perfect catch, and he gives a little bow.
“I’ll be right back with your mimosas,” he says, and the two of us walk off to the sound of flustered, girlish giggles.
I shake my head when we reach the hostess stand.“Is all of that on purpose?”
“All of what?”
“The flirting.The nonstop charm.The… the juggling!”I wave my arms.“The whole making-people-blush-and-stammer thing.”
His brow creases.“I guess I don’t really think about it.That’s just how I am, and it’s good for tips.”Then one side of his mouth quirks up.“But when I waited on you, I was making an effort.”
This stops me cold.“An effort to what?”
He leans close.“To make you blush.”His voice drops to a whisper.“And it worked.”
