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“It doesn’t matter,” Bo replies, pulling me out of my thoughts, “What are you in the mood for? We’ve been arguing for twenty minutes, so we’ll go wherever you want.” I smile into the phone. My brothers are grown men but act like children. Most of the time, it annoys the hell out of me, but in this case, I’m happy to step up and tell them where to eat.
“Meet me at The Bistro on south main in fifteen,” I answer, moving quickly to organize the mess in front of me before leaving. The phone line muffles as I hear him relate my instructions to our other brothers and colleagues.
“Good deal, bro.” Bo returns to the line. “We’ll see you soon.” When my desk looks semi-decent, I grab my keys and phone before rolling back from my desk. I make my way out of my office and into the reception area to let my secretary Kristen Jones know I’m heading out for lunch. She looks up as I approach, her face lighting up.
“Hi Luke,” she says in a breathy voice. “What can I do for you?” I’ve noticed she’s been overly eager to please me ever since she began working here a couple of months ago, when my previous secretary took a six-month sabbatical to welcome a new grandbaby into the family. I really miss Connie. She was an efficient secretary and like the mother I never had. I’ll definitely hire her again if she chooses to come back, but I’m concerned she’lldecide she wants to retire altogether to be the babysitter. I can’t blame her. Who knows? I might want to be a stay home dad if I had a kid of my own. I can’t imagine not doing the work I do, but I might feel differently when I hold my child for the first time.
Kristen rises to her feet, pushing her office chair back. She comes around the desk to stand beside me. She’s a pretty little thing with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and willowy frame, but I’ve never felt any attraction to her. It’s part of the reason I hired her. The last thing I needed was a distraction at work, being attracted to your secretary would definitely not be good for business.
“I’m heading out for lunch,” I inform her. “Please forward any important calls to my cell phone.” I begin making my way to the side door that leads to the parking lot. Kristen hurries to press the automatic door opener.
“Bye Luke, I’ll see you when you get back?” Kristen’s statement ends as a question. I just give her a nod as I sigh in annoyance. I’ve told her multiple times I don’t need her to get the door for me. I’m fully capable to doing it on my own, but she ignores me. She treats me like I’m disabled, not the highly capable, successful businessman that I am.
Today, I decide I’m not going to waste my breath. I’m interested in getting to the Bistro to see if my favorite waitress, Marley, is working today. I’m becoming obsessed with the woman. It’s not healthy. I need to do something about it soon. Either ask her out or put her out of my mind. I’ve held back asking her mainly because I can tell she’s different. She isn’t a one-night stand kind of woman. She’s the kind who gives a man ideas. Life changing, dangerous to the heart ideas.
I huff out a laugh as I wheel across the lot to my specially equipped SUV. I’m not being honest with myself. The real reason I haven’t asked her out is because I’m afraid she’ll turn me down. I’ve never been a coward before and never taken it hard when a woman turned me down, but I don’t think that’ll be thecase with Marley Morrison. I know I’d be hurt if she said no, and not knowing is better than finding out what her answer will be. I just want to enjoy her company a little longer, before I take a leap of faith that could end the easy friendship we have established.
Pressing the button on my key fob, the SUV’s lights blink with a beep to alert I’ve unlocked the doors. I press another button to trigger the driver’s door to open and lift to descend. I make my way over and position my chair on the lift. Hitting the button again, the lift raises my chair into the vehicle where I can roll into the locking mechanism. This ride cost a small fortune, but it’s worth it to me. It gives me a lot more independence. I don’t need someone to load and unload my wheelchair. With this specially outfitted vehicle, my wheelchair is my driver’s seat. Everything is secured, seatbelts and all. It has a secondary driving system on the passenger side, as well, just in case something happens that I can’t drive, and I need one of my brothers to drive for me. Once I’m secured, I start the engine and pull out of the lot in the direction of the Bistro. Hope blooming that Marley will be on duty today.
I arrive just as Bo and Rosco are pulling into the Bistro’s parking lot. The rest of the gang is nowhere to be seen, yet. By the time I’m out of my vehicle, Bo and Rosco are waiting patiently for me. We head toward the door of the restaurant. The delicious smells making my stomach growl again. It’s been far too long since breakfast.
“Damn bro.” Bo chuckles. “You got an alien in there?” He pulls the door open, holding it while I wheel myself inside. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the change in lighting. When it does, I see an angel headed our way with a big smile on her beautiful face. The woman isn’t very tall around five-two by my estimate. She’s curvy with full hips and thighs. Her large tits bounce as she walks toward us. Her long, wavy, brown hair is secured on top of her head in a messy bun. Damn the sight of her, takes mybreath. It’s my lucky day. Marley is working. I greet her as she approaches.
“Hello, Marley.” I say, noticing her smile widen and her cheeks flush when I say her name. I’m sure my smile is matching hers.
“Hi Luke,” she returns sweetly. “How many in your party today?”
“Six,” I answer. “The others will be along shortly.” She just keeps smiling so sweetly, as she looks over the board on the hostess stand before leading us to a table. She efficiently takes our drink order and hurries off to the kitchen to fill them, checking on other customers along the way. She’s an excellent waitress, efficient and friendly.
I really should just bite the bullet and ask her out before someone else snatches her up. She’s entirely too perfect to stay single long. How do I know she’s single? Because I casually asked a couple days ago when I came in by myself to grab dinner before heading home. Marley was at the end of her shift but placed me at one of her tables and stayed over until I was finished. I’d asked if she didn’t have someone waiting on her at home, but she laughed and said no.“I’m not married… or seeing anyone,”she’d added. I wondered at the time if she was perhaps hinting for me to make my move, but I lost my nerve at the last minute.
I watch for her to return with our drinks, ignoring my brothers as they rattle on about nonsense. She emerges from the door she disappeared behind to get our drinks. I see it about to happen, but there’s no way to stop the impending collision. One of the other waitresses is walking with her head down looking at her cell phone, headed right for Marley who’s carrying the tray with our drinks on it. Miraculously Marley spins to the right at the last second avoiding a potential disaster. She gives the young girl a hard look, but the teen keeps on going not even noticing what almost just happened. Marley shakes her head as she watches the girl continue on her way with her head down. Enos,my youngest brother, along with Dalton and Kelvin have arrived in the meantime. When Marley arrives at our table, they order their drinks, and we place our food order. Then we get down to business.
“I went over the scenario again,” Enos states. “I don’t see how a shooter was able to get the jump on us. We had scoped out the area thoroughly, looked into every possible angle. It feels like someone in the know used that knowledge to get at this guy. I know it wasn’t any of us, so that only leaves Wilson and his buddy, but why would Wilson have someone shoot at him? Unless he’s trying to get us to take him more seriously?” His statement ends questioningly.
“Yeah,” I agree. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. Something has been off with this guy from the beginning. I haven’t quite figured it out. I mean, he seems legitimately afraid of something, but I feel like he’s lying to us all the same. His motivation for the information he’s seeking doesn’t sit right. We need to proceed with caution on this one.”
“For sure,” Bo chimes in. “I don’t relish us getting caught up in a federal case. That’s some shit you can’t easily get out of.” Bo is correct. We could get wrapped up in something we might not be able to get out of easily. I don’t want to spend my next thirty years in a federal penitentiary.
I look around the Bistro in search of the beautiful Marley. I see her clearing off a table, placing dirty dishes and silverware into a large square tub. She’s so beautiful and sexy even in her uniform with the large apron covering the front of her body. Her head jerks up to look at the men sitting at the next table when they raise their voices. She puts down the cloth she’s been wiping the table with and dries her hands on her apron. I try not to stare, but her head had come up so abruptly as if one of the men had spoken sharply to her.
I try to focus back on what Bo and Enos are discussing, but I find myself looking for her again. This time she’s speaking to themen who’d gotten her attention. Her face is pinched with concern. The customers seem to be upset about something, and she seems to be trying desperately to appease them, but they aren’t having it. I’m wondering if she needs some back up as they are beginning to get rather loud. The men are foreign, Arabic in appearance. Their voices raise in ire, rattling on in Arabic and broken English. Marley looks afraid. I ease back from my table to head over to her. Bo follows my gaze and stands as well, following me toward the now escalating altercation.
One of the men at the table looks up to see our approach. He grabs his buddy’s attention. After some unspoken communication, they jump up from their table. Fear shoots through me that they are about to physically hurt Marley. They leave the restaurant in a hurry, pushing her out of their way as they go. She stumbles sideways but manages to remain on her feet. Her eyes follow after them, looking scared but relieved as well.
“Everything all right Marley?” I ask when we reach her. She jumps in response to my words. Spinning around to face us. Her hand going to her chest in fright.
“Oh my!” she exclaims, “you scared me!” She laughs nervously as she gets herself calmed down. “Yeah, everything is all right. I don’t know what those guys’ problem is. They seemed upset I was near their table. I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, but the one guy who spoke some English kept saying, you don’t listen to our speaking”–she glances back at the door nervously–“or you’ll be sorry.” She shivers. Instinctively I reach out to take her hand in mine.
“You’re okay,” I assure her. “I’d never let them hurt you.” She looks at me, nodding, she takes a shuddering breath. Exhaling, her sweet smile returns.
“Let me get you guys some dessert.” She squeezes my hand briefly, before hurrying into the kitchen. I let out the breath I’d been holding. She’s too damn sweet for the likes of my sorry ass.
MARLEY
Afew months later…
The hair on the back of my neck prickles, standing on end, as a hard shiver racks my body. Something isn’t right. I feel as if someone is watching me. Looking around the dim parking lot, every shadowy corner seems to look like a person. My eyes strain to make out what’s reality and what’s my over active imagination. After several minutes of close observation, I can’t make out a person anywhere. I take a deep breath to calm myself down. I’m beginning to think I’m losing my ever-loving mind. I carry the heavy bags of trash out of the back of the Bistro and toss them into the dumpster, before hurrying back inside.
