Self-consciousness flew my eyes from his haughty face to the window behind his talking head, where I saw what clearly must be their vehicle. Parked up front and center, was a shiny-black, ultra-flashy SUV. The kind with thick, knobby tires that could flatten entire buildings. The kind that made girls in short skirts cringe and teenage boys drool with envy.
Figures—rich boys. Totally had them pegged.
Upon arrival I paused courteously, waiting for the dark-haired one to finish his monologue. Drinks balanced on my tray, I stood there dumbly until the one in the baseball cap finger-halted him to acknowledge me with a brief smile. But the talking only stopped long enough to switch to some kind of cheap insult like: “What took so long? Was I in the back squeezing the lemons myself?” But I couldn’t pay much attention because it felt like I’d just been flipped upside down on a rollercoaster.
Baseball Cap was far and away the best-looking guy I’d ever laid eyes on. My heart skipped a couple of beats and everything. Oddly enough though, his eyes looked flat, and he had a defeated look upon his face. He was also slumped over, almost as though he’d been getting a lecture from a parent instead of having a conversation with a buddy. Could that be right? It was hard for me to reconcile how someone who obviously had so much could look so miserable.
While I was musing, the dark-haired one—with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen—hurled another flimsy insult at me. Another unoriginal. Apparently, good looks and a highly developed wit didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand.
“Cut it out, Ranger!” Baseball Cap glanced up at me apologetically. “You’ll have to excuse my buddy here. See, we’ve been on the road for the past eight hours, and he gets a little cranky when he’s hungry. He’ll straighten out his attitude when he gets some grub down him,” he explained in a smooth voice.
“And something to drink might help prevent dehydration.” The big one, with the bigger attitude (whose name I now knew was Ranger), looked pointedly at the drinks still perched on my tray. He seemed to have a lot of heat coming off him, but his eyes remained chips of blue ice. His gaze held me captive.
I blinked a couple of times, feeling slightly like a bunny cornered by a ravenous wolf. “Here’s your, um . . . ” I hesitated, feeling silly, “Arnold Palmades?”
Laughter erupted from the massive chest of Ranger. I was miffed to see the one on my left in the baseball cap, aka the-man-of-my-dreams, was also chortling quietly, too. What exactly is so dang funny? Stiffly, I plunked drinks in front of each one.
“I told you.” Baseball Cap held out his palm to Ranger. “Pay up.” After some crisp bills were reluctantly slapped into his hand, he shot me a killer, crooked smile that nearly knocked me out. “Arnold Palmers,” he corrected as embarrassment crawled all over me like sand fleas.
“Good to know.” I took out my order pad, fuming.
Baseball Cap had the good grace to look contrite, but it was too late. He’d shown his true colors and they were as spotty as his friend, Ranger’s. “Sorry,” he began, “it’s just . . . we had a bet that no one here”—he gestured around, indicating anything from me, to the diner, to the whole town— “would know what that was.” He finished by shrugging his shoulders in a gesture I took to be more arrogant than apologetic.
He probably thought I’d fall all over myself to forgive him. Hmmmph. He’d made me the butt of their joke, something I couldn’t abide. How could I have been so easily fooled by the pretty face? Birds of a feather . . .
“I’ll be back in a minute to take your order. I hope you enjoy your Arnold Palmers,” I enunciated through clenched teeth before stalking away.
“Nice outfit!” called after me, in the voice I recognized as Ranger’s.
The immediate effect of this compliment was a self-conscious tug on the back of my skirt midway to the kitchen followed by deep laughter. Upon my return, I was bound and determined to keep my cool. But my good intentions were beginning to drip from me like condensation from an iced tea sweating in the sun—drip, drip, drip—because when I approached the table, Baseball Cap’s lips began twitching, and Ranger shook his big block head at me. Still, I managed to take out my pad and pencil while remaining aloof and professional.
“May I take your order?” I said.
A rude finger snap whipped my eyes back to glacier ice. “I don’t know. Can you? Doesn’t seem like you can take a simple drink order without flubbing it.”
It took all I had in me to look Ranger in the eyes; felt like I might melt from the hate emanating from them like twin beams of radiation.
“We’ve been sitting in this hell-hole for fifteen freakin’ minutes, and we’re choking on”—his face contorted into a grimace—“something that tastes worse than . . .” He seemed to struggle for words.
“Buzzard puss?” Baseball Cap offered up humorously.
Well he seemed to be in a better mood
“Buzzard puss,” Ranger conceded before continuing on. “And there are clearly no other customers dumb enough to be here, so I can’t imagine what the excuse for such subpar service could be.” His voice was succinct and polished, and coupled with his incredible physical stature, turned his little tirade from scathing to scary.
But I was too heated to feel the chill, my temper flaring right along with the patches of pink skin along my neckline. “Oh, I’m sorrrrry,” I drawled out, sweet and thick as molasses. “There must’ve been some kinda misunderstandin’ earlier”—sparks shot from my own blue eyes—“you see, we don’t speak asshole here.”
Dead quiet.
. . . Until Baseball Cap snorted. Then he threw back his head, laughing out loud like my little outburst was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. I couldn’t help marveling at the way it transformed his face. For once, Ranger seemed momentarily speechless. Meanwhile, regret slowly settled over me like a thick blanket of snow. Shoot! I’m likely gonna get fired for popping off, all because of these two jerks.
Suddenly Ranger came back to life, shoving the offending drink at me. It went shooting across the Formica like a whiskey in a bad western. A split-second before it slipped over the edge, I righted it with my hand so that only a fraction of liquid sloshed out.
“Nice save,” Baseball Cap commented with a smile. He also seemed to have come to life all of a sudden.
Ranger seemed unimpressed. In fact, he looked unequivocally madder that I’d foiled his plan. He probably wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, and it was highly likely he didn’t enjoy being laughed at either. He slid closer, anger coloring his handsome face a less appealing shade. I instictually slid away, prey retreating from predator.
“Get your ass back there and dump this garbage down the drain!” he snarled, flashing teeth the same brilliant white of his shirt. “When you return, you better have plain, unsweetened iced tea and a plate of lemons in your hands. And bring some real sugar, too.” He flicked a couple of pink and blue artificial sweeteners at me. “Think you can manage that, Glasses?”
“Yes, sir,” I ground out.
I’d just spun on one heel when I heard Ranger stage-whisper, “I wonder what she’s got hiding beneath that get-up?”