Page 24 of The Fast Lane
TEN
Note to self:
A flirty Theo is a dangerous Theo.
“This place reminds me of the Sit-n-Eat.” I glanced around Love Café—a greasy spoon just outside Fort Worth—it was small, about ten tables or so. The place looked like it had seen better days with its worn linoleum flooring, chipping paint, and wobbly tables, but it was clean and smelled heavenly.
“What do you think that’s about?” I nodded my head at the photos of smiling couples wallpapering the back wall, most of them dressed in wedding garb.
Theo glanced at it and tapped his menu. “Says here the owner, Jolette Love, can look at a couple and tell them if they’re meant to be together. Apparently, she has an accuracy rate of ninety-five percent.”
“That’s a weird superpower. I’d rather be invisible.”
“I think mind reading would be the best.” He took off his baseball hat, combed his hair back with his fingers and replaced the hat, this time backwards.
Because, you see, he was trying to kill me. Theo in a regular hat was handsome. Theo in a backwards hat was hot. Super-hot. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t understand it. It just was. In fact, it was his actual superpower. That one move, and he went from Clark Kent to Superman, and woo boy, did I need rescuing in the worst way.
I must have some weird backwards-hat kink. That was the only explanation.
Our server, a dark-haired woman who looked about twenty-five months pregnant, stopped by our table for our orders. We handed her our menus, and she promised our food would be out quickly.
“Who gets orange juice with a burger?” I asked.
Theo smirked. “Who asks for olives on their burger?”
I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Someone with a sophisticated palate.”
“Sure,” he said, drawing the word out. “Is this the same person who puts ranch dressing on their pizza?”
“Excuse me? That is the only way pizza can be properly enjoyed, Mr. I Don’t Like My Food Touching on My Plate.”
“That is not the burn you think it is. There is nothing wrong with being a fastidious eater.”
“Fastidious.” I put a hand to my chest in mock astonishment. “Such a big writer word.”
“Very big. Huge. Lots more where that came from.” He gave me an exaggerated eyebrow waggle.
This felt good and right and friendly. Silly, innocent ribbing. For maybe the first time that day, my shoulders relaxed.
I laughed. “What does that even mean?”
“Just wanted to make you laugh.” He grinned, flashing straight white teeth—I remembered when he’d had the braces to make them that way. “I like when you laugh.”
My heart flopped over. Sort of like a puppy begging for belly rubs. This was the second time today one of his comments had caught me off guard.
His phone vibrated on the table, and he glanced down to see who it was. His smile morphed into a small frown. The phone stopped and started right back up again a few seconds later. He flipped it over and tried to ignore it.
I glanced from him to the phone. “You can take that if you need to.”
“You sure?”
“Go on.”
“I’ll be quick.” He slid out of the booth and wandered toward the door, phone to his ear. I watched him through the window as he paced back and forth in front of the restaurant, the hitch in his step so slight most people wouldn’t notice it.
That hitch was from the ankle-busting injury he sustained when he was hit by a car his senior year of high school. While it had ruined his chance at a baseball scholarship, that little rocking step of his had become his thing.
Ruth, Frankie’s girlfriend, said his walk was sexy. But then Ruth called everything sexy. At our last family dinner, she called the Brussels sprouts sexy.