Page 18 of Missing Pieces
I try to hang up the phone on her, but she just continues. “You are ruining your reputation, Harper. What man is going to want you once they find out you’ve been slumming it in some redneck town and working at a grease filled diner?”
Oh, now she’s done it. I swear smoke was pouring out of my ears at this point. One of the Sergeants knock on the door and Luke walks over to open it, gesturing for me to hang up. “I can’t believe you. I don’t care about my reputation because as you put it ‘I’m slumming it.’ I live in a two-bedroom house. I’ve made friends. I have a job and people who rely on me. You were the one who told me to stay here and have an adventure. So that is what I am doing. Having a fucking adventure. I hope when all your friends find out what I have been doing the last few weeks and how you wouldn’t help out your own flesh and blood it tarnishes your reputation.” Before I let her answer, I slam the phone on the table, cracking the screen. “Fuck my life!” I scream.
Luke looks at me. “You done?” I nod, and he opens the door.
I was looking forward to today. I was hoping I was really going to be able to prove that I could run the diner without Ivy. But that phone call led from one bad thing into a landslide, literally.
First, the Sergeants would not stop complaining for the two hours they were sitting inside the diner because I opened ten minutes late. Luke was nice enough to tell me it’s happened many times before and not to worry about it, but I let it bother me. At one point he offered to go into Sawyer’s and get me a shot of whiskey for my coffee, but I just looked at him like he was crazy and walked away. In hindsight, I probably should have done just that.
Around nine-thirty in the morning a mother and her three children came in for breakfast. Two children kept fighting with each other, a brother and sister who looked to be about five and six. The boy kept pulling on his sister’s curls and she kept yelling at him to stop. The mother tried to stop the feud, but then her year-old baby started wailing at the top of his lungs. I was grateful the Sergeants just left because I’m sure they would have complained about the family. The mother finally got the kids all to calm down when I brought the food out. But, just as I went to walk away, the girl threw food at her brother which landed on a customer’s table behind them. I walked over to the other table to apologize, but they got angry and walked out. The mother apologized to me and asked for some extra napkins. When I returned with them, the baby thought it would be funny to play with his food as well and I ended up covered in syrup and ketchup. Why the baby had both things, I don’t know. Luke must have noticed the commotion because he came running out from the kitchen to help me with the mess that made it all over the floor. Eventually the woman and her screaming children left, thankfully she left me a good tip.
As the morning rush finally died down, I attempted to clean the syrup and ketchup off my white t-shirt to no avail. It was a great day to wear a white t-shirt. Luckily, I had my hair in a ponytail so it avoided the syrupy mess. I made it almost the entire way through lunch without an incident until I slipped on water that spilled on the floor by the drink station and fell right onto my left hip bone. By the time three o’clock rolled around, I was more than happy to close the door. Luke helped me clean up the tables, so I didn’t have to stay much past closing time. I grabbed my purse, thankful I could leave, when a huge boom of thunder sounded outside.
Great. Now, I am wearing a white shirt and have no umbrella.
It starts to downpour immediately, so I make a mad dash to the car. My shirt and shorts are soaked through when I get into the safety of my car. I drive home thinking about taking a long hot bath despite the hundred degree temperatures outside. Today was rough and a bath sounds like the medicine I need. I get to the hill by my house and turn to go up. I make it about twenty feet before my tires start spinning and I reverse while hitting the gas.
“What the fuck?” I shout to no one. I roll back about ten feet and stop. I hit the gas but to no avail. The tires just turn over in the mud. I open the door and notice I’m stuck in about six inches of thick goopy mud. I step out of the car and sink into it. I decide there is no way I am going to get out of this by pushing so I decide to wait out the rain. I would walk up the hill, but I don’t think my legs would make it very far in the mud.
I sit back in the car, soaking wet, covered in ketchup and syrup, with mud up to my ankles. What did I do to deserve this? I can’t even call Ivy or Trace because they’re gone, and my stupid phone is broken. I collapse over the armrest in the middle of the car and rest my head on the other seat. I stare out the passenger window watching the rain drown out the sky.
I nearly fly out of my seat when I see a face with a cowboy hat in the passenger window. Then I realize it’s Easton. Thank God I am saved! I sit up and roll down the window.
“Looks to me like you got stuck out here in this mud, sweet cheeks.”
Thank you Captain Obvious. “Actually I just thought it was a great time for a nap.”
“Sure is a shitty place to take a nap,” he retorts.
I roll my eyes at him. “Can you help me?”
He walks around my car looking at the tires. He opens the driver’s side door. “I don’t have my tow hitch on this truck, so I can’t pull you out. We can try to push you out but I think you’re too deep and we’d both just end up covered in mud.”
I look at him waiting for some other type of answer to my dilemma. He replies, “You can leave it here. Ain’t no one gonna take it.”
“Can we at least try to move it?”
“Suit yourself.” Rain pours off his hat soaking his shirt and pants that I just now noticed were extremely tight. “Just put the car in drive and slowly hit the gas while I push.”
I do as he says but realize a little too late I forgot to shut the front door and spray mud into the car and all over myself.
I hear him chuckling as he walks around to the door. “Works better if you shut the door first.”
I glare at him and then notice he’s also covered in mud. “Maybe we should just leave the car here,” I concede.
He smirks and offers me his hand as I get out of the car. I sink even farther into the mud than before and feel like I am waddling around. I walk over to the passenger side of his truck and go to climb in when I feel his hands on my hips. I glance over my shoulder at him.
“You had trouble getting up there last time and you didn’t have a ton of mud weighing your feet down then.”
I just nod and let him help me into the truck. He climbs in on the other side and makes his way up the hill. I can’t help stealing glances at him. He really is a sexy man and that cowboy hat he has on is like the cherry on top of a sundae. It makes his defined jaw pop even more and the five o’clock shadow he is sporting makes my mouth water.
“I told you, you should get a truck.” He glances over at me. I just nod in agreement, embarrassed he might have caught me staring.
We pull into the driveway of my house and he jumps out of the truck before I even have the door open. He helps me out of the cab and walks me to my front door. “Thanks for helping me out down there.”
“Anytime darlin’. You really should get a truck, though. That hill does not like cars when it rains.”
I realize how close he is standing to me. I’m trying to make myself believe it’s just so we both fit under the awning to avoid the rain but I am ninety percent sure that is not why. “What would I do with a truck when I leave here?”