She pulled into the parking lot of the Denny’s she had told David about. She reported into the station, let them know she was taking her break and headed inside the nearly empty establishment.
“Hey, Cherise,” Sinead called to the waitress behind the counter.
Cherise, a middle-aged black woman with a big smile, greeted her with an unusually excited smile. “Hey there, girlie!”
Sinead questioned it, as it was hard to be excited about anything when you worked the overnight shift at a diner.
“You seem awfully chipper.”
Cherise leaned over the counter as if to whisper to Sinead, another anomaly as most times she and Cherise were alone in the restaurant. The cook and bus boy hung out in the kitchen.
“I am when I get a customer who looks like that,” she said and then made a discreet motion with her finger, suggesting the person in question was in a booth to the left of the counter. “And sounds like that.”
A niggling suspicion had Sinead turning her head in the direction of Cherise’s finger.
David was sitting in the booth with a cup of coffee in front of him and a rather arrogant smile on his face.
Looking exactly as Cherise had said… like that.
Sinead shook her head. He really was impossible.
Although she obviously didn’t mind, because she was smiling.
“Oh girl, look at that smile. Please tell me you know him.”
“I know him,” Sinead confirmed.
“Hmm, hmm I’m going to get some details then. But later. You do not want to keep that man waiting.”
“I’ll have the usual, but you can bring it to the table.”
“Oh I’m going to bring it,” Cherise said with a low chuckle.
Sinead walked over to the booth. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” she asked even as she sat across from him.
“I told you I’m usually sleeping at this hour. Tonight was… unusual.”
Sinead cocked her head to the side. “You know my father always told me if something looks too good to be true, it probably it is. Please tell me you’re not a closet stalker I need to be worried about.”
David wiggled his eyebrows. “You’ve already told me you don’t get along with your father, so I know you wouldn’t take his advice seriously. No, I’m not a stalker, but I might make an exception in your case. I find I… miss you when you’re gone.”
“Maybe you’re just homesick.”
His expression changed then. From teasing and arrogant to something sadder. Sinead could feel his melancholy and it affected her. Like she had this incredible instinct to make his sadness go away.
She was losing it, she knew. Losing the probably ridiculous notion she could control her feelings for him. Which made her want to shut it down now. All the protective alarm bells going off in her head.
Take away his sadness? Was she serious?
She was about to tell him to go home, when he slid out of his side of booth and joined her on her side.
“Don’t do that,” he said softly in her ear. “Don’t shut down on me like that. I know this is sudden…”
“You’re going to hurt me,” she said quietly. “I’m not sophisticated enough to handle someone like you and I know it.”
He rested his forehead on her shoulder. “No, don’t you see? It’s because of who you are that this is happening. I need your lack of sophistication like I need a breath of fresh air. We can do this, baby. We can have fun and enjoy each other. That’s all it has to be about.”
“Uh… should I come back?”
Sinead looked over to see Cherise standing there with a plate in one hand and a mug in the other.
“No, please,” David said, leaning back and allowing Cherise to slide the plate and coffee in front of Sinead. “She needs to keep up her strength so she can take on the evil doers of Mill Valley.”
Cherise giggled.
Giggled.
Cherise did not giggle. In a way it made Sinead feel less foolish. Maybe no woman was immune to his charms.
“Thanks, Cherise.”
“Hmm, hmm. I’ll just leave you two love birds to yourself while I take my break. Holler if you need anything, girlie.”
David reached for a French fry and popped it into his mouth. Then he grabbed the salt, added extra on top, grabbed the ketchup and squeezed out a significant pile on the side of her plate, clearly intending to have more.
He was on his third fry when she said, “No, really help yourself. I insist.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled around another one. “I’m rather addicted.”
Resigned, Sinead pulled apart her grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and offered him half. He accepted it and bit into the gooey hot sandwich.
He moaned in the back of his throat, which made her squirm a little, recalling some of the sounds he’d made last night.