But maybe that was okay.
He didn’t need flowers. He had her heart.
* * *
At work on Saturday morning, Lauren wondered when Boone would return to the café. She hadn’t seen him in nine days and knew he’d been on the road for six games, but the Athletics were back now, had played at the Coliseum last night, with another game tonight, and Boone always stopped by the café on his way to the stadium.
The fact that neither Boone nor Chris came in yesterday generated conversation among the café kitchen and waitstaff, but now that it looked like neither would be in again today, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if Boone had told Chris what she had said about him.
That he was too much. Over-the-top. That he didn’t have a subtle bone in him.
She cringed as she took orders and seated customers, adding names to the wait list. She shouldn’t have said what she said about Chris. It didn’t make her feel good remembering.
As it was Saturday, the morning rush lingered until early afternoon with customers continuing to line up for the café’s special weekend brunch menu. Lauren was doing double duty today, working her own section as well as helping Crystal, the new waitress, cover hers, since Crystal was overwhelmed.
Crystal had been hired on Thursday to replace Karen, because Karen had started to come in late almost daily, and Lauren wouldn’t tolerate tardiness on a regular basis. If you were scheduled to work at seven, that meant you were waiting tables at seven, it didn’t mean you were walking in the door at seven, or five after seven, or twenty after seven, or twenty-seven after seven. Lauren had talked with Karen about it several times, too, and Karen always apologized and had an excuse. But excuses only went so far, and Lauren was finally forced to let her go. Lauren was sorry, too. She’d enjoyed Karen and found the younger girl quirky and fun, but Lauren took her job seriously. She expected her staff to do the same.
Now Lauren bussed one of Crystal’s tables, a popular booth in the corner, before carrying the big gray tub to a cluster of tables where a party of eight had been sitting. Quickly, she cleared the first of the two tables, and then the second, and then dragging the second table away, created space between the tables again. She was just about to lift the heavy, dirty-dish bin when Chris suddenly materialized and picked it up for her.
“Where does this go?” he asked, his dark blond hair loose over his shoulders; his T-shirt was impossibly tight, revealing more muscle than was decent, and the old, soft, faded denim jeans he was wearing hugged his quads and ass.
“Show-off,” she muttered.
“What was that?” he drawled, eyebrow quirking, lips curving.
Lauren was pretty damn sure he’d heard what she said, so she smiled sweetly. “I said I’ve got that.”
He laughed, and a dimple flashed in his cheek.
Her pulse jumped and her insides did a weird flip, and her hands suddenly felt damp. She wiped them on the back of her skirt.
She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she was glad to see him. It’d been boring without him and Boone. She missed the superheroes. They certainly livened up the place.
“I’m not going to let my girl carry this. Show me where to put it. The kitchen?”
“Not your girl,” she corrected, before gesturing for him to follow, ignoring the gawking looks from some of the other customers. Customers who clearly knew who hulking Chris Steir was.
“Not yet maybe,” he replied, trailing after her into the kitchen, where he greeted Bob and José, who were at the big stove, cooking up eggs and pancakes and keeping a close eye on sizzling bacon and sausage.
“Never,” she muttered as Bette passed and made moon eyes at Chris.
Chris laughed softly and stuck close to Lauren on their way back out.
“You need a busboy,” he said, stopping in front of the dessert display case, allowing the heavy kitchen door to swing shut behind them. “You’re too busy not to have one.”
She blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “We weren’t always this busy.”
“But you are now.”
They were, too, Lauren thought, glancing around the café, her gaze moving from the full tables to the crowd by the front door, and another large cluster of people outside, all waiting to get in. “Not sure why,” she said.
“The word’s out that you serve great food.”
“The word’s out, huh?” she asked, looking at him, trying to hide her smile. He was cute. Too cute for his own good.
“Yep.”
He sounded so sure of himself. “Just where is the word out?”
“Well, on the A’s team blog, and some of our Twitter feeds.”
“Whose Twitter?”