Not as good as here—” she gave a quick wink “—but good all the same.”
“I suppose I can live without one.” The girl propped her chin on her hand. “What about you, honey?”
“Coffee’s good for me. And one of those pecan cinnamon rolls that I keep hearing about.” The man flipped open the menu.
“Oh, me, too.” The girl’s expression brightened. “And cream for my coffee if you’ve got it. It’s a holiday weekend. If I can’t splurge on a Bloody Mary just yet, I’ll splurge on that.”
Tabby’s smile turned into a grin. “Coming right up.” Infinitely comfortable with this particular role, she returned to the counter area, prepared a little white jug of cold cream, plated up two warm rolls and returned with them, along with the coffeepot, to the table. While she was serving the couple, the door jingled again, and two more parties of two came in. Everyone had pool cue cases.
She hid her delight and called out another cheerful “Good morning.”
She’d just gotten them situated with menus and drinks when Bubba called out that an order was up, and she went back to grab Justin’s plate. Which also had a side of biscuits and gravy.
Bubba figured he knew Justin pretty well, too, obviously.
Tabby set his plate in front of him, and Justin eyed the fat, fluffy biscuit that was mounded over with golden-brown gravy studded with chunks of sausage. She reached below the counter and came up with a bottle of hot sauce. She was tempted to hold it out of his reach, but she set it in front of him. “Anything else I can get for you?” She lifted her eyebrows, waiting. “More coffee?”
“No coffee. But there is something else.” He hesitated a moment, then suddenly dumped the biscuit and gravy on top of the eggs, completely hiding them, and grabbed the hot sauce.
She hid a smile as she pivoted on her heel to grab an order that Bubba set on the pass-through. “More gravy?”
“The key to the empty unit you’ve still got at the triplex,” he said. “I want to rent it.”
Tabby turned and was staring at him as if he’d started speaking Swahili. “What’s that?”
“You still have an empty unit at your triplex, don’t you? Erik told me last night—”
“Yes,” she said, looking consternated. “I haven’t managed to rent out the third unit yet, but—”
“Well, now you have,” he said, content to do his own share of interrupting. “At least for six weeks or so.”
Her lips parted, and he knew she wanted to tell him no. He knew it. Just as he knew there was no way that she could. Their families were too close. Their moms were best friends. Her brother was married to one of his cousins.
She managed the diner he and his brother owned.
“I’ll pay twice what you were planning to charge,” he said in a low tone. “Just say okay, Tab, and neither one of us’ll have to go around explaining why we’re the only ones who don’t think it’s such a great idea. My family suggested it last night after you cut and ran.”
“I didn’t cut and run.” Her lips twisted, and she looked away. The bell over the door jingled twice more in rapid succession. “Fine,” she said abruptly. “Meet me over there at two this afternoon. I’ll give you the key.” Then she snatched two slick, laminated menus out of the slot next to the cash register and smiled almost maniacally at the newcomers. “Good morning!”
Justin wondered if he was the only one who heard the wealth of false cheer that had entered her voice.
He wished to hell he’d never admitted to Erik the night before that he wasn’t exactly anxious to move back home for the next several weeks.
Not because he didn’t love his folks. He did. But he’d been out on his own for a long time, and he was used to having his own space. One where his mother didn’t figure she ought to make up his bed every morning.
If he hadn’t made that admission to Erik, then Izzy wouldn’t have overheard, and then his mom wouldn’t have come in on the conversation. Hope hadn’t been insulted at all, either. In fact, she’d been the one to toss out ideas for places he might rent temporarily. Erik, though, had been the one to remember Tabby’s place.
And wasn’t that just the perfect solution?
Everyone knew Justin and Tabby were friends. Always had been. Thick as thieves. That’s how his mom had put it as she’d reminisced.
He wasn’t about to tell them those days were over. That Tabby would just as soon kick him to the edge of town than agree to rent one of her triplex units to him. And he definitely wasn’t about to tell them the reason why.
He dumped more hot sauce on the sausage gravy.
And when he was finished, it was one of the waitresses—a girl he didn’t know named Paulette—who took away his half-empty plate.
* * *
Tabby spotted the dusty black pickup truck parked in front of her triplex the second she rounded the corner of her street.
She wanted to turn on her heel and go back to the safety of the diner. Justin might be half owner, but at least there she figured she was safe from him showing up again that day.
Huffing out a breath, she tucked her chin inside the turned-up collar of her coat and trudged forward. When she got closer, she saw that he was sitting on her front porch. He’d changed into jeans and a light gray hoodie.
The cigarette dangling between his fingers wasn’t such a welcome sight. He stubbed it out when he spotted her and rubbed his hands down his thighs as he stood, waiting for her to walk closer. But the faint smell of smoke lingered.
“When’d you start smoking again?” He’d smoked for a few years in grad school. Never around his folks. And rarely around her. And she knew he’d worked like a dog to give up the habit. Because what good was a guy researching cancer cures who died of it himself?
He frowned. “I haven’t started up again.”
She pointedly pushed the toe of her boot against the cigarette butt sitting on the edge of her cement porch.
“I’ve been working on the same pack for weeks.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye as she passed him to unlock the front door of her unit. “Question is why you have a pack of cigarettes at all.”
“I know. Disgusting habit. Unhealthy as hell.”
All of which was true.
So why, darn it, had there been something so stupidly sexy about him sitting there with one?
It was insane.
Maybe it went along with that whole bad-boy appeal thing.
Not that Justin had ever been a bad boy.
He’d just been the boy who got away.
She pushed open the door. “You coming in or going to stand there and wait while I find the key for the empty unit?” It was pretty much an excuse. She knew where the key was. She just wasn’t all that anxious to hand it over to him.
But then, she wasn’t all that anxious to have him inside her home, either. As it was, she thought about him often enough without him ever having stepped foot inside.
He bent over and retrieved the crumpled cigarette butt and stepped through her doorway, pushing the door closed behind him. “Trash?”
She gestured to the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by only a bat-wing-shaped breakfast bar. “Under the sink.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, watching him cross the room. “The empty unit is on the other