I looked down enraged, wondering what the hell was happening to me. Did somebody steal my cock to sell on the black market? Leaving me a pussy. What the hell was I letting my own mind conjure up for me? I needed to get over this insanity. I pulled the piece of glass out of my palm and smeared my bloody hand against my pants, ignoring the bite of pain.
Throwing a shirt on, I stumbled blindly out of the house. Bright sunlight hit my eyes like a prizefighter and almost, almost knocked me on my ass. Lumbering to my truck, I climbed in vaguely, wondering if I might have still been drunk from the previous binge I accomplished undertaking the night before. I highly doubted it.
I had one thought in my mind.
Bagels.
Fresh bagels from a bakery, with butter and coffee. Maybe a few pots full. My stomach lurched and rumbled as I drove a good twenty-five minutes from my house to the nearest place to eat.
Like a grade-A jackoff, I parked in two spaces, not wanting anyone near my truck, and stormed into the diner, fists clenched. Sitting in the booth nearest the exit, always nearest the exit, with…3 waitresses, 11 faceless customers and 2 exits, I nodded at the waitress who in turn gave me bulging eyes and a downturned mouth. Getting a fucking bagel should be easy, but not here, not with me. These people knew of me, heard of me, and they were terrified of me. The dangerous recluse that never comes out in the daytime, isn’t he crazy? Didn’t he kill people? Didn’t he die? Didn’t he go insane? Isn’t he horribly disfigured like that Mel Gibson character in that movie? Didn’t he spend years in jail or an asylum, blah-blah-blah, just give me a fucking bagel and coffee, and no one will get hurt.
The waitress actually snorted loudly, walked over to my table, and crossed her arms.
Before she could form a simple thought in her most likely one-celled simple mind I growled out, “Coffee. Toasted Bagel. Butter.”
The twit clucked her teeth like a monkey and walked away.
My head started pounding. People walked in and out of the front door letting a cold draft breeze against my arms. My eyes attacked each and every person who walked in.
This was a fucking bad idea.
The rattle and clink of a coffee cup against its saucer brought my attention to the presence of the waitress spreading my order out on the table in front of me. “Can I get you anything else, sir?” she said with a sneer.
“Solitude,” I snapped back.
The waitress narrowed her eyes at me and snapped a piece of gum in my face. Then she walked away, leaving me to my solitude. Grabbing my knife and opening the little pat of wrapped butter, I began buttering my bagel.
“So, I’m not the only waitress you snap at, good to know,” a whispered voice said. The strong smell of apples, cinnamon, spices, and sexy hit me right in the chest. The butter knife slipped from my fingers, and clanged and clunked against the plate as Lainey slid into the seat across from me.
I had to take a deep breath before I could look at her. When I lifted my eyes to meet hers, she almost blinded me with her beauty. Ah, shit.
“Are you okay?” she asked. The brilliant green of her eyes and the kindness of her question overwhelmed me. It knotted itself in my chest and throbbed.
It took me a moment of staring at her to answer. “Yes.” She had a serene calmness about her, like the lapping waters off a tranquil Caribbean beach. I fucking wanted to dive in. “Why do you ask?”
Her smile was soft and gracious, but her brows wrinkled as she looked down at my hand. I followed the trail of her eyes, and then realized I hadn’t bandaged up my cut, or cleaned the blood off my hands and arms. At that particular moment, my throat lost the ability to remember how to swallow correctly and I ended up choking and hacking on my own saliva. Very becoming. Normally, at this point in a conversation with someone where I see blood, this would have caused me to crumple into a heap of trembling anxiety, rage and self-hatred, lashing out with whomever I was speaking. But for a few moments, I had been staring into those calm green eyes and the panic and rage didn’t come. It was as if Lainey had some sort of superhuman secret ability to help me hold the door to my skeleton-bloody-carcass filled closet closed.
“I cut myself,” I explained.
“I can see that,” she said. Her eyes scanned my face, my hair, my clothes, and then journeyed back down to my hand. Softly clearing her throat, she said, “Do you need anything? Would you like me to get some bandages or something?”
“Fuck no, why?” Did I have the word pussy written across my head?
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror this morning?” she asked.
Grabbing the aluminum napkin holder, I held it up to my face. Wide blood-shot grey eyes stared back; dried blood was caked across my cheeks and forehead. My hair, God, it looked like I had gotten into a fight and lost. I slammed down the napkin holder on the table and the clasp popped, sending napkins flying across the table. Fuck my life.
Lainey freaking giggled. I watched her, she tried not to, but the napkins and me being an idiot and everything, she couldn’t stop it, and she giggled. The sound of it was jarring, and I found myself wanting more of it, needing more of it.
“It’s too early to laugh,” I mumbled, which was probably the most unintelligent thing I could have responded with, but hey, there I was sitting in a diner with the woman I had been obsessing over for two weeks, wrote two books about, and had blood smeared all over my body. Intelligent conversation eluded me.
“Why? Do you hate morning people?” she asked, smiling.
“It has nothing to do with mornings…it’s the people part,” I retorted, smiling a bit myself. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to alleviate the mess, but then gave up. “I had a rough night. I didn’t even think to clean myself up,” I smiled wider.
HOLY CRAP. I. WAS. SMILING.
“Mr. Grayson, your charm is showing. You might want to tuck it back in,” she said, standing up. “You seem okay, so, I should go. Enjoy your breakfast.” She started to turn away. I wanted her to stay, but I knew it would be healthier for us both if she kept on walking. Leaning her hand against my table, she stopped and faced me again. “You should really clean that cut, though, Mr. Grayson. It looks deep and you could get an infection or something…”
I watched her smooth ivory fingers tremble against the dark cherry wood of the tabletop. My gaze traveled up her creamy arms across her shoulder and along her neck to her face; to her eyes. For a second, the thought of spending time with her overwhelmed me with a strange emotion. I didn’t know what it was; hope maybe? She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before, was she? “I apologize for offending you the other day. Please, call me Kade,” I croaked.