Page 10 of Pick Me
“I am in control,” I lied to myself in a slow, soothing voice. The voice was important, because it made super-healthy meditation mantras out of statements that would otherwise be really worrisome self-delusions. “All is well with me.”
Dr. Travers would be so proud.
“Hey, hon. Table or stool?” a friendly, blonde thirty-something called from behind the lunch counter as I stepped into Jack’s restaurant. Other than the new name emblazoned on the doors—Panini Jack’s Diner—the place looked a lot like it had back when it was our high school hangout, but at a quick glance, I hardly recognized anyone.
Before I could answer, her eyes tracked behind me, and her grin widened flirtatiously. “Webb Sunday! Well, hey there, cutie!”
“Katey.” Webb stepped up just behind me.
“This another brother of yours?” She nodded at me and cracked her gum. “Never mind—I can see the Sunday all over him. Grab your usual booth, honey, and I’ll let Jack know you’re here.” She tossed him a wink as she moved off.
“Thanks,” Webb said with an easy smile.
“Honey,” I whispered under my breath.
Webb shoulder-checked me as he moved toward a booth at the left rear corner of the restaurant, beside the swinging door to the kitchen, and I headed in that direction without comment.
“Nice place, eh?” He slid onto one of the benches.
I grunted, shrugging out of my windbreaker. “Been here before plenty of times.”
“Ages ago, maybe. Jack did an amazing job on the place, huh?”
I glanced around the restaurant, at the dull gleam of the wood floors and the red pleather booths. “Wasn’t it always like this?”
Webb tilted his head to the side. “You are seriously unobservant. No, it wasn’t. It was getting worn down before you went to college, remember? By the time Jack bought the place when he moved to town six or seven years ago, it was falling apart. He redid all the booths, and I helped him do the wainscoting a couple years ago with reclaimed shiplap from the Cauffeys’ old barn. Em did the drawings.” He pointed up at the framed drawing of a dancing sandwich on the wall.
“Ah,” I said. “Cool.”
It was a little disorienting to think that the diner had had time to not only fall apart, but also be restored since I’d been gone, and that the random guy I’d only met a couple of times in passing at Aiden’s birthday parties was Webb’s best friend. I hadn’t felt like I belonged in the Hollow twenty years ago, which meant I definitely didn’t belong now.
“You’d know all this if you bothered coming to lunch with me any of the times I’ve invited you this summer,” Webb noted. “I’m here all the dang time.”
“Yes, you are. And I naively thought it was for the sandwiches.Cutie.”
Webb’s cheeks went pink. “No. That’s not… No. That’s just Katey being friendly.” He darted a wary glance over his shoulder toward the counter. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
I begged to differ, but I restrained myself to another grunt.
Webb leaned over the table, and his green eyes narrowed the same way mine did when I was at the end of my patience. “Look, I know you’re not feeling sociable these days, Knox. And that’s—ugh.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “You know, I could kill you for putting me in the position where I’m the one trying to get you to talk about your feelings, right?”
“Then you could justnot. That would work well for me.”
“Nope. Em said it had to be either me or Drew, and he’d probably make you do sun salutations and smoke weed first, so.” He sucked in a breath like he was preparing to dive underwater. “You’ve gotta stop holing up in the office all damn day every day. Now you’ve got poor Gage doing it, too, and it’s not healthy for either of you. Okay? I’m worried.We’reworried.”
“You don’t have to worry aboutpoorGoodman,” I scoffed. “Me doing something is more likely to make himnotdo it, and the kid is plenty well rested, too. He leaves his desk to eat literally fourteen times a day. And if he wants to go out, he can go. No one’s stopping him.”
Webb shook his head. “You’resoblind. He’s trying to make a good impression, Knox. He’s doing what you do.”
Yeah, right. “Has he complained to you?” I demanded. “About his work hours or… anything?”
“Anything? Like the way you alternately pretend he doesn’t exist and bite his head off? Don’t bother denying whatallof us have observed,” he said blandly when I shot him a look.
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I knew I wasn’t overly nice to Goodman—and, yes, on one or two occasions, I’d been downright curt—but the man was obnoxiously flirty and knife-blade snarky and unprofessionally cheerful.
And drop-dead gorgeous, though that wasn’t something I blamed him for.
Much.
