Page 12 of Captain Santiago and the Sky Dome Waitress
Edme didn’t come to get Elijah’s order. He hadn’t expected her to. She knew what he wanted. She had placed his breakfast plate on the table with a small smile and a nod, instead of the chatty how-are-we-todays that other waitresses seemed to think was expected.
Elijah’s appetite had fled, but he made himself eat every bite, anyway.
What the hell was the girl doing here? Was it really so simple a coincidence that she ended up working here? If she had really wanted a job, she could have got one anywhere else in the city.
She didn’t know I come here all the time, he tried to reason with a cooler mental voice.
And waitressing was perfectly suited to a transient, while other jobs required contracts or longer-term commitments.
He’d seen his fair share of waitresses working here, after all. He’d had to train all of them to his preferred way of dining each morning. Some of them had learned very quickly. Some hadn’t, and were gone just as quickly. Edme was a stayer.
He recalled the way the girl’s back had straightened as she walked away from the table. There was spirit in her. She hadn’t shriveled when he’d accused her of stalking him, either.
Shades of Blake.
No. He wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking of her as Blake in any way. She was her own person. She just happened to have Blake’s genes, that was all.
Thank the stars he was shipping out today. It was an octagonal run. Seven stops, then back here. Three days, at least.
In three days, he should be able to figure out how to look at the woman without wanting to kiss her or kill her.
~ 5 ~
Edme found Lucie in the tiny closet at the back of the kitchen, during Lucie’s break. While Lucie gobbled down the sandwich Olivette had thrown together for her, Edme grinned at her and leaned against the closet frame. “I saw you speaking to the bear.”
“Santiago?”
“Yeah. He growls just like one.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Lucie said, after swallowing quickly. “I’ve never seen a bear.”
“Ask Barney to show you one.” Edme’s grin broadened.
“Then, it’s not just me he growls at?”
“God, honey, no,” Olivette called from behind the sizzling griddle. “He’s like that witheveryone.”
When her shift was done, Lucie wove through the main square of the city and through the corridor into the Celestial dome. Barney had found her a temporary short-term lodging. It was a real find. Lucie considered it to be the most amazing house in all of Celestial, which was just as jaw-droppingly amazing as the travel guides had promised.
Lucie took this as a sign that her tour was fated to be good.
She palmed the lockpad to open the gate into the house. The sun was shining through the clear dome, which was a shame. Celestial had been named that because when the city had first been built, it hadn’t rotated at all, and Celestial had lived in permanent twilight. This house looked better in twilight.
But it was still a lovely, but very small house and it was hers for the month. Even better, Yennifer had lived here, once. That made the house very special in Lucie’s eyes. She stepped through the gate and moved up to the open rooms under the L-shaped roof. The roof shed rain, but there was no need for protection from any other kind of weather.
“Barney?” Lucie called as she pulled off her shoes and carried them into the tiny bedroom. “Ears only!” she added, as she undressed.
“Here, hon!” Barney said.
“I have a bone to pick with you! You couldn’t have warned me that Santiago has breakfast at the restaurant every day?”
“You couldn’t have warned me you were going to get a job there?” Barney shot back. “I would have told you not to. But no…you scuttled upstairs like a jackrabbit and before I—”
“What’s a jackrabbit?”
The screen over her bed lit up and showed a video of a small, furry mammal running and leaping, crossing grassy terrain at an astonishing speed.
“I had to act fast, Barney. The job seemed perfect. No training required, instant start—they pushed me into an apron and shoved me out there the moment I showed up. But you could have said something at any time the last three days!”
