Page 15 of Matchmaking On The Menu

He tilts his head. “That explains it.”

Suspicion rings out like a warning bell, and I narrow my eyes. “Explains what?”

“You move like you know every inch of this place. Like you belong to it.”

That settles somewhere between a compliment and a cage. It itches between my shoulder blades, like he’s seeing something I try not to think about too much. I don’t say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

The sigh slips out before I can catch it. “You didn’t. You can’t help what you see.”

“Would you prefer people saw something different?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. Small towns and obligations go hand in hand.” I want to superglue my lips together. Why the hell did I say that? Why didn’t I brush it off like I always do when people question me about my life’s choices?

He nods. “That doesn’t just come from small towns. So, if there were no obligations, what would you do?”

I don’t know what it is about the way he’s asking the question, but I want to answer this total stranger who just came in to have a bite to eat. I should get back to waiting tables. “It doesn’t matter,” I blurt.

“If it doesn’t matter, then why can’t you tell me?” That smirk on his face should come with a warning label.

I point the coffee pot at him. “You’re good. You know that?”

“Maybe I recognize something in you that I see in myself.”

“You mean you’re being buried under obligation too?”

I mean it as a joke, but I see it hits him the same way his observations and suggestions hit me.

“I wish it was that simple.”

I feel that in my gut. “I get it. Wow, this is why people tell their hairdressers everything. It’s easier to talk to a stranger.”

He laughs, the sound rolling over me and making my stomach feel like it’s trying out for a gymnastics championship. If Beverly thought my conversations were inappropriate, she’d drop dead on the floor at the direction my thoughts are heading.

He grasps his chest as though I’ve wounded him. “You mean you’ve been telling your hairdresser all this too. It’s not just me?”

I laugh. “Oh, I don’t tell Imani anything. She’s the equivalent of the town newspaper—if we had a newspaper, that is.”

“In that case, you’re forgiven.”

I can’t stop smiling, he’s so easy to talk to.

“You’re great at evading questions, you know that?” he asks.

The back of my neck feels uncomfortably hot. But for some strange, masochistic reason, I still want to open up to him. “The truth?” I glance around the diner. Mr. Davenport is arguing with his pie, and Beverly pretending she isn’t listening to every conversation within a ten-foot radius. The truckers are comparing routes over coffee.

“I’d tell stories.”

He cocks his head. “What kind of stories?”

I shrug. “People spend their whole lives thinking they’re ordinary or worse, invisible. Then you look a little closer and discover they’re not.” I gesture around. ”Everyone has a story. Most of them never get told. I want to tell them.”

Something shifts in his expression. “And that’s what you want to do?”

“Yeah.” I smile. “That was the plan anyway.”

“You said it in past tense.”