Page 3 of Matchmaking On The Menu

She cups my face, her weathered palms warm and steady, and studies me like she’s trying to read something written beneath my skin. For a second, I think she’s going to say more. Then that faraway look slips into her eyes, the one where she disappears into her own thoughts. I swear I’d love thirty seconds in her mind.

She seems to realize she’s drifted off and presses a coffee pot into my hands. “You’ve wasted enough time for today.”

And just like that, she heads into the kitchen.

Mary, Quadri’s cousin on her dad’s side, steps up beside me, her blue eyes watchful, soft, blonde waves cascading down her shoulders. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but table three needs a refill.”

The crease between my eyes deepens. Why is she apologizing? It’s my job. But then I turn around, and my stomach sinks. I whip my head back to her. “It’s not Sunday.”

“We were all just as shocked.”

“I’ll give you all my tips for the day if you do it.”

She scrunches her nose apologetically. “Grandma said if any of us help you today, we’re on dish duty the rest of the week.”

I grimace. “But…”

“I know.” Giving my arm a gentle squeeze, she slips into the storeroom.

Fuck all the fried fish.

This is the last thing I need today. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. I can do this. So what if I’m about to walk into the lion’s den with a steak tied around my neck? I’ve got lady balls. Except right now, my lady balls have shriveled up and crawled somewhere behind my liver.

Beverly McNaire is already staring at me, her microbladed eyebrows arched so high they could pass for bangs. Her blood-red nails tap an impatient rhythm against the table. When I still don’t move, she lifts her empty cup and waves it at me. The stack of gold bracelets on her wrist joins the protest, chiming sharply.

Okay, here we go.

I place one foot in front of the other, my tennis shoes squeaking obnoxiously against the tiled floor. Since when do they do that? Or are my self-preservation instincts just cranking up the volume on everything?

My mouth goes dry. I haven’t even had coffee yet. I briefly consider swigging straight from the pot but shut that idea down fast. No need to give Beverly something new to clutch her pearls over.

Okay, Dannica. Rein it in. It’s not like you’re heading to death row. She’s just an ordinary person. A mean, nasty, soul-sucking person, but a person, nonetheless.

I reach the table and start pouring her coffee. “Morning, Beverly. How are you today?”

She doesn’t answer, watching the coffee rise like she’s sure I’m going to do her out of a drop.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate”—she eventually meets my gaze—“to discuss… intimate matters at the entrance of a family establishment.”

I blink. “Sorry?”

“You and your band of merry waitresses,” she continues, adjusting her bracelets. “There are standards. Your grandmother worked very hard to build them—albeit not the way I would choose.” She looks around the diner like it’s a dive bar.

Of course she says that. Beverly McNaire hasn’t had a kind word to say about the diner for as long as I can remember. The coffee’s too weak. The toast’s too brown. The booths are outdated. And yet she’s here every single Sunday at eight fifteen sharp, like clockwork, judging us between bites of French toast.

I keep my hand steady on the pot.

“I understand,” I say evenly. “I apologize.”

I top off her cup and step back, smiling the kind of smile that belongs on someone who absolutely did not just get lectured before nine in the morning.

As I pass the counter, a gnarled hand catches the end of my ponytail and gives it a gentle tug. I don’t even have to turn to see who it is. He’s been pulling my hair in silent encouragement since I was thirteen years old.

I glance back anyway. Mr. Ashley Davenport. At seventy-four, he’s not our oldest patron by a long shot, but he’s often the sharpest in the room. He misses very little. I guess toiling the land as a farmer all the years honed his instincts.

“Forget her,” he mutters. “She’s just got a stick up her ass.”

I give him a grateful smile and lean in. “Thanks.”