Page 18 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Dylan smiled at Ramona. “Easy peasy?”

Ramona laughed. “Well, it is.”

She bumped Dylan’s shoulder then, lashes lowered against her freckled cheeks, like they really were in this together and Ramona wasn’t being paid to be nice to her. For a second, Dylan felt like she’d known Ramona for much longer than two humid and stressful hours in a small-town diner. It felt…

She took a deep breath.

Didn’t matter.

Ramonawasbeing paid, just like everyone else in Dylan’s life.

“Right,” she said, to both herself and Ramona. “I got this.” She headed toward the service window and lifted the plates, fingers strong under the edges just like Ramona told her. She turned, ready to whisk them to their table like a damn professional, when she saw her.

Blair Emmanuel.

Coming into the diner with her longtime manager, Brian Laveaux, looking gorgeous and relaxed in jeans and a white sleeveless blouse and not at all like a sweaty mess covered in condiments. Her brown arms were toned and glowing, her dark curls an angelic halo around her face.

And Dylan meant to stop moving.

She fully intended to stop walking with her hands full of hot food, thought shedidstop, but somehow, her feet kept going while she watched Blair smile and tell the hostess they were a party of two before she locked gazes with Dylan.

And just as expected, Blair’s smile dipped, then shifted into something like surprise, eyes drifting down Dylan’s aproned body.

“Dylan. Hello,” Blair said, but there was no warmth in her voice, just deadpan politeness.

Hi, Blairis what Dylan meant to say, what she’d opened her mouth to say, but somehow her body finally stopped moving right then, though not by her own choice. She hit something—someone—and it was like one of those slow-motion moments in a teen movie, when the already friendless kid is searching for a place to eat in the cafeteria and slips on a patch of coleslaw or a soggy hamburger bun or whatever the hell and goes down, food covering their shirt and pants, chocolate pudding in a very unfortunate spot, lettuce in their hair.

Yeah. It was exactly like that.

Because before Dylan could even register what was happening, she was on the ground, turkey and ham and blackberry jam in her lap, fries scattered all over the floor. Beth, another server, was also on the floor with what looked like Clover Moon’s honey whiskey pie smeared all over her chest.

A shocked hush fell over the dining room.

One of the plates Dylan was carrying spun in a circle next to her before stilling with athunk.

Dylan blinked, her arms held out in shock. She saw phones aimed at her, conversation starting up, surreptitious laughter and expressions of sympathy—oh, that poor thing—even as they snapped photos.

Dylan finally looked at Beth, who seemed just as shocked as she was but shifted into action much quicker, getting to her knees and starting to pick up the Monte Cristo detritus.

“Beth, I’m so sorry,” Dylan managed to say, but then, dear god, a horrible thing started happening.

Her throat closed up, eyes swelling, cheeks aching with the effort to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over.

No, no, no, she would not fucking cry in front of the whole town, in front ofBlair, on top of everything else. She absolutely would not.

But tears rarely listened to reason, and one made a run for it down her cheek. She swiped it away fast, started picking up food and piling it onto the plates. She made quick work of it, then stood and headed for the kitchen without looking at anyone, camera clicks following her as she went.

She dumped the dishes into the bus bin, the cooking staff silent and watching her as she did so, then all but ran for the bathroom. It was a single room, gender neutral, and it was locked.

“Fuck,” she pretty much yelled as she jiggled the handle, then heard a softohfrom a few feet away, a patron holding up a phone, eyes wide, catching her meltdown second by second.

She put up a hand but felt rage boil in her chest, more expletives lifting to the surface.

“Oh, that’s really nice,” she started, dropping her hand. “Good to know even cute small towns are made up of complete ass—”

“Hey, Violet, come on,” a voice chided from behind the patron.

The person—a middle-aged white woman—winced and turned to face Ramona, who had her hands on her hips and a disapproving look on her face.