Page 27 of Lawton

"With that hair?" Brittney muttered, "I want you to go away."

I gave Brittney an annoyed look, but kept my mouth shut – for the waitress's sake, not Brittney's. The way it looked, our server hadn't heard Brittney's comment, and I wanted to keep it that way. The job looked complicated enough without taking insults from a snotty rich girl.

"She can't go away," Amber told Brittney. "I'm totally starving."

Well, so much for that.

Amber turned to look up at our waitress. "Do you have pancakes?"

The waitress made a show of patting down her apron pockets. "Nope. Sorry."

Amber frowned. "Bummer."

"But," the waitress said with a wicked smile, "I think we've got some in the kitchen."

"Oh," Amber said. "That's a relief." She glanced toward the kitchen area. "But how many? Because I'm pretty hungry."

The waitress paused. "As many as you want, honey."

"For real?" Amber asked.

"For real." The waitress winked at her. "We just got a large shipment in."

Brittney rolled her eyes. "Wow, that is soooo funny."

The waitress smiled like she'd heard it a thousand times before. "Why, thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment," Brittney said.

"Oh well." The waitress gave a pretty shrug. "Can't win 'em all."

A couple minutes later, the waitress, whose name was Josie, had gotten all of our orders, along with a fair amount of attitude from Brittney.

When she left, Brittney watched Josie weave her way through the tables. "Talk about rude," Brittney said.

"You weren'tthatrude," Amber said. "I mean, I've seen you be a lot meaner than that."

Brittney frowned. "I meanther, not me." She lifted her chin. "I was only rude, because she was rude first."

I was tired of the attitude. "They're supposed to be rude," I said. "Remember?"

"Yeah." Brittney smirked. "But are they supposed to drool over the customers? Because she was totally drooling over you."

Was she? I hadn't noticed.

But Amber was nodding. "Sorry Lawton." She winced. "There was a little drooling."

"More than a little," Brittney insisted. "She was totally staring at your abs." Brittney made a sound of annoyance. "It was so unprofessional."

Did I really need to point out the obvious? I glanced down. "Youdosee I'm wearing a shirt? Right?"

Amber spoke up. "Yeah, but the way she was looking, it was like she had X-ray vision or something."

"See?" Brittney said.

What I saw was a long, painful dinner ahead of me. Our waitress seemed nice, and now, Brittney would be hassling the piss out of her. Of course, Brittney would've hassled the waitress either way. I knew the type. She got off on that sort of thing.

I didn't. I leaned back against the booth. "You wanna go someplace else?"