Page 6 of Trophy
After Allison had thanked Rob again, she walked out of the store, feeling as encouraged as she had first thing that morning, but with more foundation for it now. She headed right over to Dora’s, since it was just two blocks away.
When she stepped inside, she asked for Trey, and a balding man with a potbelly and a dirty shirt came out from the kitchen. Allison handed him the card, not sure exactly what to say.
“Seriously?” Trey muttered, eyeing her up and down like she was a creature from a different planet.
Okay. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been hoping for.
“I could do a good job,” she said quietly. “I need this, so you can count on me to work really hard.”
Trey sighed, still staring down at the card. “Damn it, West,” he muttered.
Clearly he wasn’t speaking to her, so she didn’t say anything else.
Finally he looked up. “Fine. I’ll give you a try. I owe Rob big time. But if it doesn’t work out, I can’t keep you on. The favor I owe him will only go so far.”
“Understood. I appreciate you giving me a chance.”
“When can you start?”
“Tomorrow. Or whenever you need me to.”
“Okay. Tomorrow’s good. It’s the early shift I need covered, so you’ll have to be here by six.”
She was so excited about getting a job that she only cringed slightly at the thought of getting up so early. “No problem.”
“Hey, Chelle,” Trey called out.
The redheaded waitress she’d seen yesterday walked over, looking tired and not very friendly. “What do you want?”
“She’s our new girl. Get her a shirt, will you?”
Allison had noticed that all the waitresses wore a dark blue golf shirt with Dora’s Café appliquéd on the pocket. She wouldn’t normally be caught dead in a shirt like that, but she gratefully accepted the one Chelle handed her.
The other woman didn’t smile. Maybe she’d warm up once she got to know her.
“You better wear more comfortable shoes,” Chelle said, glancing down at Allison’s little heels.
“I will. Thank you.”
Trey made a snuffling sound. He smelled like grease and smoke, which wasn’t a pleasant combination, but Allison was so relieved she didn’t even notice much.
“Come back this afternoon,” he said. “You’ll need to fill out an application, and I’ll need your proof of identity and all the legal junk.
But don’t come until two. We’re too busy before then. ”
“I’ll be here at two. Thank you.”
Allison stopped at the small grocery store in town before she headed home. Since it was still just after ten, as soon as she got home she looked online for directions on how to fix a toilet. For the next two hours she followed them step by step, having to restart several times.
But finally she managed to change the flapper and stop the toilet from running all the time—so that made two victories for the day.
The next morning Rob walked into Dora’s, hoping to see Allison.
He ate at Dora’s almost every morning—and also several nights a week—so it wasn’t strange for him to be here.
It was strange for him to be so excited about it, though.
His whole body clenched a little when he saw Allison in the far corner, pouring coffee for the elderly couple who sat in that same booth every morning.
Allison wore the normal Dora’s shirt, but it looked different on her.
She’d somehow made the shapeless shirt fit so it showed off her luscious body.
She wore it with black cropped pants and flat shoes.
He took a moment to admire her deliciously rounded ass before he realized he couldn’t just stand in the doorway and leer at her.
He took his normal seat at the counter, accepting the coffee Trey brought over for him.
“Thanks for that,” Rob murmured, nodding over toward Allison.
Trey gave him his typical scowl. “You owe me now.”
“I only owe you if she doesn’t work out. Otherwise we’re even. She seems okay, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Trey said begrudgingly. “She was on time, and she’s been nice to the customers. She’s only been here thirty minutes, though.”
The cook called out something, so Trey had to go back to see what the issue was. Rob sipped his coffee until Allison came over to him.
She was smiling, and he was immediately drawn to what he could sense was soft and vulnerable beneath her polished appearance. “So it worked out, then?” he asked, stating the obvious so he could have something to say.
“Yes. Thank you so much.” She tucked a brown curl back behind her ear.
He waved a hand, brushing off her thanks. He liked to be needed—particularly by someone as beautiful as her—but he didn’t like to be thanked excessively. “So how is it so far?”
“So far, so good,” she said. “Of course, I haven’t been here long, and it hasn’t gotten crowded yet.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“What can I get you?”
He ordered his eggs, bacon, and toast, and she wrote it down and took the slip back to clip it on the rack in the kitchen with the other orders.
He watched her as he waited for his food.
She had on a particular expression—a helpful, friendly expression that wasn’t exactly like her normal face.
It was almost like she was playing a role.
Maybe that was the way she was able to do a job that she must have assumed she’d never have to do.
He tried to think of something to say when she came over to him again.
If she was ever going to be interested in him, he needed to get her to think about him as something other than the helpful guy across the street.
He was usually pretty good at flirting, but when he’d had his chance yesterday, he’d gotten distracted by her job issues.
So she’d ended up grateful to him but not any more interested in him as a man than she’d been the day before.
He was usually good at this. He could think of something.
Allison took two more orders before his food was ready. She was smiling at him when she brought his plate over, but it felt more like her “waitress face” than her real smile. He needed to change that.
He was about to say something funny and a little sexy—he wasn’t sure exactly what it would be, but he was sure something would come out when he started to speak—when he noticed that the guy down the counter from him had an empty coffee cup and was starting to look annoyed by it.
So instead of flirting, he nodded toward the guy silently, trying to give Allison a significant look so she’d refill the coffee before the customer was rude to her.
Her expression changed as she read his silent signal. She mouthed “Thanks” at him and went to grab the coffeepot, then filled up every mug in the restaurant, including Rob’s.
Rob frowned as he ate. He’d missed his chance. Now more people were coming in, and Allison was too busy to chat with him.
While she was working was probably not the best time to get to know her anyway. She was going to be learning the job for a while, so she’d probably be kind of stressed. He was sorting through reasons to invite himself over to her house when the bell on the door jingled again.
He glanced back automatically to see who had entered, and his entire body drooped when he saw it was his ex-wife, Dee.
She was pretty in the way a lot of women were pretty in Fielding.
Her hair was teased out and dyed blond. She wore a lot of makeup, and her jeans were very tight.
They’d been divorced for three years, and he found her so frustrating and annoying now that the attraction he’d once felt for her had completely died.
She’d obviously come in here to see him. She knew his habits just like everyone else in town. She plopped herself down on the stool beside him, smiling in her ingratiating way.
“What’s up?” he asked. He tried to be polite even when he didn’t feel like it, since she would make a fuss if she decided he was being rude.
He felt Allison looking over at him as she took the order of a large family who’d come in. She’d be wondering who Dee was. He didn’t need anything else to turn her off.
“Cali didn’t get home until four last night,” Dee said, her red lips turning down into a pout.
“Was she with that boyfriend of hers?” Rob asked, scowling at the thought of his fifteen-year-old ex-stepdaughter having a boyfriend at all.
“Of course. I don’t know what to do with her.”
Rob couldn’t help but think that if Dee spent a little less time with her own boyfriends, she’d have more time to spend with her daughter, and that might help the girl to not act out so much. But he wasn’t married to Dee anymore, so there was only so much he could say. “Have you talked to her?”
“You think I haven’t talked to her?”
“I mean, really talk to her. Not scream at her when she comes home late.”
“I’ve done everything.”
Rob sighed. He’d been very fond of Cali in the six years he was married to her mother. The marriage had never been very good—he’d realized six months into it that it was a mistake—but he’d loved the little girl and had done what he could to be a father to her.
He had no real place in her life now, though.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Can you talk to her?” Now Dee’s eyelashes fluttered in a familiar beseeching look.
“What do you want me to say?”
“You could at least try. She never listens to me.”
Rob shrugged. A glance over his shoulder proved that Allison was finishing up the orders from that large table, but she was glancing over at him occasionally.
She was wondering who Dee was. She was wondering what his relationship with her was.
It would be just his luck for her to decide he was taken and not give him another thought.
“I’ll try,” Rob agreed, hoping it would get Dee to leave. She hadn’t ordered anything yet, so maybe she wouldn’t stay long. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Dee reached over to rub his shoulder, sliding her hand over to the back of his neck. “Thank you so much, sweetie.” It was all Rob could do not to jerk away from her touch. Instead he carefully adjusted his posture so he could pull away from her.