Lib Novel Page 9
My jaw tightens. He’s doing this deliberately. I know it.
Giving him a tight smile, I scribble down his order, and once again, when I turn to leave, he stops me. “You’re not going to ask me what I want to drink?”
I close my eyes briefly before turning back and sighing audibly, as if he has seriously inconvenienced me. Poising my pen on my notepad, I ask, “Would you like a beverage, sir?”
“What do you have available?”
I give him a bland look. “The menu is in your hands, sir.”
What does he want me to do? Recite the entire drinks menu for him?
When he doesn’t respond, I give him a sickly sweet smile. “Oh, pardon me. I didn’t take into account that you might not be able to read, sir. Here, I’ll read it for you—”
I reach for his menu, but his grip on it tightens. Sounding insulted, he mutters, “I can read just fine!”
I raise a brow, and he barely glances at the menu before closing it. “A soda.”
I knew it. He was just being a jerk on purpose.
The annoyance on his face is gratifying.
“A soda,” I repeat slowly, writing it down on my pad in front of him, enunciating each word as I do so. “One soda.” I gaze down at him, the sugary smile still on my face. “Will that be all?”
He looks as if he would like nothing better than to strangle me. His table is quiet, all five of the other men watching our interaction with bated breath.
“Yes,” the man hisses.
“Alright then.” I snap my notebook closed. “Your order will take about twenty minutes. I’ll serve the drinks with your meals unless you want them beforehand.”
Nobody says anything. As I turn to walk away, I hear one of the blue-eyed shifter’s companions say, “I don’t think our waitress likes you very much, Alex.”
Alex.
The name suits him for some reason. It irks me that I find the name just as attractive as the man.
I’ve spent twenty-five years not even looking at guys. My life has been a game of survival up to this point. I haven’t had time to be attracted to anybody. It’s also not as if this town is overflowing with eligible bachelors just waiting to swoop me up. The one time I do find somebody good-looking, it has to be this jerk.
“What happened?” Elsa asks me as I give the order at the kitchen window. “Why do you have such a dark look on your face? Were they rude to you?”
“No.” I refuse to meet her gaze. I was the one who was slightly rude. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell her that. Once I’m done reciting the order to Jack, the chef, I lean against the wall, finally looking at my boss. “Do you think I’m impulsive?”
Elsa stares at me. “Boy, there must’ve been something special in that vodka. What’s gotten into you? And no, I don’t think you’re impulsive. But I do think something’s off with you at the moment.”
She’s right. It’s not like me to do any of the things I’ve done today. I need to slow down before I do something that might come back to bite me in the ass.
“Sophia.” Elsa forces me to look at her by putting a hand on my arm. “If you need to take the rest of the day off, just tell me. We all have bad days.”
I shake my head. “No, I can do this. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
As I walk away, I hear her mutter, “I never said you weren’t on your best behavior.”
I spend the next twenty minutes looking after the rest of my tables. New customers keep piling in. There’s another server working the floor with me, Ronnie. But she’s dealing with the right side of the bar, and I’m handling the left. By the time Alex’s table’s order is ready, I have been on my feet a long time and wish I could take a two-minute breather.
I’m quite used to carrying multiple dishes in my arms, so balancing the huge tray on my shoulder with my hand isn’t hard. However, today, my gait is not steady. For a moment, it feels like it’s because Alex is watching me as I approach them. His gaze is disconcerting. I can’t focus when he’s looking at me like that.
The tables beside theirs are full, so there is no place to put down the massive tray. With no option but to keep holding it on my shoulder, I hand out the drinks first.
Alex’s plate is the last one on the tray, and as I place it before him, his fingers accidentally graze mine. The second they do, I feel a strange jolt of electricity pass through me, and I immediately yank my hand back. As a result, I lose my carefully maintained balance; the tray slips to the ground with a loud crash while I slide backward, about to fall on my ass. To my surprise, a familiar, firm hand wraps around my waist, stopping my descent. I come face-to-face with those cerulean blue eyes, which have surprise in them.