Chapter 7

Approaching the table, I couldn’t hide that I was nervous. My hands sweating as I tried to force a smile that kept falling.

“Good morning, what can I get, how can I help, um what will it be.” I stuttered out every greeting I could think of at the same time.

The younger man looked up and gave me a warm smile, while the older gentleman continued to look out the window. “We’ll have the usual.” The older man said with a humpf.

“Being it’s my first day I don’t know what your usual is sir but if you tell me I’ll try my hardest to remember for next time.” I said trying to stay cheerful.

The older man smacked his hand on the table and turned to look at me. “The usual, my usual.” He said defiantly.

Trying to hold back the tears building in my eyes. CeCe came up from behind me. Placing her palms on the table she looked the older man dead in the eyes. “Listen here you contemptuous old jackass. You’re her first table, you better be god dam nice to her or I’ll tell Tommy to burn all your food for a month.”

I could hear Tommy laughing from the kitchen. “You better watch out or she’ll make you eat your wife’s cookin.” He let out a big loud laugh before I heard something start to sizzle back there.

The older gentleman gave CeCe the side eye before looking over at me. “I’ll have the waffles, four strips of bacon, four sausages, two eggs over easy and two pieces of toast. Black coffee in a tall mug.” He told me.

CeCe gave me a wink. “See now that wasn’t so hard now was it Willy.” She said to him before walking off.

The younger man smiled again and simply said. “I’ll have the same.”

I walked over to the kitchen window to put up the ticket only to find the food was already done. “Same time, same thing every day.” Tommy said. “Believe it or not Willys a good guy, you keep his coffee full he’ll leave you a good tip.”

I ran their food out before coming back for the coffee CeCe had ready and some waters.

Sure, enough when they left there was a twenty-dollar bill on the table for me. I couldn’t have been more excited. I cleaned up the table and went to tell CeCe.

I pulled out the twenty.

“I’ll let you keep that one because Willy gave you a hard time but normally, we put all the tips in this jar here and split it at the end of the day.” She told me.

I was still proud that of it, nonetheless.

The rest of the day buzzed by CeCe set me up with a few tables here and there while she handled most of them.

Just before dinner two large men came in sitting at the same table Willy had been at earlier. I looked over at CeCe who motioned for me to help them.

Neither of the men were terribly attractive, not ugly but not destined to be models either. Both well dressed, one had a tattoo peeking out from his collar on his neck and the other a visible tattoo on the back of his hand.

As I walked up to the table Laila started to purr at their scent. Strong and masculine, they both smelled heavily of sandalwood and citrus.

“Can you not right now?” I asked her.

“They smell yummy.” She purred.

“Please don’t embarrass me?” I begged her.

Coming up to the table both men locked their eyes on me, tilting their heads slightly to the side they in hailed deeply. A low rumble coming from the one with the neck tattoo before the other one swiftly kicked him under the table.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend; he isn’t house trained yet.” The left side of his mouth turning up into a half smile.

The other man looked through his eyebrows at him.

They placed their order and ate in silence. The whole time I could feel their eyes on me but whenever I looked, they quickly turned away.

Laila kept bouncing around in my head insisting we go back to their table wanting another whiff of their scent.

“It’s rude to just go running around smelling people you know.” I told her.

“You have to admit they smell so good, I just wanna bite them.” She let out a low growl.

“You may enjoy being looked at like we are on the menu, but I don’t.” I rolled my eyes at her. “Besides it’s making me uncomfortable the way they just keep staring.”

“We should be on the menu; we are just as delicious.” She cooed.

They finished their meal and abruptly left.

CeCe drove me into town after work, she helped me pick out a few groceries and got a couple outfits with my tips for the day.

I all but passed out when I got to my cabin.

The next few weeks went by smoothly. I got better at taking orders and remembering the regulars.

The weekends seemed to bring in large men and beautiful women who frequented the bar all with the same variation of that intoxicating smell. Tommy and CeCe told me they all came from some upscale private gated community a few miles up the road.

Every now and then the men would start trouble but otherwise they were good customers and Laila couldn’t get enough of them.

We seemed to be settling in and quite content until one night a strange man came in and walked straight up to me.

Laila’s mouth watered and she swooned at the very sight of him.

“What’s your name?” He asked in a deep voice that made my knees weak.

“Amanda.” I squeaked out.

“Your full name simpleton.” His insult hitting my ears still making me smile like an idiot.

“Amanda Heartly.” I answered.

“I Blane Thornton of the Dark Moon pack reject you Amanda Heartly as my mate.” His words spat fire into my veins.

Laila howled in my head, and I felt my heart being ripped from my chest. I ran into the bathroom to hide.

Meanwhile a tall muscular man with sandy blonde hair sat at the bar sipping a whiskey on ice pulled out his phone. “You’re not going to believe what I just witnessed.” He said. “That little gal at Tommy’s that everyone has been talking about. Blane just came in and rejected her as his mate.”

“Bring her to me!” The voice on the other end of the line said with a growl.