3: Heat

 

 

“Isn’t that Baxter?” Morales asked. When I didn’t answer, he glanced over at me and his eyes widened at the fury in my expression. “Is everything okay? I thought you were dating Puck…not Baxter.” His voice trailed off a little at the end, suddenly uncertain and maybe a little scared.

I had to focus to get my teeth to unclench. “I am dating Puck, but Baxter is still my friend and his wife is one of the worst people I’ve ever met.”

“You’ve met some pretty awful people since moving to the city,” Morales said, clearly struggling to believe a pregnant woman could be that terrible.

“Yeah, and she’s at the top of my list.”

He still seemed skeptical, but showed his loyalty by saying, “Should I do something about her?”

“Can you arrest her for something?”

“Like what?”

“Being a horrible human being?”

Morales sighed. “Unfortunately, no.”

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I scowled at the diner. “Then I’m on my own. See you later, Morales. Thanks for the ride and feel free to ignore any calls for help originating from the diner.”

He laughed nervously, mostly sure I was joking. “You can call me Chris.”

I wasn’t sure Gordy wanted me getting that friendly with his subordinates, so I only nodded and exited the vehicle without making any promises. I stomped up to the diner and stormed through the dining room without even glancing over at Baxter and Megan’s table. Part of me wondered why the hell Baxter would bring her here. Megan had been viciously rude to me every time we’d crossed paths, calling me a lousy maid and a prostitute. I avoided her even more rigorously than Baxter did, and hadn’t come face to face with her since being accused of being Baxter’s paid booty call. That didn’t mean Baxter didn’t vent about all the shady, manipulative things she pulled in order to delay their divorce and attempt to get him kicked out of the apartment building.

Just because I was dating Puck, it didn’t mean I wasn’t still angry about the way Megan treated Baxter. We were only friends at the moment, but I didn’t take that lightly. Any woman who pretended her unborn child had been fathered by someone simply to ruin their life didn’t deserve any sympathy. She knew the baby wasn’t Baxter’s and refused to submit to a paternity test until after the birth. It kept the divorce battle alive, which kept her on Baxter’s lease because our kooky old landlord took issue with divorce. It also kept Baxter on the verge of being booted from the building.

Danielle, my lesser nemesis, slapped a ticket down on the counter and glared at me. “Who is that woman with Baxter? I hate her, and the fact that he rescued me from jail is not enough to erase her level of bitchiness.”

Coming from Danielle, that said a lot.

“She’s his wife,” I grumbled.

“Wife?” Saul asked, too surprised to ignore our conversation as he usually did when Danielle and I got into it. He glanced over at me. “I thought…”

“It’s a long and miserable story,” I said. That was enough for him to know he wanted nothing to do with it. Saul focused on flipping patties and I turned to Danielle. “I have no idea why she’s here, but don’t feel like you need to be nice to her on Baxter’s account.”

Danielle scoffed. “Nothing could convince me to be nice to that woman. She called me a trashy little whore, just for saying hi to Baxter!”

Quite the judgment for a woman who’d cheated on her husband and purposely gotten pregnant with another man’s baby…twice.

“Baxter asked if you were working and whether or not you had any specials prepared,” Danielle said. “I was going to tell him we never have specials here, but I figured maybe it was some kind of code or something. Is someone trying to kill you again?”

Saul risked peeking over at us.

“No,” I said to reassure them both. “The specials…” My voice trailed off as I realized what Baxter wanted and why he’d brought Megan here. A slow grin spread across my lips. “Danielle, consider your take-home meal for tonight spared. I need to focus my special attention elsewhere.”

“Eliza,” Saul said, a weak warning in his voice.

Before I could promise it wouldn’t be anything lethal, Danielle verbally attacked him. “She called me a trashy little whore, Saul!”

He held up his hands.

When Danielle turned to see if I would pansy out as well, I grinned.

While Danielle and I were still nowhere close to friends, even after I’d helped clear her from murder and drug trafficking charges, the bitterness of our nightly battles had mellowed by a few degrees. On this one thing we would join forces. For very different reasons. For the most part. I was still pissed about being called a prostitute. Picking up the ticket Danielle had just dropped off, I scanned the order and planned my revenge.

“Just…no cops, okay?” Saul pleaded.

“Deal.”

Saul shook his head and went back to his work. He said nothing when I poured a hefty spoonful of white pepper into the light ranch dressing the Queen of Darkness had requested for her spring salad—which was really just a house salad because Saul’s was not the kind of place that served spring salads. After dumping iceberg lettuce, tomato slices, and croutons into a bowl, I drenched the salad in the dressing. The white pepper was invisible and significantly hotter than the black variety. I set the bowl aside and started on Baxter’s usual Rueben sandwich. There were other orders ahead of theirs that I should have been finishing, but I couldn’t resist bumping theirs up. The next time Danielle came around for orders, she saw their ticket and grinned. Saul shivered at her evil expression. I echoed it.

I got back to work then, filling orders and listening for any outbursts from the dining room. It took about fifteen minutes before a fit of furious coughing blasted through the little restaurant. Saul froze. I smiled and kept working, silently laughing as I added orders to the grill. As Megan croaked for water, I heard Saul mutter “milk” and shake his head. Clearly, Megan didn’t know that water only spread the heat while milk suppressed it. Her coughing escalated, drowning out her angry comments directed toward Baxter, Danielle, and me. I couldn’t help lifting up on tiptoe at that point to see the show. She was too loud to hear the laughing I didn’t exactly try to cover up.

The rest of the diner was silent as they stared at the flailing pregnant woman. A few people looked as if they thought they should help, but were too scared to actually attempt it. Megan was shrieking at Baxter between coughs. Baxter, however, remained stoic, a bored expression on his face as he said, “Calm down, Megan. You’re not dying.”

More than one nearby customer snickered at his comment. That earned them a glare, but Megan looked quite a bit less intimidating with tears streaked down her face and a wadded up napkin wiping snot from her nose.

Standing next to their table now, Megan glared down at Baxter once she’d gotten control of herself again. “Your disgusting little girlfriend did that on purpose!”

“Eliza is not my girlfriend,” Baxter said coolly. “She’s my friend, a very good one, and she’s not disgusting. You’ve got that covered all on your own tonight. If you can’t handle a little spice in your dressing, that’s hardly her fault. The only heat you’ve ever been able to stand is what you’ve thrown at others.”

“I ordered ranch dressing!” she argued. “That spiteful bi—”

“You’re the one who insisted we come here to discuss the key situation. There were a thousand other places we could have eaten, but you demanded it be Saul’s, just so you could have another chance to torment her,” Baxter said, his eyes now dark and angry. “I believe that makes you the spiteful bitch, Megan.”

Throwing her snotty napkin at Baxter, Megan only got madder when it lightly bounced against the table nowhere near him. “I am still on the lease! She had no right to take my keys!”

“You were banned from the building for slapping Bernadette,” Baxter reminded her. “Mrs. Osgood can take your keys if she wants. Yelling at me isn’t going to do you any good.”

“I want my keys back!” she shrieked.

Baxter took a bite of his sandwich.

Furious at being ignored, she looked ready to throw something harder than a napkin at him.

“Ma’am,” Saul said, surprising everyone. I hadn’t even realized he’d left my side. Megan spun to glare daggers at him. He flinched, but didn’t back down. “You’re disturbing everyone’s meals. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Her mouth thinned to the point that her lips disappeared. The perfectly manicured fingernails she sported dug into her palms. I worried she’d go ballistic and attack Saul, but she spun around and marched out the front door. Saul blushed when the other diners cheered for him. He waved them off and mumbled that they should get back to eating before he retreated to the kitchen.

“Well done,” I said when he took up his spot at the grill.

He grunted and shook his head. “Hiring you has sure made this place more interesting.”

I grinned, for once taking that as a compliment. We got back to work then, the dinner rush starting in earnest. Neither of us paused until Danielle stopped to say goodbye—which she’d never done before—and rushed off with her non-special meal. Saul left shortly after the orders died down, and I took a moment to breathe. Or, I tried to anyway.