Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
And says: “Could use a little sauce.”
I lift my eyebrows. “You sure about that? Everyone knows a steak here is seasoned perfectly with Gran’s special recipe. She’s a staple in this town, which I wouldn’t expect you to know. You are eatin’ some prime stuff, cooked to perfection.”
Bridger only looks at me, saying nothing, doing nothing, his eyes trained on mine with a vengeance I know is there but he’s refusing to show.
This is a thousand times better than any squeeze of his ass in a hairy monster costume.
“But don’t worry,” I assure his smart-ass face, “I’ll bring you some sauce anyway. Just sit tight-assed. Sorry,” I correct myself, “I mean: just sit tight.”
Then I wink.
And off I go, right back to the kitchen with the empty tray and the folded stand, with a pep in my step and halfway to whistling.
“He seriously ordered it that way?” asks Denny in the kitchen, the cook responsible for the shoe leather, squinting at me over the grill while cooking up two ribeyes for another table. “What kinda weirdo orders a perfectly fine steak ‘overly well-done’?”
“Dunno. People with sticks up their asses, I guess.” I chuckle and shake my head, still wiping tears of joy out of my sleepy eyes. “I’m riding a high so good right now, I don’t know whether I’m in a dream or it’s my birthday.”
“Not until November.” Denny winks. “I remember.”
“Only because it’s the same as your brother’s and he doesn’t even live here anymore. No one celebrates my birthday, not even my own parents.” I rummage through the sauce bottles. “They’re just amazed I survived another year bein’ me, I guess.”
Thoughts of my parents drag me right on down from my high. I can’t believe my mom had a fall recently and no one told me. No one even called. Just because I’m not home as often lately doesn’t mean one of them couldn’t have picked up a phone and told their only damned son. I thought my dad and I were having a kind of breakthrough over the summer, now that he and my mom were getting along more lately, going on walks, living their best lives and all that shit.
Maybe they’ve only been happiest when I’m out of their hair.
“Ah, here we go,” I say, fishing the bottle out of a cluster of them, “the perfect sauce.”
“That isn’t steak sauce,” says Denny.
“I’ve seen people use it on steak.”
“It’s spicy as fuck and packed with habanero.”
“Some like their steak hot.”
Denny eyes me. “What nonsense are you up to, Anthony?”
I move to the swinging kitchen door, peering through the tiny window in it. Bridger is perfectly visible down the aisle, and would you know it, he’s still working his way through that steak. I could have served him a literal shoe and he’d force himself to eat it, just to prove something to me. What does he think he’s proving? All I get from this performance is that I was right from the start: He’s a bigheaded out-of-towner who thinks he can’t do wrong and never apologizes for anything.
I push through the door into the noise. A smile on my face. A bottle of sauce in my hand.
He spots me so fast, it’s obvious he’s angry.
Even if his smug, handsome face looks perfectly calm.
Patient, even.
“Here you go.” I set the bottle in front of him. I’m still smiling. “Why don’t you give it a taste? See if it’s to your liking?”
The douchebag doesn’t even look at the bottle. “I’m sure it’s dandy,” he says politely, pops off the lid, drizzles a hell-spiral of doom on his meat, then saws off a bite of steak and pops it into his mouth. “Tastes much better,” he says.
Or tries to say—before the spice kicks him in the nuts.
“Huh? What’s that?” I ask innocently. Beautiful Bridger is still sputtering for words. He looks so stupid. I wish I could photograph his face right now and frame it on my wall. “The taste is outta this world and you feel like you’re shitting your pants?”
He gags, rasps, and drops his fork.
“Tastes so good you’re chokin’ on it?” My own question makes me chuckle. Bridger continues to struggle for words. Then I stop chuckling at once. “Wait. Are you choking? For real choking?”
Bridger grabs at his throat.
My stomach falls out of my butt, horrified.
“Move!” shouts Pete, flying out of his seat and shoving me aside—and causing Cody to rise to his feet at once, visibly shaken by the outburst. With Hulk-like strength, the guy lifts Bridger out of his seat with ease, hugging him from behind, his fists pressed to his stomach, and starts giving him the Heimlich right there, over and over. I stand before Bridger, petrified, as the guy continues to gag, gasp, and hiss, his eyes watery and panicked, with Pete thrusting his fists into him over and over.