Great Big Beautiful Life(17)

“I thought you were here alone,” the man says, either too drunk or too clueless to realize how horrifying that is to hear, as a woman who is, in fact, frequently traveling alone.

I open my mouth to try to excuse Hayden and me from the conversation, but Hayden’s faster: “Nope.” He curls an arm loosely around my waist. “Not alone.”

The man’s face slackens, his hand finally sliding off my arm. “You should’ve said so,” he slurs at me irritably.

Yes, I’m the one at fault here.

I shrug like, Whaddya gonna do?

“If you’ll excuse us,” Hayden says, “I think we’ll take this break from our room as a chance to go get breakfast.”

The man swats an annoyed hand in our direction as Hayden turns and steers me deeper into the parking lot, his arm falling away.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m really bad at that.”

His gaze lances over his shoulder at me. “Bad at what?”

“Avoiding drunk people,” I say. “Avoiding creepy people. Not starting conversations with strangers. Getting out of conversations with strangers. You name it.”

The corners of his mouth tighten. He stops beside the passenger door of his rental car. I look back the way we came, and find our inebriated friend leaned at a nearly forty-five-degree angle against a tree.

“If we give it five minutes, he’ll be asleep and we can go back and wait with everyone else,” I say.

Hayden’s frown deepens.

“I mean, not that you have to stay with me!” I add. “Honestly, now that I know his whole deal, I’m fine. I just won’t engage again. I know we already said our farewells this morning, so.”

His head tilts like he’s puzzling over something. “I was serious, about going to get breakfast. If you want to join.”

“It’s four a.m.,” I point out.

“These things always take forever, even when they’re false alarms,” he says. “We’ll be out here at least another hour. Might as well go somewhere more comfortable.”

“But it’s four a.m.,” I repeat.

“So you’re not hungry?”

“I’m famished,” I say, “but nothing will be open.”

He turns and unlocks the passenger door. “Something,” he says, “is always open.”



* * *



? ? ?

    Hayden punches Ray’s Diner into his GPS once we’re settled in the car. It’s twenty-five minutes away, back on the mainland.

“Maybe I should’ve mentioned,” he says, “the something that’s open is toward Savannah. Closest thing I could find. That a problem?”

I shrug. “Not for me. Like you said, these things always take forever anyway. But if you wanted to go back to sleep—”

“I can never go back to sleep once I get up,” he tells me, starting the car. “Thus why I know about Ray’s Diner.”

When we get there, a few trucks and cars are already littered throughout the lot. Bells tinkle over the door as we let ourselves in.

A server in a mint-green dress and apron is mopping between the tables, and oldies play quietly over the crackly speakers. A grizzly bearded man looks over at us, noticing that we’re in pajamas—or rather, I am; Hayden’s in black sweats and a white T-shirt, so he’s more discreet—but then goes back to eating his eggs.

The server looks up from mopping as we pass and nods a greeting. “Be right with ya,” she promises, and we settle into the corner booth.

“You’re a real corner-booth guy,” I say.

His brows pinch. “What?”

“You took the corner booth at Fish Bowl too.”

“The corner booth is objectively the best booth.”

“Says who?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. No one needs to say it. It’s obvious.”

I gesture toward the other few diners, most of them likely long haulers or people getting off third shift. “None of them chose this booth.”

“It was probably occupied when they got here,” he says, unfolding one large plasticky menu and sliding another across the Formica tabletop toward me.

“How many times have you been here since you got to town?” I ask.

“Four,” he says, not missing a beat. “Counting today.”

“And how many of those times have you scored this booth?” I ask.

His eyes slowly peel up from the menu to meet mine. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Smiling like you’ve just walked into a surprise birthday party,” he says. “When almost nothing is happening.”

“Something is happening,” I counter. “I’m getting to know your idiosyncrasies.”

“My idiosyncrasies?” He scoffs a little, sets the menu down. “You’re the one who sleeps in an I Dream of Jeannie costume.”

I devolve into laughter at that.

The server sidles up, her notepad ready and waiting. “Get ya anything to drink?”

“Coffee,” he says, then looks to me.

“Me too.”

“What about food? Ya ready to order?” she asks us.