Terri Osburn - Up to the Challenge

“Sorry for the holdup, folks. Did everyone get what they wanted?”

Two women occupied the left bench while two guys in ball caps held down the right. The guy on the end wore his hat backwards and his chin looked like the home of a Chia Pet. More clean-cut, guy two looked to be hiding a unibrow under his low-pulled cap, with sunglasses perched over the bill.

They looked the type to chest bump while watching football. Both stared at Sid in silence, while the woman across from Chia smacked her neighbor, who looked up from sipping her drink. The smackee didn’t look a day over nineteen. Sid would have carded her if she’d asked for anything stronger than soda.

Young thing’s straw danced between cubes as she dropped her glass to the table. Chia and shades sunk into their seats like someone had let the air out of the cushions. “We’ve got everything we could ask for now,” said one of the men. A thud came from under the table. “Ow!”

“Okay then.” Either these guys were lightweights who got a buzz off half a glass, or something weird was going around this restaurant. “Ready to place your order?”

Frat boys looked smacked dumb, so she turned to the women. Chia’s girl spoke up. “We’re ready.”

Sid waited, pen poised. Another thud and the guy closest to the window jerked upright. “We’ll each have the Dempsey All American with fries on the side for her,” he waved a hand toward the woman sitting across from him, “and onion rings for me.”

Sid dropped her hands to her hips. “Is that your girlfriend?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” the woman answered for him.

“And he ordered for you like that? Dude. You should kick him again.”

“Hey.”

“I should.” Another thud.

“Stop that, damn it.”

Sid tsked. “Not the way to talk to a lady.” She turned to the other man. “I bet you can do better. What will it be, scruffy?”

He scooted his legs outside the booth before ordering. “Meagan will have the grilled chicken salad with dressing on the side and I’ll take the cheeseburger.” Girlfriend lifted a brow and he added, “Please.”

“That’s the way to do it. Two All Americans, fries and onion rings, grilled chicken salad, dressing on the side.” She lifted her pen. “What kind of dressing?”

“Ranch.”

“Got it.” Sid pointed the pen at Scruffy. “And you’re the cheeseburger. Fries good with that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then we’re all set.” Collecting the menus, Sid leaned close to the brunette. “Just my observation, but you two could do better.”

The woman’s blue eyes widened, then she grinned.

Before the first customers had rolled in, Daisy told Sid that if the female customers were happy, then everybody’s happy. Since the frat boys didn’t look like big tippers, this table seemed like the right place to test that strategy.

“I’ll put the orders in, then come check on you for refills.” Sid tucked the menus under her arm and moved to the next table over. This one held a family of four—mom, dad, boy, and girl—but the mom and girl had disappeared. “How we doing over here? Are the ladies going to need refills?”

A towheaded boy, maybe six years old, looked up from the Matchbox car he’d been pushing around his plate. When he caught sight of Sid, the car zoomed off the table. “You look like the ladies on daddy’s secret calendar.”

Daddy choked on his tongue and covered the little guy’s mouth. Thanks to a receding hairline, the blush covered his entire head. “Yes, we’ll take drinks all around if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all.” Sid winked at the little boy. “That’s not a dog calendar, is it?”

Munchkin shook his head.

“Good. Be right back with the drinks.”

Weaving through the tables, she reached the bar and found Lucas back at her end filling a beer from the tap. “You shouldn’t have sent Daisy out with those drinks. I wasn’t gone that long.”

Lucas looked up and froze, the beer still pouring.

“Not you, too,” she said. “Did someone spray brain fog in here while I was back in the office?”

“You took your shirt off.” The beer flowed.

“That is why I went back there.”

Beer reached the top of the glass and spilled over, drenching his hand. “Shit.” Lucas cut off the tap and set the glass in the sink. Pulling the rag off his shoulder, he wiped his hands. “You look … different.”

Sid looked down. Nothing looked different from that angle. “Did I grow a third eye?”

“No, but you grew something.” Lucas huffed, pacing the two feet to the back counter, then back to the bar. “That’s what you hide under those T-shirts?”

“You act like I’m wearing a sidearm. They’re tits, Dempsey. Every woman has them.”

“Not like those they don’t.”

Daisy stepped up next to Sid. “Look,” Sid said. She stood close to the other waitress for comparison, ignoring the fact the blonde’s boobs were at her eye level. “She has them too. In fact,” she waved an arm in the air, “this place is crawling with the things.”

“I hope we’re talking about eyebrows,” said Daisy, “or this would be weird.”

Sid snagged the pitchers of sweet tea and soda. “We’re talking about boobs. Dempsey here’s never seen any before.”

“I’ve seen plenty,” he argued, but Sid kept walking.

Sid considered pouring the pitchers over her own head. The heat in Lucas’s eyes had loosened up her gut and sent currents shooting through her limbs. Felt like when she used a drill too long and the vibrations skittered along her skin even after she’d turned it off.

The night Beth had dolled her up, Sid had felt like a girl for the first time in years. Maybe ever. But the look she’d just gotten from Lucas made her feel like a woman. Something new and freaky and unexpected. In a good way. Kind of.

“Who needed the refills?” she asked, returning to the little boy’s table. The mother and daughter had returned. The dad kept his eyes on his plate.

“I’ll take one, but no more for the kids, thanks,” said the mom.

“She’s our calendar girl,” the little boy said, smiling to reveal a gaping hole where a tooth used to be. “Ain’t she, Dad?”

“Our what?” the mother asked.

“Nothing, dear.” The dad wrapped an arm around the boy’s head, tucking him into his side. The move looked more like an attempt to suffocate the kidlet than hug him. “Could we get the check, please?”

“But mom said we could have cherry pie for dessert and we haven’t even ordered that yet.” The girl looked slightly older than her brother and sported the same toothless grin. Sid wondered if they’d knocked them out for each other the way Randy had once knocked hers out during a wrestling match.

He’d panicked at the sight of blood, giving Sid the chance to pin him the required three seconds and claim victory.

“One piece of pie for each?” she asked the mom.

Headband askew on her short brown hair, the woman looked from one child to the other. “One piece and they can split it.”

“Aw, Mom,” echoed in stereo.

“One piece of cherry with two forks on the way.” Sid glanced over to the dad, who looked ready to bolt. “And I’ll bring the check.”

Spotting new customers filing into an empty booth in her section, Sid decided to get their drink orders before hitting the kitchen for the pie. Though she’d never admit it, she kind of liked being called a calendar girl.

Lucas had never been punched before, but seeing Sid standing there looking like a goddess in white cotton and hints of pink lace knocked the wind out of him. The one or two times he’d seen her smile had sent him back a step, but the full blast of that body about put him on his ass.

How the hell could anyone hide all that? From the smooth, olive shoulders to the trim waist and sultry curve of her hips. And the breasts were perfection, especially in that lacy number clearly visible beneath the white cotton of the tank. The designer of that garment deserved an award.

And that begged another question. What was Sid doing wearing a girlie number like that?

Lucas decided there needed to be a law against Sid Navarro ever wearing anything baggy. Ever. Maybe he could file the papers to add a statute to the island bylaws. Gather a petition if necessary. Every male on Anchor would sign.

For the two hours following what he now thought of as the big reveal, Sid barked out drink orders and he filled them. No casual banter. No snide insults. No harmless teasing. Something had changed between them. As if a switch were thrown and a cloud of sexual tension fogged up his brain.

He’d like to think the same cloud fogged Sid’s brain, but then he hadn’t taken anything off (something he’d be willing to correct) and her face gave nothing away. The woman was operating like a robot. No facial expression, unless you counted that crease between her brows and stubborn set of her chin to be a facial expression.

“Looks like the place is still standing. That’s a good sign,” said Joe, joining Lucas behind the bar. “Everything go okay?”

Lucas was tempted to say no, then demand to know why Joe hadn’t warned him about Sid and her best-kept secret. Or secrets, in this case. But then Joe wouldn’t notice a glacier unless it landed on his boat. He never did have much of a radar for hot women. Until Lucas had put his fiancée in Joe’s path. Then the radar zoomed right in.

“What’d you think, that I’d ruin the business in one day?”

“Forget I asked.” Joe dropped his keys in a drawer below the register. “Let me grab some rags, then I’ll take over so you can count your drawer.”

A simple “thanks” should have been his response. Instead Lucas said, “You do that.” Six weeks of acting like a douche was not in his plans, but he needed another day or two to adjust his attitude. He’d prefer to make the adjustment himself rather than force Joe to take matters into his own hands.