“Can’t you wait on me just this once?” he said, loud enough that I could hear him a couple of tables down. “I won’t bite.” He stepped closer to her, leering at her and bending down over her. “Unless you want me to.”
I stood, but I wasn’t alone. Deacon and Everett had caught the exchange too. They followed me as I walked down to the booth next to where he had tossed his hat, apparently claiming it.
“I think you should take your hand off of her,” I said. “Right now.”
His eyes slid slowly from her to me. His grip on her remained for a moment until he caught a look at me and then Deacon and Everett behind me. I could only imagine from his position what it looked like to have three guys like us show up out of the blue, but he dropped her hand like it was on fire and stared at us with his mouth slightly open and his eyes bouncing between the three of us.
I stepped closer, giving Lauren the chance to scoot back a few feet away from him and sidling in between them.
“If I ever see you touch her again,” I said low enough that I wasn’t broadcasting it, but loud enough that he most certainly heard me, “you and I are going to have a problem. You understand?”
“And who the hell are you?” he asked, trying to puff himself up. He was still a good six inches shorter and at least sixty pounds lighter.
“Who am I?” I asked rhetorically. I looked back to Lauren, who had one arm crossed over her chest, her hand resting in her elbow and the other hand touching her face like she had been covering her mouth.
I wanted to say something that would get him to back off. Something that would tell him that his claim to Lauren was null and void. And I was the one who would ensure it.
But I wasn’t that guy.
“A friend,” I said finally.
In that moment, it pained me not to say so much more. I wanted to be so much more. But I had to settle for what I had, and right then, she needed a friend more than anything else, anyway.
Her ex muttered something under his breath, and his disgusted look turned into a cocky smile. He puffed up his chest and stared into my eyes for a moment before flittering over to Deacon and Everett and then back to Lauren. He looked like he was going to say something, then thought better of it and turned to grab his hat. Stuffing it onto his head, he threw one last glare at me and then walked past to open the door and leave.
There was a moment of silence as we watched him stomping away to his car and getting in, revving the engine and peeling out, sending gravel everywhere.
“Dick,” one of the old men at the counter said, shaking his head and turning back to his coffee.
“I’ll second that,” Deacon said.
“Third,” Everett said.
“If you could return to your seats, gentlemen,” another waitress said, coming up to us from the back. “Lauren has asked me to take over your orders. She’s going to go on her break.”
“Fair enough,” Deacon said.
We took our seats and were quiet for a few moments as the waitress brought us our coffees and then took our orders. Once the food was there, Deacon and Everett started trading sides, and things slowly felt a little less tense.
“So,” Deacon said as he pounded through his third pancake, “that guy probably will come back when we aren’t here.”
“I know,” I said. “But he knows we know who he is now. That will help.”
“We could pull shifts,” Deacon said. “I call breakfast.”
“You would,” Everett laughed. “But what’s the good of getting breakfast food during breakfast time? I thought your whole gripe was you thought it should be served all day?”
“You’re right,” Deacon said, then turned to me. “I change my position. I want dinner time.”
“We’re not going to stake the place out,” I said, shaking my head. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Well, when we do,” Everett said, “give me the breakfast shift. At least then I’ll be eating eggs and bacon at a reasonable time of the morning.”
A few minutes later, Lauren returned from the back. It looked like she had reapplied her makeup, and she brought a couple of plates with her, a large piece of carrot cake on the top.
“Are you okay?” I asked as she got to the table and sat the plates down, then passed the empty ones out.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you. I appreciate you stepping in on my behalf. As a token of thanks, I brought you boys some cake. Enjoy.”
“Oh, we can’t take that,” Everett said. “Not without paying for it. We didn’t do anything a good man shouldn’t.”