Divine (12 page)

“
Yeah, I think
that might be a good idea.” He smiled as he looked down at his
hands and started to pick at one of his nails. “I wanted to ask
you something. It's a little ways away, but I have a couple of
tickets to see this rock band, and I wanted to know if you would like
to go with me?” As the sentence left his mouth he looked up at
me to gauge my reaction.

“
That sounds
great,” I said cheerfully, completely ecstatic at the fact that
he was asking me out on what sounded like a date. “What band is
it?”

“
Divine
Intervention.”

“
Hmm, I take it
that it's a band of Divines?”

“
Yeah,” he
nodded, “but most of them don't have any crazy abilities. It's
the drummer that's the main attraction; he can do some pretty cool
stuff with fire.”

“
Wow, that's
cool. It sounds like fun!”

“
Good, okay
then.” We both were smiling as we stood up from the table and
pushed in our chairs. “I'll see you tomorrow for lunch?”
he asked as I grabbed our plates and walked them over to the garbage,
tossing away the leftovers.

“
Yeah, that
sounds good. That is, if you think you can handle the annoying
behavior of my boss . . .”

He chuckled lightly
into the air as he made his way over to the door. “Oh, I think
I can handle him.”

I
know you can handle him; Fox doesn't have anything on you . . .

Brittany waved
vigorously to him on his way out. “Bye Jonah! Thank you for
eating at Walley's!”

“
Bye Brittany,”
he said, giving her a friendly wave as he walked out of the door.

Brittany hopped up and
down behind the counter like an excited little kid. “Oh my
gosh, you guys were laughing so much together! You both were smiling
the whole time; it was so cute!”

I couldn't hide my
beaming smile from the world. For as much as I tried to be an adult,
I felt a little like a kid inside: happy and excited.

“
He invited me to
a concert next month,” I cut in.

“
Cool! What band
are you going to see?”

“
Divine
Intervention. Have you ever heard of them?”

“
Oh yeah, they're
great!” She put her hand on the counter to steady herself as
she pulled her foot up and inspected the bottom of her shoe. “I
think I stepped in gum earlier, I can feel something when I walk.”
She dropped her foot back to the ground, keeping her hand on the
counter. “I guess not; I don’t see anything. Anyways,
Divine Intervention is a great band! I heard that the drummer has a
special ability with fire, and that the government or the FBI or
something like that has to watch him closely . . .”

I shook my head and
chuckled at her liveliness. It seemed like she was always talking in
one big run-on sentence; I loved that about her.

Our chattering stopped
with the sound of Fox's door opening. I flipped around and sped off
to the kitchen before he could make it out of his office. “Give
me something to do, quick,” I hushed the favor to Kevin, hoping
to look busy when Fox came in.

“
Go chop the
onions.”

I ran over to the table
next to him and grabbed the knife to start chopping.

Dangit! I need to
wash my hands but I don't have time. Sorry customers, I'll wash the
next time around.

Fox pushed into the
room right when I cut in to the first onion. I kept my head down and
pretended to be consumed in my task as his shoes squeaked toward me.

“
Have a nice
lunch?” he hissed.

I
looked up from my chopping to see him standing with his arms crossed
in front
of him. The sleeves of his button up
shirt were rolled up past his elbows, showing off
his
tan, strong arms. I couldn't help but notice the masculinity of his
form.

“
Yes, I did,
actually. And why did you talk to me like that in front of a
customer?” I gave him my best annoyed stare and then went back
to aggressively chopping at the onion.

“
He's
not
a customer,”
he corrected, “he's a guy who's trying to get into your pants.
You should stay away from him.”

His bold remark made me
toss the knife harshly down on the cutting board. “What's your
problem, Fox? He's nineteen years old; he's not that much older than
me.” I put my hands on my hips and stared him down, waiting for
a reply.

His expression softened
a bit as he brought his arms down into a gentle clasp in front of
him, the disapproval in his voice falling to more of a concerned
tone. “I'm just looking out for you, that's all.”

“
Well, you’re
not my dad. And if you're going to act like you are, then I'm going
to start calling you Mr. Fox.”

It sounded as if I were
joking, but I kept a straight face and a serious volume to my voice
so he wouldn't think I was. I wasn't going to be controlled by him,
and I certainly wasn't going to let him push me around. A guy like
that was used to girls falling at his feet and listening to his every
command; I wasn't one of those girls.

“
No, no,”
he said, bringing his hands up in front of him. “Mr. Fox is my
dad, remember?”

“
Yes of course I
remember, which is exactly why I am going to call you that from now
on if you keep butting in to my life like that. You're acting like a
dad acts toward his teenage daughter.”

He dropped his arms and
put his hands in the deep pockets of his slacks. “Okay, I'll
stay out of your relationships if you promise to never call my by my
dad's name, deal?”

A small sigh left my
lips. “Yeah, it's a deal. And Jonah is going to be eating with
me a lot more now, so get used to it.”

His eyes narrowed
slightly at my remark. “Like I said, I'm staying out of your
business.”

I grabbed the knife and
went back to chopping. He left without saying another word, and I
didn't watch him leave.

Over the next few weeks
Jonah came to the restaurant almost every day for lunch. We were
becoming really good friends, which I enjoyed, but I wished that it
would move onto something beyond that. He gave me the impression that
he really liked being with me, but he was just taking things really
slow.

Fox seemed to be
getting used to the idea of him being around, but there were a few
times during Jonah's visits when I saw him leaning against the
doorway of his office, staring us down. He was acting really strange
and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what his issue was. After
giving it some thought I decided he was just acting as a “big
brother” to me.

Brittany was around a
lot more, too. She finished a lot of her senior credits early, so she
only went half days to school most of the time, leaving her
afternoons open for work at Walley's.

The day before the
concert Jonah came into the restaurant just as I was getting off of
work. We both took half of that Friday off and planned to go to the
auto shop so I could meet his Divine coworker, Tommy. Afterwards we
decided to go to my house so he could meet my parents, something my
dad was really wanting since I was going to go out alone with Jonah
into the city.

Before leaving we ate
lunch at the same table that we usually did, which was in direct view
from Fox's office.

“
How's the food
today?” I asked him from across the table.

“
Great, as
usual.”

“
I trust it was
to your liking?” I joked, impersonating Fox from a few weeks
before.

Jonah laughed. “Yes,
and the service is exceptional,” he said, repeating the same
conversation.

I put my hand forward
across the table to slap him a lame high five. “We're so funny,
aren't we?”

“
Yeah, we're
hilarious,” he said sarcastically while bringing his hand to
meet with mine. But instead of pulling back and cutting our lazy high
five short, he looked at me with a softened expression and kept his
palm pressed gently against my skin. I took the moment to admire the
strength of his hand and marveled at the greatness of its size; his
fingers by far passed my own.

Shivers of excitement
ran down my body as he decided to make a move, sliding his fingers
into the spaces between mine, clasping my hand softly in the
comforting warmth of his. He was finally touching me, and it felt
completely amazing. I didn't want it to stop.

In an instant the
sensuous moment that we were sharing was over as the lights in the
restaurant began to flicker on and off. Our eyes left each others and
went toward the ceiling to look at the round, inset lights that were
nestled above us.

“
What's going
on?” I uttered quietly. We let go of each others hand and I
turned around in my chair toward the counter to see if Brittany knew
what was going on, but she was nowhere to be found.
She must be in
the kitchen . . .
The lights kept flickering on and off
sporadically as I looked back at Jonah. “This is really weird.”

“
Yeah, I wonder
what's happening?” he said while scanning the room, his eyes
settling on something momentarily before looking back to me. “Hey,
is that Fox?” he said with a nod in the direction behind me.

I turned back around to
see that he was talking about a shadowy silhouette standing in the
back of the room. It was Fox, and he was leaning against the doorway
of his office, staring intently at me through the flickering lights.
A short moment later he stepped backwards into the room and closed
the door behind him. The lights flickered once more and then blasted
on at full strength.

“
That was weird,”
Jonah started, breaking the silence.

I pushed my chair back
from the table and stood up. “Let's get out of here.”

“
Good idea,”
he said, springing up from his seat.

We
made it out the door and onto the sidewalk. I didn't get a chance to
say
goodbye
to Brittany, but earlier I had told her that I would call her after
my day with
Jonah.
She wanted me to fill her in on all the details, and she also wanted
to know what I ended up throwing at Tommy.

Jonah walked me to my
mom's car and I unlocked it and threw my purse onto the passenger
seat like I always did. When I sat down he put one hand on the roof
and leaned in toward me, sending a wave of his cologne drifting past
my face.

“
Follow me over
there?” he asked.

“
Yep, I'll see
you there.”

He made sure that I was
in all the way and then shut my door. The drizzly rain lightly fell
on him as he walked fluidly over to his lifted white Dodge and
hoisted himself up into the cab. There wasn't one thing that I could
find about him that wasn't completely sexy, even when it came down to
his truck.

When he pulled onto the
street I reversed out of the lot and followed a few cars back from
him. I eventually ended up right behind him and could hear the
thumping of bass ringing out from his speakers.

By the time we made it
to the shop the drizzle had turned into a steady rain. Jonah pulled
into a parking space, leaving the one closest to the shop for me to
park in. I stepped out of the car and he was quickly by my side,
playfully holding an auto magazine over my head.

“
My hero,”
I joked, batting my eyelashes at him. He smiled with a soft laugh and
tapped it lightly up and down on my hair. “Get out of here,”
I laughed back, hitting him gently on his chest with the back of my
hand.

We hurried inside to
the office and found Lou sitting in his usual spot at the counter.
This time there weren't any donuts, but he
did
have some fresh
coffee steaming up from a red cup that was sitting in front of him.

“
Well hello
there!” Lou bubbled as he picked up his cup and took a long
sip.

“
Hi Lou, how's it
going?” I asked.

“
Not bad, not
bad. It's pretty ugly outside, don't ya think?”

“
Yes, I
absolutely hate it,” I jokingly confessed. “But I'm
getting used to it now.”

“
Yeah,” he
laughed, “I hate it too.”