Suspicion lined the crinkles around his eyes. “You don’t care.”
“Of course I care. You’re my grandfather and I love you.”
“Please.” He gave a derisive snort. “I’m your grandfather and I’m not making you pay rent on the upstairs apartment until you’re back on your feet. That’s the only reason you pretend to care.”
I shook my head. The rent situation hadn’t even crossed my mind. I didn’t want this to turn into a thing. As much as I loved my grandfather — and I did — he could turn almost anything into a lengthy diatribe that would psychologically lengthen every work shift. He owned the restaurant — Two Broomsticks Gas & Grill — and I had no choice but to humor him. Otherwise money for things like food ... and gas would dry up faster than a puddle on a sunny day. “I want to hear your philosophy on sunny-side up eggs.”
He stared a moment longer. I knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from telling me. He simply didn’t have it in him. “They’re all perverts,” he announced. “The people who like them, I mean. Sunny-side up eggs look like boobs, and that’s why perverts want to eat them.”
The explanation was worse than I expected. “What sort of yellow boobs have you been looking at?”
“It’s not the color. It’s the shape ... and kind of the texture.”
“Right. Um ... these eggs are going to women. I don’t think they want sunny-side up because they’re perverts. In fact, they’re going to Margo Skinner and Carmela Tompkins, who are both in their seventies last time I checked.”
“Being old doesn’t mean you’re not a pervert.”
“I agree. However, I don’t think Margo and Carmela are perverts. In fact, didn’t Margo consider being a nun?”
“Nuns can be perverts.”
“Duly noted. They still ordered sunny-side up eggs.” I pushed the plates back. “They don’t want scrambled.”
In his younger days, my grandfather was a heckuva worker. He ran the restaurant on his own while my grandmother raised five children (four born in a four-year span) and he built the business into an outright success. He continued to work the grill several mornings a week now that he was older, but he no longer cared about customer satisfaction as much as he had twenty years ago.
“Scrambled eggs are better,” he argued, shoving the plates back at me.
“They ordered sunny-side up.”
“Let them try the scrambled.”
“They’ll just send them back.”
“You don’t know. They’re old. They might not even remember what they ordered.”
“People like eggs a specific way.” I shoved the plates, hard, and he had to pull them off the counter to keep them from toppling to the other side. “Fix the eggs they want. I’m not taking those out there.”
“Oh, you’re such a pain in the ... .” I couldn’t hear the last word but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the general sentiment.
“It will take you three minutes,” I prodded, watching with amusement as he cracked new eggs. “I don’t get the appeal of sunny-side up eggs ... and it’s not because I skipped the pervert gene in the family. Everybody knows that over-medium eggs are the only way to go.”
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. “Scrambled eggs are the best.”
“Did you make scrambled eggs because they’re your favorite?”
“I made them because I cracked the eggs on the grill, which broke the yolks. I didn’t want to waste them.”
“You’ve always been the conscientious sort, never one to waste things.”
“I recognize the tone.” Grandpa’s sneer was pronounced as he went back to watching the eggs. “Speaking of perverts, how are things going with Hunter?”
The abrupt shift in subject matter had me take a moment to adjust. In addition to being one of only three police officers stationed in our tiny little town, Hunter Ryan was also my ex-boyfriend ... and maybe my future boyfriend. It was all very convoluted. Before I left Shadow Hills with dreams of becoming a famous author, we were devoted to one another. Life happened, though, and we separated. Upon my return to town several weeks ago, we ran into one another. Strangely, the spark still lingered and we spent enough time together to decide we wanted to give a relationship as adults a chance. He had to break up with the woman he was dating at the time — and he felt he needed to be respectful of her feelings — so we were one week away from going on an official date. The whole thing gave me a headache if I thought about it too long.
“Hunter isn’t a pervert,” I replied. I felt the need to stand up for my former, kind of current, boyfriend. “He was always very respectful.”
Grandpa’s eyes lit with amusement. “I was talking about you.”
I frowned. “I’m not a pervert.”
“Uh-huh.” Grandpa shook his head as he lifted the eggs with his spatula. “These are almost done.”
“I’m thrilled.”
He pinned me with a dark look. “Nobody needs your attitude.”
“You know, you wouldn’t have to put up with my attitude if you would move me off the morning shift.” This was another sore subject between us. Ever since returning, my ego tucked between my legs, I’d been on probation. Grandpa felt the need to watch me during morning shifts. I was desperate to shake things up, maybe cover the occasional lunch or dinner shift. Anything was better than getting up before the sun five days a week.
“Once you’re off probation, you can change shifts,” Grandpa replied. “You’re not there yet.”
“And when do you think I’ll get there?”
“When you take the scrambled eggs and convince those old biddies they ordered them,” he replied, scooping the sunny-side up eggs onto fresh plates and transferring new hash browns to them. “I expect you to eat both of these wasted breakfasts when you get back.”
We both knew that wasn’t happening. “I already told you that I don’t like scrambled eggs. If you like them so much, you eat them.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Then maybe we’ll both be happy.”
I took the fresh breakfasts and turned on my heel, adding a bit of flounce to my step as I slid through the swinging doors and headed into the cafe portion of the restaurant. Margo and Carmela were deep in conversation when I delivered their plates. I smiled, checked to make sure they were good on coffee, and turned to head back to the kitchen. I had two hours left on my shift and I was determined to finish things out without getting in a huge fight with my grandfather. That meant playing nice ... at least for now.
All thoughts of smoothing things over fled when I came face to face with a different blast from the past. This one had red hair ... and made me feel the opposite of nostalgic.
“Hello, Stormy.” Phoebe Green, the girl voted Most Likely to Destroy Multiple Men in our high school yearbook, pinned me with a patronizing smile as she stood in front of the swinging doors. Our relationship could never be described as close. In fact, she absolutely hated me with a fiery passion that matched her bottle-red hair. I couldn’t claim victim status, though, as I disliked her as much as she loathed me.