Beautiful Sacrifice (2 page)

“Do you have sweet tea?” Taylor asked.

“Yes. Sun tea. Is that okay?”

He nodded before expectantly watching the man in front of him. “What do you want, Dalton?”

Dalton sulked. “They don’t have Cherry Coke.” He looked up at me. “Why doesn’t anyone in the whole goddamn state of Colorado have Cherry Coke?”

Taylor crossed his arms over the table, the muscles of his forearms sliding and tightening under his ink-covered skin. “I’ve accepted it. You should just accept it, man.”

“I can make you one,” I said.

Dalton tossed his menu on the table. “Just bring me a water,” he grumbled. “It’s not the same.”

I took their menus and leaned in toward Dalton’s face. “You’re right. Mine is better.”

As I withdrew, I heard a couple of them giggling like boys.

One of them said, “Whoa.”

I stopped at Don’s table on the way back to the drink station. “You all right?”

Don hummed, “Yes,” while chewing on his steak. He was nearly finished. His other plates, all but the cheesecake, had been scraped clean.

I patted his bony shoulder and then made my way around the bar. I filled two plastic cups with ice water and one with sweet sun tea, and then I began making Dalton’s Cherry Coke.

Phaedra pushed through the double doors and frowned at the sight of a family standing near Kirby’s podium. “There’s a wait?” she asked. She dried her hands on the dishtowel she had tied around her waist as an apron.

Phaedra had been born and raised in Colorado Springs. She and Chuck had met at a concert. She was a full-fledged hippie, and he tried to be one. They would sit in on peace rallies and protest wars, and they were now the owners of the most popular downtown café. Urbanspoon had listed The Bucksaw Café as its number one pick for lunch, but Phaedra would take it personally when she noticed waiting customers.

“We can’t have great service
and
no wait. Busy is good,” I said, mixing my special cherry syrup into the Coke.

Phaedra’s salt-and-pepper long hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a wiry bun, and her wrinkled olive skin weighed down her eyes. She was a wisp of a woman, but it wouldn’t take long to learn she could be a bear if you crossed her. She preached peace and butterflies, but she’d put up with exactly zero shit.

Phaedra looked down as she said, “We won’t be busy for long if we piss people off.” She rushed off to the front door, apologizing to the waiting family and assuring a table soon.

Table twenty had just signed their check. Phaedra rushed over to thank them and bussed their table, quickly scrubbing it. Then she motioned for Kirby to seat the family.

I loaded up the drinks on a tray and then carried them across the room. The crew was still looking at the menu. I inwardly grumbled. That meant they hadn’t decided.

“Do you need a minute?” I asked, giving each man his drink.

“I said a water,” Dalton said, holding up his Cherry Coke with a frown.

“Just try it. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you a water.”

He took a sip and then another. His eyes popped open. “She wasn’t kidding, Taylor. It’s better than the real stuff.”

Taylor looked up at me. “I’ll have one, too, then.”

“You got it. Lunch?”

“We’re all having the spicy turkey panini,” Taylor said.

“All of you?” I asked, dubious.

“All of us,” Taylor said, handing me the laminated long sheet.

“Okay then. I’ll be back with your Cherry Coke,” I said before leaving them to check on my other tables.

The dozens of voices in the packed café bounced off the windows and came straight back to the bar where I was mixing another Cherry Coke. Kirby rounded the counter, her shoes squeaking against the orange-and-white tiled floor. Phaedra was fond of random—fun portraits, trinkets, and off-color signs. They were all eclectic, like Phaedra.

“You’re welcome,” Kirby said, tucking her shirt into her skirt.

“For the tray stand? I already said thank you.”

“I’m referring to the gaggle of hot firemen I seated in your section.”

Kirby was barely nineteen, baby fat still plumping her cheeks. She’d been dating Gunnar Mott since her sophomore year of high school, so she took extreme pleasure in trying to fix me up with every halfway decent-looking man with a job who walked through the door.

“No,” I said simply. “I’m not interested in any of them, so don’t even try your matchmaking crap. And they’re hotshots, not firemen.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes, a big one. For starters, they fight wildfires. They hike for miles with huge packs and equipment; they’re on the job seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day; they travel to wherever the fire is; and they saw through fallen timber and dig fire lines.”

Kirby stared at me, unimpressed.

“Do
not
say anything to them. I mean it,” I warned.

“Why not? All four of them are cute. That makes your odds fairly fantastic.”

“Because you suck at it. You don’t even care if they’re my type. You just set me up with guys, so you can date them vicariously. Remember the last time you tried to set me up with someone? I was stuck with that slimy tourist for an entire evening.”

“He was so sexy,” she said, fantasizing in front of God and everyone.

“He was boring. All he talked about was himself and the gym … and himself.”

Kirby ignored my resistance. “You’re twenty-four. There is nothing wrong with putting up with an hour of boring conversation to experience three hours of amazing sex.”

“Ew. Ew, no. Stop.” I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, involuntarily imagining dirty talk that included the words
repetitions
and
protein
. I put Taylor’s cup on a tray.

“Falyn, you’re up!” Chuck called from the kitchen.

I swung by the food window, tray in hand, seeing that table thirteen’s order was sitting on the shelf cut out of the wall separating the bar from the kitchen. The heat lamps above warmed my hands as I grabbed each plate and placed them on the tray, and then I rushed the food to the table. The author and her assistant barely noticed as I placed the beef and feta cheese salad and chicken club on the table.

“Does everything look all right?” I asked.

The author nodded her head, barely taking a breath while she chatted away. I carried the final Cherry Coke to the hotshot crew, but as I walked away, one of them grabbed my wrist. I looked over my shoulder, glaring at the man with the offending hand.

Taylor winced at my reaction. “A straw?” He loosened his grip. “Please?” he asked.

I slowly pulled one from my apron and handed it to him. Then I spun around and checked on the rest of my tables, one after another.

Don finished off his cheesecake and left a twenty on the table, as he always did, and the author left twice that. The hotshot crew’s signed receipt was merely rounded up to the next dollar.

I tried not to wad it up and stomp it into the ground. “Dicks,” I said under my breath.

The rest of the afternoon was nonstop, not unlike any other afternoon since the Urbanspoon app had decided to put The Bucksaw Café on the foodie map. As the hours passed, I served more firefighters and hotshot crews, and they all left decent tips, as did the rest of my tables, but I couldn’t shake the bitterness for Taylor, Zeke, Dalton, and Trex.

Fifty-one cents. I should hunt them down and throw the change at them.

The streetlights shone down on those walking past the diner to the two-story country-western bar four buildings down. Young women, most barely twenty-one, trotted along in groups, wearing short skirts and tall boots, as they enjoyed the summer night air—not that August had the corner on skin-baring clothes. Most locals would shed their layers for anything over forty degrees.

I flipped the sign on the door, so the word
Closed
faced the sidewalk, but I leaped back when a face loomed over me from the other side. It was Taylor, the hotshot crew guy and piss-poor tipper. Before my brain had time to stop my expression, I narrowed my eyes and sneered.

Taylor held out his hands, his voice muffled from the glass. “I know. Hey, I’m sorry. I was going to leave cash, but we were called out, and I forgot. I should have known better than to come into town while we were on call, but I was sick of the food at the hotel.”

I barely recognized him without the seven layers of grime. Wearing clean clothes, he could have been mistaken for someone I might actually find attractive.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, turning for the kitchen.

Taylor pounded on the glass. “Hey! Lady!”

Deliberately slow, I faced him, craning my neck. “Lady?” I nearly spit the word.

Taylor lowered his hands and then shoved them in his pockets. “Just open the door, so I can tip you. You’re making me feel bad.”

“You should!” I spun around in a huff to see Phaedra, Chuck, and Kirby behind me, all far too amused with the situation. “A little help here?”

They all shared the same smug expression, and I rolled my eyes, facing Taylor once again.

“I appreciate the gesture, but we’re closed,” I said.

“Then I’ll tip you double when I come back.”

I dismissively shook my head. “Whatever.”

“Maybe I could, uh … take you out to dinner? Kill two birds with one stone.”

I arched an eyebrow.

Taylor glanced from one side to the other. Passersby were beginning to slow, so they could watch our exchange.

“No, thank you.”

He puffed out a laugh. “You’re acting like I’m a weapons-grade asshole here. I mean, I might be—a little. But you … you’re … distracting.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault you didn’t leave a tip?” I asked, touching my chest.

“Well … kind of,” he said.

I glared at him. “You’re not an asshole. You’re a cunt rag.”

Taylor’s mouth slowly turned up into a broad grin, and he pressed both palms against the glass. “You’ve gotta go out with me now.”

“Get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Falyn!” Phaedra screeched. “For God’s sake!”

I reached up and switched off the outside light, leaving Taylor in the dark. The mop and yellow bucket I’d just filled with soapy hot water before I had been so rudely interrupted was still waiting.

Phaedra clicked her tongue at me and then took my place at the front door, turning the key in the lock until it clicked before letting the metal fall into her apron. Chuck ducked into the kitchen while Kirby and I cleaned the dining area.

Kirby shook her head as she swept under table six. “You’re going to regret that.”

“Doubtful.” I reached into my apron and popped a large chunk of bubble gum into my mouth.

Kirby’s face fell. I couldn’t tell if she felt sorry for me or if she was just tired of arguing.

My trusty old earbuds fit snugly into my ears, and the lead singer of Hinder crooned through the wires running from my cell phone as I pushed the mop around on the tiled floor. The wooden handle would usually leave at least one splinter in my hand a night, but I would be glad to have that rather than mandatory three-days-a-week piano lessons. It was preferable to reporting my whereabouts every few hours or else risking public reprimand and far better than going to med school.

I loathed being sick or being around the sick, bodily fluids, and physiology in its most basic form. The only people who thought it would be a good idea for me to go to med school were my asshole parents.

During the two-second pause after “The Life” ended, I could hear knocking on the glass panes that made up the front wall of The Bucksaw Café. I looked up and froze, pulling on each wire hanging from my ears.

Dr. William Fairchild, the former mayor of Colorado Springs, was standing on the sidewalk, tapping his knuckles again even though I was looking right at him.

“Oh, shit. Shit … Falyn,” Kirby hissed.

“I see him … and her,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the petite blonde nearly hidden behind the portly doctor.

Phaedra immediately went to the front door and jammed the key in the lock, twisting it. She pulled but didn’t welcome the people standing on the sidewalk. “Hello there, Dr. Fairchild. We weren’t expecting you.”

He thanked her, taking off his cowboy hat, before attempting to walk inside. “Just needed to speak to Falyn.”

Phaedra put her hand on the doorjamb, barring him from taking another step. “Sorry, William. Like I said, we weren’t expecting you.”

William blinked once and then glanced back at his wife.

“Falyn,” she said, peering over her husband’s broad shoulder.

She was wearing an expensive gray sheath dress with matching shoes. By her attire and his suit and tie, I guessed they had come downtown to meet someone for dinner.

She sidestepped, so she could face me head-on. “Do you have time to talk?”

“No.” I blew a large bubble and let it snap back.

The double doors swung open, and Chuck arrived from the kitchen, his hands and forearms still wet and covered in suds. “Dr. Fairchild,” he said. “Blaire.”

Blaire wasn’t pleased. “Also Dr. Fairchild,” she said, attempting to sound casual but failing.

“No disrespect,” Chuck began, “but you can’t come here, unannounced. I think you know that. Now, why don’t you call the next time? It would cause less stress for everyone.”

Blaire’s eyes targeted Chuck. She was already planning on making him regret standing up to her.

“There’s a young man outside. Is he here to see you?” William asked.

I dropped the mop and rushed past Phaedra and my parents to see Taylor standing with his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, leaning against the corner of the building, just beyond the glass wall.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked.

Taylor stood up straight and opened his mouth to speak.

William pointed to him. “Is he one of those damn provisional Land Management trash?”

The redness in William’s cheeks and the sudden gloss in his eyes filled me with a satisfaction only true spite could produce.

Taylor took a few steps in our direction, completely undeterred by William’s anger. “This must be your dad.”

I chomped the wad of gum in my mouth, annoyed with the unexpected introduction.