To Hold and to Heal (BWWM Interracial Romance) (5 page)

             
“Oh you're a cook now?”

             
He shook his head. “Nope but it can't be that difficult to run a grill. Were you making gourmet meals back there? Do I need some sort of degree from a culinary institute?”

             
Before Nice could open her mouth, Peggy shot her hand over it. “Honey, I don't think you even know how to run the kitchen. I'll show him where everything is at.” She dropped her hand from Nice's mouth.

“Fine, whatever,” Nice replied. “I'll set up the bar. Can’t get much worse than it already is.”

             
Clenching her teeth she went to work. The nerve of him! She wanted to throw him out, but she was down two of her staff. Behind her she could hear Peggy showing him where everything was.

Well maybe he’ll finally leave once he’s “helped” me.
She wasn’t sure if the thought made her happy or sad.

             
Peggy came out from the back. “So what is with you and that tall drink of water?”

             
“What the hell are you talking about? He's just here to get over some guilt he has about Sam's death.”

             
Peggy shook her head. “I saw how you looked at him. There's something else there.”

             
“Oh, you mean all the sex we had the other night? That could be it.”

             
“Oooh… little Ms. Nice has to live with a morning after! The queen of avoiding relationships has a suitor,” Peggy said, laughing.

             
Nice rolled her eyes. “Hardly. And I'm pretty sure that finding out the guy from the night before is your dead brother's best friend isn't exactly a normal morning after issue. He's just feeling guilty. That’s all. He'll be gone tomorrow.”

             
Peggy screwed up her face. “Tomorrow? I don’t think so. Not with the way he looks at you.”

             
“You're crazy. Just help me with the bar. Go take some chairs off tables. Do something!”

             
“Speaking of the bar. . .”

             
Nice shook her head. “I don't know yet what I’m going to do. I haven't really had much of a chance to think about things in the two days that this whole thing has been going on. I'll deal with the bank on Monday.”

             
Peggy nodded and started taking chairs off of the tables. The night would start soon.

***

             
The evening was thankfully slow since it turned out that Tanya called in too claiming that her kids were sick. Nice wondered if all of her employees were off somewhere together, having fun, while she was stuck in the purgatory of her own life.

             
It wasn't too bad though. Peggy waited the tables, cracking jokes and keeping things lighthearted. Alden turned out to be not half bad as a fry cook. Even with his bum leg he was still faster than Bill.

             
At the end of the night, Peggy swept and mopped the floor turning the chairs over onto the tables before leaving.

             
“Thanks Peggy,” Nice said, yawning. “I owe you a big one for coming in tonight to help me out.”

             
“You're welcome, hon. I would say anytime but, no.” She gave her a hug and bounced to the door. “Oh and Nice, you might want to stop being so nasty and give Alden a chance. He's not such a bad cook and you can probably pay him in pussy.” Peggy's laughter at her own joke trailed behind her as she left the bar.

             
“What's so funny?” Alden asked, coming out from the kitchen with a plate piled high with food in one hand.

             
“Nothing. What's up with that?” Nice asked, turning towards him.

             
He put the plate down on the bar. “Food for you. I thought after nine hours of standing on your feet you might be sort of hungry.”

             
She wasn't until he mentioned it. As if he suddenly reminded her that she needed to take time to eat, to live like a normal person. She sat at the bar and started picking at the fries. Before she knew it she was stuffing her face. He smiled and slid onto a bar stool with a loud grunt.

             
“You okay?” she asked around a mouth of burger.

             
“Yeah. I've just been on my leg all day. I'd like to lay down and not get up again for about twelve hours,” he replied.

             
“Well remember, you volunteered.” Nice stopped herself, remembering Peggy’s advice. “Do you need some ice, or something?”

             
Alden shook his head.  “Nah. I'll be fine.”

             
“You look better with hair.”

             
“Excuse me?”

             
“Hair,” she said, pointing at the picture of him with her brother and their unit on the wall. “You didn't have any there. And you look better with it.”

             
“I figured being a man in uniform would make up for how hideous my nearly bald head made me.”

             
She laughed.

             
“I don't really know much about you,” he said. “I mean, I've been carrying your picture around for three years, but I don't know who you are. Not really.” He smiled at her, his green eyes sparkling. “I'm pretty sure you wish I would just leave you alone.”

             
She swallowed a mouthful of food. “Yeah, but you won't. What I don’t know is why.”

             
He shrugged. “Because everyone else does.”

             
She moved to object around a mouthful of food, but there was something in his face that stopped her. Instead she settled into her chair and looked away sheepishly. She didn’t have the energy to lie and even if she did, it wouldn’t have mattered. Swallowing her food she said, “Yeah, well I can’t say I’m a whole lot of fun to be around these days.”

             
He plucked one of the fries off of her plate. “Maybe nobody really knows you,” he said before eating it.

             
She laughed. “There’s nothing to know. I’m just Nice. I run this place. That’s about it.”

             
“Nice,” he said her name the proper way. The accented sound rolling off of his tongue into the still air of the bar. She felt her heart beat hard in her chest, a blush rise to her cheeks. “You are far more than just this bar.”

             
She closed her eyes and shook the feeling off. “No, I’m not. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

             
He touched her bare knee. Fire flooded her as the memory of his touch filled her mind. His eyes locked on hers. “Don’t say that. Tell me more about you.”

             
She shivered and pushed his hand away. “Why? What does it matter? You’ll be gone soon anyway.”

             
“I’ll be gone soon so what does it hurt to tell me?”

             
Everything,
she thought. Out loud she said, “My brother probably told you anything there was to know about me anyway.”

             
He smiled. “I’m sure he left out some parts.” He grabbed another fry from the plate.

             
Nice felt her guard dropping. “Why are you eating all my fries? You made these for me and now you're eating them.” She playfully plucked the fry out of his fingers and stuffed it into her own mouth. He smiled and reached for another one. She shook her head and moved the plate just out of his reach. “Make your own, Army boy, these are mine.”

             
He made a mock hurt face. “Come on, share. I cleaned the kitchen, don't make me drop another batch. I’ll have to clean again.”

             
Nice felt her eyes widen. “You cleaned the kitchen? Oh no you didn't!”

             
“What do you think took so long back there?” He reached for the plate again.

             
“Oh no, you don't get these fries! You are a liar and liars do not get fries!”

             
“What did I lie about? And I made those! The least you can do is share.”

             
She slid off the stool. “I'm going to go check and call you out for the bald faced liar you are.”

             
She walked around Alden and into the back. The scent of cleaning supplies hit her nose before she turned on the light. The light flickered on the shiny surfaces of  appliances. Everything was sparkling clean.

“Holy shit! You did clean!” she shouted.

“I told you!” 

             
She ran up to the serving window. “Bill never cleans the kitchen and he shuts down the same time you did! How did you do this?”

             
He looked up from the plate he had stolen back. “Good old elbow grease. And I'm military. We get really good at cleaning things.”

             
“Hey! You better get your hands off of my fries!”

             
Alden laughed as Nice rounded the corner of the bar again. She pulled herself up on the stool and pulled the plate back to herself.

             
“I think you need better employees,” Alden said seriously, looking around the bar.

             
She made a dismissive sound. “I can't afford better employees.”

             
“You look like you did alright tonight.”

             
“Yeah, it looks like we did alright, but after paying for everything and everyone and then taking care of my dad there's nothing left.”

             
Alden touched her hand. “Sam told me that your father had some problems.”

             
“Problems? Ha! He's a fucking drunk! He hasn't been sober since my mom died ten years ago!”

             
“You were sixteen,” he said softly.

             
She nodded at the memory. “How did you know?”

             
Alden rubbed his chin. “Sam told me. Said that you were sixteen when your mother died and he was eighteen. Told me he left and tried to help out and ended up joining the Army.”

             
“Sam ran away.”

             
He laughed, a short sound in his throat. “Joining the Army and being sent into a war zone isn't exactly running away.”

             
“It is if you volunteer. Look, Sam didn't want to be stuck with all this. The bar, Dad, me. None of it. He found a way out but someone has to be responsible.” All the good humor of the evening melted away. Alden's face was a mask of confusion.  She felt the old anger rising in her. “Oh what? Let me guess. He told you he was playing the big hero? Probably sending money back every month and writing me letters?”

             
“I saw him,” Alden replied.

             
“Saw him what?”

             
“Send you money. I dropped off a few letters at the post for him. Nice, I saw him do it, I swear.” There was a conviction in his voice, in his eyes. He reached out, putting his fingertips on her bare arm. “Nice, your brother loved you.”

             
“No. Bullshit! My brother didn't send me anything. EVER!” She was vaguely aware that her voice was raised, that she was yelling. “He got out of this mess as soon as he could and never looked back! And you expect me to believe you just because he fed you some line of shit that he was a fucking angel? I have my whole entire life as proof that he wasn't!”

             
She pointed at him. “And don't you think that you can just come in here and clean up a kitchen and make up for that!”

             
Alden face clouded over and he slid off the chair. He stood awkwardly, clearly in pain. She wanted to tell him to sit back down or go home but she was too angry to do anything but scowl. It didn't matter, he would go home soon and she would never see him again.

             
She stood, waiting for him to say something, to do something but he didn't react. His hand stayed steady, fingertips pressed against her, and then it tightened around her arm. She opened her mouth to protest but then he was pulling her to him.

             
The shock of his body against her silenced any words that would have come out of her mouth. His arms wrapped around her, one cradling the back of her head, just below the tight ponytail of her hair. Her tense body relaxed in his embrace, her heart beating quickly.

             
“I'm sorry, Nice,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I'm sorry that you've been so alone. I'm sorry that you never knew your brother and that's my fault. It was my mistake and I will have to live with that forever, but you don't.”