Page 34 of Soft
“Let’s go share the good news. Those two will be thrilled.”
We came back out to the main office where Cheyenne and Moseley were doing an extremely poor job of pretending they had been working the entire time. Moseley's monitor was dark.Cheyenne had the same spreadsheet up that she'd had open when I walked in.
"So?" Moseley said, not even attempting to play it cool.
"Signed," I said, pumping my fist in a show of excitement.
He made a noise that Cheyenne cut off with a look before it could fully develop. She stood from her desk and came over to squeeze my arm. "Good. This is the right call for everyone." She said it with confidence, then she turned to Grizzly. "The two of you should go get lunch. Celebrate properly."
"We've both got work this afternoon," Grizzly said.
"It's noon, meaning lunch. You need to eat. He needs to eat. That's how that works. Moseley and I will hold down the fort. Go."
Moseley bounced his shoulders happily. I was going to like these people enormously.
Grizzly looked at Cheyenne for a moment like he was going to argue the point, and then apparently decided against it. “Let me grab my jacket. There's a place two blocks over,” he said to me.
"Lead the way."
The place was called Bellport Eats, and it looked exactly like you would expect a vintage diner to look. Red vinyl booths, a long counter with spinning stools, a chalkboard menu behind the register, and a ceiling fan turning slowly overhead that didn’t appear to be doing much in the way of cooling but added atmosphere.
A woman who I assumed ran the place, or at least had worked there long enough to act like she did, waved us to a booth near the window without us having to ask.
Grizzly slid in across from me. He’d put on his jacket between the office and here, which in the Louisiana heat seemed like a choice. I had a feeling it had more to do with comfort than temperature. Some people wore layers the way other people carried things they needed to have close. Kind of like a security blanket.
The waitress, who said her name was Patsy, took our drink orders and brought us menus shortly after we settled. “You got any questions about the menu, just holler.”
Said menu was a couple of laminated pages per person. Definitely the kind of menu that had clearly been used for years given the wear and tear of the edges.
I opened mine and started reading. Across from me, I heard Grizzly do the same.
A few seconds passed. Then a few more. I wondered if he was thinking about how this felt awkward though not because of us. It was the unspoken details lingering over us.
I glanced up without making it obvious to see if I could read him. He had the menu closer to his face, his head tilted at a slight angle, a small furrow between his brows. He adjusted his glasses once, then shifted the menu toward the window where the light was better.
"New glasses," he said without looking up, in a tone meant to close the door on the subject before I could step through. "Still adjusting to the prescription."
"Mm." The noise wasn’t anything that required a response. I’d already suspected the glasses were new considering I’d never seen him in any before.
I looked back at my own menu for a moment. Then I set it down on the table, angling it slightly so the edge was closer to his side of the booth than mine.
"What are you in the mood for?" I asked. "I'm seeing a patty melt situation that I think I want to commit to, but the soup looks good if you crave something on the lighter side. There's also a chicken and sausage gumbo."
He looked at my menu, though I suspected he wasn’t really reading anything.
"The gumbo, please.”
"Good call." I caught Patsy’s eye and held up two fingers, which she acknowledged with a nod.
Grizzly set his own menu down. There was a beat of quiet between us. It was almost as if me going over the menu with him broke the tension.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
I knew what he was referring to without him having to explain. "I know. I wanted to though."
He held my gaze for a moment. In the warmth of the space, with the noise of the lunch rush moving around us, it felt like a pivotal shift had taken place. Like we were possibly sharing a Daddy/Little moment without even trying.
I wanted to tell him he didn't have to work that hard. That whatever he needed, I would do it, same as I'd done just nowwithout making him feel like a burden for having a need at all. Supporting him wasn’t a hardship for me. From my point of view, that was what caring about someone looked like.
