This is just a little one shot I came up with. I honestly have no clue where I came up with it at…I just did! Hope y'all enjoy it!
"Here ya go honey," she says, sitting the slice of pie and cup of coffee down in front of the man. He looked up at her and nodded his head a little, a silent thank you.
The waitress walked down the counter to the register to count the money. As she stood there, she kept stealing glances at the lone man sitting in the diner she had just given the pie too. She had finally remembered where she had seen him before. Unsure why, she remembered that he had come in about two months ago and numerous times before that over the last five years. They had never been consecutive visits, but sporadic. She kept stealing little glances at him, watching him eat his pie. From this point, she noticed the strong outline of his jaw. There were a few scars on his face, but none that offset his handsome features. His green eyes seemed to be intensified by the florescent lighting the dinner facilitated. There was something else about him, an almost sadness, like he had seen more than one person should in his lifetime.
As the man ate what he believed to be the best pie in the Midwest, he stole glances at the waitress down at the register. She seemed to be the only one in the place, the rest of the staff more than likely outback smoking. He watched as her fingers almost magically flicked the bills from one hand to the next, her plump lips barely moving as she counted the bills. A single strand of black hair came loose from her ponytail she had gathered at the nape of her neck with a black piece of ribbon. He watched her lay the bills back down and swipe the piece of hair back behind her ear, brushing her cheek as she did so. She swept her sea blue eyes over the diner, finally landing them on him. He quickly turned his head, hoping she didn't catch him staring at her. Looking up at the clock and stuffing a piece of pie into his mouth, he heard the soft padding of her tennis shoes across the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her walking towards him, her hips swaying slightly as she stuffs her hands into the front of her apron.
"Can I ask you a question without it sounding totally weird?" the waitress says. Their eyes lock as he looks down from the clock at her. He lifts his coffee cup to his mouth and takes a sip before nodding his head. "Have you came in here before?"
The man looks at her for a moment, carefully thinking over his answer. His answer was yes, that anytime he and his brother was near this dinner, he ducked over here. He didn't always come in; he only did if he saw a certain waitress was working. "Yeah," he finally answers. "I've been in here before."
"But you don't live here." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. The diner was located in a small town about twenty miles west of Kansas City. The waitress knew everybody in the town, but she didn't know this man.
He shakes his head at her as he pushes a loose piece of pie crust around his plate. "No, I'm not from around here."
The man watches as the waitress looks around the diner, subconsciously chewing on her bottom lip. "Where are you from then?" she asks him suddenly.
A little taken back by her bluntness, the man clears his throat before answering. "Nowhere really," he says. "I travel around."
"Alone?" Besides the obvious curiosity, the waitress was also a little concerned for the man. No one should travel alone like that.
"No," the man says, shaking his head. "My brother travels with me."
"Ah," the waitress says, a smile growing on her face, lighting it up. "Family business I guess. Why doesn't he ever come in with you? Not a pie fan?"
Despite the man usually being closed off to strangers and forming a habit of not revealing stuff to them, he returns her smile. "Nah, not really," he says, smiling at the image of his brother in his head. "He's more of a salad guy."
"You should bring him in next time with you," she says, folding her hands behind her back and leaning against the back counter. "We have great salads here. I even make one of them myself."
His smile falters a miniscule amount. As much as he was sure his brother would enjoy that, he didn't want to bring him here. The man like this little secret he kept to himself. He had never told his brother or anyone else about the diner, or the waitress he always came to see. It was like his own little retreat away from the crap that was going on in his life. "I'll be sure to ask him," he says, lying to her.
The waitress lets out a little sigh as she looks at the man. He raises his eyebrow in question at her. "Nothing," she says, shaking her head. "It's just that- and trust me, I don't want to sound weird when I say this, but…I just realized you've been coming in here for what? Five years now, sporadically? Pie and coffee, every time? And, this is the first time we've even talked."
The man thinks about that for a moment; she was right, this was the most they've talked past the usual pleasantries. He nods his head as he takes another sip of coffee. "Wow, I must be really rude then," he says, giving her his most genuine smile.
She looks at him and gives him a small smile. "No, not rude," she says. When she looks at him, the man swears she is seeing right into his soul. "You've just- you've been through a lot, haven't you?" The man doesn't say anything. He stares at her for a moment before nodding his head slightly. "I can tell," she says. She doesn't say anything, but she can tell he uses this place as an escape, a place where he doesn't have to deal with whatever was going on with him.
"I have to tell you," he says, pushing his now empty plate away. "And I probably should've told you before, but this pie gets better every time I come in."
"I'm glad," the waitress says. She hesitates a moment, not sure if she should ask her next question. On a leap of faith, she proceeds. "What's your name?"
"Dean," he says, without hesitation. For some reason, one he'd sure he'd never know, he trusted this waitress completely. He glances down at her chest briefly, not for reasons he normally would, but to read her nametag.
She catches his eye movement and lets out a peal of laughter. "We don't wear name tags here," she says. "The boss is afraid some creep would start stalking us."
Dean lets out his own chuckle, nodding his head. "That's a good call." He knew all about the creeps in this world, more than what this waitress could probably even dream about.
The waitress turns around and glances up at the clock. When she turns back around, she's wearing a relieved smile. "Well, midnight," she says. Dean glances up at the clock too, verifying the time. "That means it's quitting time for me." Dean moves to grab his wallet to pay for his food. He stops when the waitress waves her hand at him. "Don't worry about it…it's on the house tonight."
He gives her a grateful smile as he retreats his hand from his pocket. "Well thank you," he says, giving her a smile. An idea crosses through his mind and escapes through his mouth before he can stop it. "How about I walk you to your car and we'll call it even?"
The waitress's eyes widen a miniscule amount before returning to their normal size. It was always a secret fantasy of hers that some dashing knight in shining armor would come in at the end of her shift and offer to escort her to her car. The night air in the parking lot always felt like it held monsters that she couldn't see and that she didn't want to imagine. "That would be nice," she says. She gave him a quick glance over before leaning down and grabbing her jacket and purse from under the counter. He certainly didn't seem the knight in shining armor type, more like a rugged soldier that wouldn't take any crap.
After she had shrugged on her favorite light pink wool jacket, she yelled back to the rest of the staff who were just beyond the back door that she was leaving. She barely heard them mutter their acknowledgement before she lifts the release in the counter and walked out of its confines. She gives Dean a look, silently letting him know she was ready to go. They walk out of the diner after Dean holds the door open for her, allowing her to pass before him. Walking in silence next to this man, she looked up at the clear night sky, at all the stars, and let out a huff of air, seeing her breath in the cold air.
Hearing a quiet chuckle, she looks over at Dean to see a smile on his face as he looks straight ahead, trying not to let her know he had been watching her. In a small part of her brain, the waitress should probably think it was crazy to trust this man. Even though he had come into the diner numerous times, she didn't know him. He could be ten shades of crazy for all she knew. But in her heart she knew he wasn't. She didn't know what he did in his traveling, but she figured it probably wasn't easy. As they arrived at her car, the waitress turned to Dean.
"Thank you for walking me to my car," she says. "You never know what kind of monsters are lurking in the dark." Dean knew she meant it as a joke, but only he knew how horrifyingly right she was.
"It was my pleasure," he says. "Thank you for the pie."
The waitress gives him a smile before reaching into her purse to grab her keys. As she pulls them out, she sees Dean make a move to start leaving. "Hey Dean," she says without thinking. He turns back to her, giving her a questioning look. "I don't know what you do, with your traveling that is, but if I had to guess, it's probably not easy." Dean let out a sigh, she didn't even know how right she was. "But, I'm sure, just like any other job, someone out there is really grateful that you're doing it." She looks at him again, her eyes boring into his soul. "Like I said earlier, I can tell you've probably been through a lot." She didn't want to say it out loud, but he looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. "But, like I said, I'm sure someone, somewhere, in the world is really glad that Dean…whatever your last name is, is out there looking after them, doing whatever you do for them." It took everything he had in him to not grab his holy water or silver out of his pocket and test this woman. The pull he felt towards her was almost unearthly and the words she was saying to him seemed impossible, but he needed to hear them…especially now.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
"You're welcome," she says, giving him another large smile. "And just in case you don't hear it enough, thank you, for whatever it is that you do."
Dean nods his head at her a couple times before turning on his heels to head back to his car. As he gets halfway to his car, he hears the waitress open her car door and he realizes something. "Hey," he yells back at her as he turns around. When he's facing her again, he sees she's halfway into her car. She stops her descent and stands back up, resting a hand on the top of the car door and the other in the car on the seat. Dean smiles a little at the bewildered expression on her face. "You never told me your name…"
The waitress gives him a smile. Dean hardly notices her eyes dart up to the sky for a moment before they rest back on his. She lets out a little huff of air before answering. "Mary," she says. Dean feels his mouth go dry and his heart skip a few beats. The waitress gives him another earthshattering smile. "My name is Mary…"