Maybe there will be a Bob Seger song on the radio.

Maybe it'll be in those hazy hours after midnight – when the neon lights of the diner sign will seem too harsh against the black, and yet not enough. A beacon to call in all the lost souls, to crash their ships on this shore. An oasis of coffee and day-old bread.

Maybe he'll walk in a little too sure. A little too strong.

Maybe you'll notice that. Maybe you'll like that.

Maybe he'll sit at the corner of the counter and give you this sort of James Dean smile, all rebel without a cause leather jacket, strong sure arms lined out across the Formica. Maybe you'll wonder what it'd be like to wake up in those arms.

Maybe he'll call you sweetheart, and you'd normally take offense but this time it makes you tingle. Maybe he'll ask your name, since you always hated wearing a nametag.

Maybe you'll tell him your name because you have nothing to lose in a place full of drifters.

Then he'll try it out on his tongue. "Sam," he'll say and scrap his eyes up and down your body so slowly you can feel each inch of skin he maps. Then he'll nod. Like he approves. Your name fits.

You'll pour him fresh coffee and ask where he's headed.

He'll say nowhere in particular and ask where you're headed.

You'll stand there and bust out a nervous chuckle and say something like, "Nowhere. I work here."

He'll ask if that's what you want, and look over his shoulder out the window to the highway cutting across the desert like a raised scar.

"I don't know," you'll admit to this stranger, not sure why. Maybe you're looking for someone to shake you up. Maybe you just need the change of place.

He'll eat pie and drink coffee and stay later than other patrons will. Up to that point when the sun begins to threaten at the edge of the horizon.

Then he'll smile. Climb to his feet and call you 'Sammy.'

Maybe you won't correct him. Maybe you'll like the way the nickname spills out from his lips.

Maybe you want to hear the way he says it gasping and writhing in your clutch. Maybe you want to know what other noises that mouth can make.

He'll leer, just a little, just enough to hang the suggestion hot and heavy in the air and dare you and ask why not?

You think he might quote Tolkien. Spout some nonsense about how not all who wander are lost, but then again, you think he's probably not the type.

He'll just hold up his car keys with one more long stare, break right into your soul with those green eyes and say, "Going once, going twice…"

Maybe you won't even remember stepping out from behind the counter.

Maybe you'll grab his face in your hands and kiss him before he can say three times.

Maybe he'll wrap those strong, sure arms around you and pull you out to his car.

Maybe you'll watch the sunrise plastered against his side as you leave that hellhole of a nothing town behind.

Maybe it'll be the start of something great.

Maybe, you tell yourself, but you know, as he sits down and orders coffee black, that boys like you can't land men like that.

So you'll pawn him off on your cute coworker and go on your break.

Hide in the back till you see his taillights cutting hope into scraps in the dark and return to the ghost-like state you call life.