I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Just a quick warning and apology: the narration shifts between Tommy's and Jane's perspectives a few times, sometimes without warning. The character Carlos is inspired by a friend of mine of the same name, whose warmth and humor can brighten anyone's day.

Chapter Five: Not Flirting

Tommy puts it off for a couple of days and doesn't ask himself why. Doesn't ask himself what he's so scared of. He's not scared. It wasn't like Jane was hitting on him. If she'd been hitting on him she'd have invited him up to her apartment and yeah, he probably would've gone, aching shoulder and all. And one one-night-stand later they'd be even. And he probably wouldn't be thinking about her. Instead he feels like there are too many thoughts rolling around, all shouting for attention. They get at him whenever he's still and a good run or, better yet, a good fight keeps them quiet. At least for a little while.

So it pisses him off a little that this thought occurs to him while he's out running. That Jane is the most interesting that's happened to him since Sparta.

And if it turns out he's wrong and she's not, he gets a free dinner of whatever he wants, they can call it even, and he won't have to give it another thought. Either way he can't lose, can he?

At work, he tells Fenroy he'll need to end his shift early. Like, around ten. Maybe quarter of.

Fenroy's more than willing to let him, but goes, "So, the reason you're quittin' out early, she blonde, brunette, or redhead?"

"Hate to say it, but you're mother's gone gray by now," Tommy says, dons his jacket, and heads out.

F

Three days after the incident, as she heads to the kitchen to pick up an order, she sees him walk through the parking lot. The diner doesn't have a seating hostess, and she's the first employee he sees. Good. She doesn't want another server to steer him in the wrong section and make him pay for his own meal.

"Hi," he says as he walks in. There's the same five o'clock shadow and cold gray-blue eyes. In the light she can see his features better and he's all full lips and good bone structure, leaving her thinking that he's actually better-looking than Clark Kent; it's a thought for which she mentally slaps herself.

Jane knows how silly she looks when she gives him a coy smile and says, "Hi, welcome to the Oldies Diner. Can I help you find a seat?" but as long as she's trying to play up the corniness for whatever comic effect it might have, it can't hurt that much.

A ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he sees her in her uniform and with her short hair pulled back in a way that makes her look far less disheveled than when he saw her last. "Sure," he says, and follows her into her section, where she guides him into the nicest booth.

"Could I start you off with something to drink?"

"Water's fine."

He makes her a little nervous. Maybe it's in his stance. After she's given him his water and taken his order, she wonders, should she just leave the guy the hell alone, just cover his check when he asks for it and that's all? Her section has enough action in it as it is.

But no, it seems like people start dispersing in her section when he comes in, and she bites the bullet fairly early on when he's eating and asks how he's enjoying his meal.

"It's pretty damn good," he says, tapping his fork against the table.

She bites her lip; one of her various nervous habits. "How's your shoulder?"

"Not bad," he says, and gestures across the booth from him for her to sit down. After looking at the rest of the section—they seem okay, her manager is nowhere to be found, and Tommy's come at just the right time for the Friday dinner crowd to call it a night; people usually leave for after-dinner drinks or, for those with lesser imaginations or children, bed around this time—and obliges him.

"Yeah?" she asks, sliding in.

"Yeah." He takes another bite, and when that's done he asks, "So what's with the get-up?"

Jane glances down at her dress, the buttons down the front tight enough to push her breasts forward and make her waist look narrower than it really is, the nametag on the right breast pocket, the two extra earrings she takes out for work, and knows what he means. "It's a gimmick, y'know," she says dumbly. She shakes her head and elaborates. "All the waitresses have to wear them. The manager says it's kind of a throwback to 1950s and early 60s fashion, you know, to keep up with the diner's whole motif. I mean, there's a jukebox against the wall there"—she points.

"Kind of hard not to miss that," Tommy agrees. "You don't like it, though, do you?"

Jane glances around to see if anyone needs anything immediately. The answer is no to both questions. "It's waitressing," she says. "And if you're not cut out for waitressing no restaurant is going to change that." She lowers her voice. "And no, I don't like this particular job, either."

"The outfits?"

Jane nods. "Well, that's part of it." She clears her throat. "Would you like a refill on your water?"

"Thank you." Jane immediately takes the water and gets up, thinking, damn it, you're not here to make a fool of yourself. Just shut up. She gives him his water and after she gives another table their bill and checks up on a third who's getting ready to leave, she turns to him again and asks him how he's doing, as he's close to finished.

"Just as good as before." He leans back in his seat, glances at the clock. "Your shift ends at eleven?"

"That's right."

"Gives you about ten minutes." He drums his fingertips against the table. "You been able to get a ride home?"

"Well, no," she admits. "Most of the other people who get off around this time live downtown."

It's a couple of seconds before he says, "I'll take you." Blunt, straight-forward, yet somehow chivalric. Just like last time.
"Really?"

"Really." She half expects him to grin, to tease, her, but he doesn't.

She thinks. "Well, all that leaves is the check." She grins as his eyes widen as if to say, You deceitful bitch. She continues to smile a little to herself as she digs into her apron and fishes out twenty dollars. "Steak dinner, sirloin cut with a side of two vegetables, that's eighteen dollars, water's complimentary so that's no extra charge." She sets the bill down on the table. "And a healthy twenty-percent tip—it's twenty-percent nowadays—rounded up to the nearest dollar is twenty-two dollars." She takes out another two and sets them down, glances his way, grins, and sticks the bills back into her apron. "Thank you."

From the glance she spares he leans back and looks at her with what may very well be amusement.

When she heads past the kitchen for the employee bathroom, Carlos, one of the cooks and one of Jane's only [relatively] normal, non-AA friends, says, "Hey, Michael is stopping by. We'll be able to give you a ride back tonight."

Jane glances at the door. "Well, that's really sweet, but I actually got offered a ride."

Courtney comes in, hearing the last bit, saying, "Yeah, from some guy who looks like a homeless underwear model."

Carlos's eyes widen and he grins. "Ooh. I wanna see."

Jane rolls her eyes and when she leaves the employee bathroom, changed and ready to leave, Carlos grabs her by the arm.

"Tell me that guy's your boyfriend," he says, voice urgent, and with a lisp that makes him sound like Paul Lynd, and which makes her smile as she shakes her head.

"Nah, just someone I ran into a few days ago. And say hi to Michael for me. I wouldn't mind getting together for coffee again. Have a good night."

E

The bus outside the diner comes within a minute of waiting, and as they get on, Tommy remarks, "I thought you had more piercings."

Jane brushes her fingertips along the extra small metal hoops around the upper cartilage of her right ear. Instead of boring him about how she used to have several more, she just says, "Oh, well, yeah. The diner doesn't allow more visible piercings than the standard two earrings or visible ink. At least I don't have neck or forearm tattoos."

"You got any ink?"

As they sit next to each other towards the back, she says, "Yeah, two, but they're in places that are easily covered up." She feels the tips of her ears burn as Tommy looks over at her, probably waiting for an explanation and instead of offering one she looks down to hide a smile. She notices a few people stare at them—or more accurately, stare at him—but she ignores it when she sees he does.

To break the lull, Tommy asks, "You're in college part-time, right? What's your major?"

"Haven't declared one," Jane says. "I mean, based on my classes, I think I'm labeled a sociology major."

"Sociology? What classes do you have to take for that?"

"Not sure. I'm in political science, Spanish, and women's studies."

"Wait, women's studies? Why would you need that? You are a woman."

Jane laughs. "It's kind of different. It's more like a class about society than a guide to understanding women. How about you? Did you go to college?"

Tommy looks at her as if she has just asked him if he's pregnant. "You serious?" When she shrugs, he says, "Nah. Never went to college." There's a pause. "I enlisted in the military on my eighteenth birthday. That's one hell of a compliment, though, thinking I might've gone to college." He tilts his head back a little and slides his eyes her way.

She hasn't seen an actual, honest-to-god smile from him yet. He's come close a couple of times but doesn't quite make it. He almost laughed, at most, perhaps once, but fell short. And she can't help but feel compelled to take him further, to get a real grin, a real laugh out of him. He sits, tense as a cat ready to pounce even when he seems almost relaxed.

"You were in the military?" she asks.

Instead of sharing anecdotes like the military people in her family, he clams up. "I was. I'm not anymore." He has a tone of finality, makes it clear he'd rather not get into it.

But she pushes her luck. "For how long?" she asks.

"Twelve years," he says.

"So you're thirty?" So she'd guessed right.

"Yeah. You?"

Now feeling unbearably juvenile, she says, "I'm twenty-one."

He nods to himself. They're not that far apart in age, not really. "Twenty-one's a pretty good year," he tells her.

Jane shrugs again. "We'll see."

The bus reaches their stop, and almost as soon as they get off they notice a cat trot out of the shadows and trail alongside them with dignity and self-righteous hauteur emanating from its scrawny frame.

"That is one ugly cat," Tommy says. The cat sticks his nose up in the air, makes a, "hmmph!" sound at him and keeps going.

"You know, a cat's collarbone isn't connected to any other bone in its body?" Jane says.

And this floors him. Because A) no, he didn't know, and B) because it seems to come out of left field. Yeah, there's a cat following them, but who knows shit like that? His shoulder's flared up more than a few times since their first encounter, and the soreness makes him say, "That sounds so good right now."

Jane widens her eyes. "You sure your shoulder's healing okay?"

"Yeah. It's just…how'd you know that cat thing?"

"Just something I heard. My dad was an electrician, worked at the National Zoo for a few years. When I visited, I ended up learning a lot of weird things about animals." She says it so casually.

My dad was a boxer. He had one hell of a right hook whether or not he was fighting in the ring. "You been to the one in Pittsburgh?"

"Nah. Haven't had the time. I've been here a year and haven't seen much more than East Pittsburgh. Is it good?"

"I went there a couple of times as a little kid. Yeah, I'd say so." And damn it, the cat's still with them. "Maybe it smells food on you."

Jane looks at it and grins. "Probably. He'll give up when he realizes I don't have any with me."

The cat looks up at her and gives what he guesses sounds like a cheerful mew. "Or maybe it just likes you."

"You ever have a cat?" she asks, still looking down at the skinny mess of patchy fur that seems to want her attention.

"Nah. I never had a pet. You?"

"No, but I always wanted one."

"You like animals."

Jane looks back up at him. "Sure. It's kind of hard not to like animals. They're weird, they're funny, and the really amazing thing is, no matter how ugly they are as babies, they're still somehow cute." Tommy scoffs a little. "No, really, think about it. Like, take a newborn baby bird—hell, a newborn baby vulture. One of the ugliest things in the world. They remind me of those horrible little monsters from the movie 'Gremlins' that gave me nightmares when I was a kid. But I guarantee you that you put them in their nest, wanting to be fed, and at least a few people will look at them and go, 'Awww.'"

And there it is: Tommy finally smiles. Jane likes it very much; his teeth are far from perfect, but for some reason that makes her like it even more. "That's a hell of a theory," he tells her.

"Not a theory," Jane tells him. "It's a proven fact." Is it okay that he both makes her nervous and somehow enough at ease that she feels no qualms talking to him like this? Or nervous enough that she won't shut up? Is it okay, at least on the grounds that it's not interpreted as flirting? And what if it is interpreted as flirting? She bites her lips as she smiles, not quite looking at him, thinking about the possibility of an awkward silence from here to her apartment. He doesn't expect her to invite him up, does he?

As she shoots a glance at him, she guesses not. If he'd felt entitled, he probably would've hinted at it the night they met, as his way of getting paid back. He's not all that taller than she, so why does she feel that he is? Why does she feel minute next to him? He makes her uneasy, although the sensation is not altogether unpleasant.

They're both silent for close to a minute, her apartment drawing ever-nearer. That cat trails away from them, and Tommy asks, "You more of a cat person or a dog person?"

Jane shrugs. "Depends on the animal. If I had to choose, I'd say cats who act like dogs."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, they act goofy, chase their tails, are really affectionate and always seem happy to see you, they make a lot of noise. I mean, with dogs it's expected, but in a cat it's hilarious because it seems so unusual."

He tilts his head at her, eyes narrowed, probably wondering what she's smoking. "What about a dog that acts like a cat?"

"Well those guys are straight up assholes." Unless her ears are playing tricks on her, she could swear she hears a soft bark of a laugh. "How about you? Cats or dogs?"

"Dunno. Dogs, I guess." And he leaves it at that. Yeah, she'd never gotten the impression that he was much of a talker.

They reach her apartment. "Well, thanks again," Jane says, stepping back as she turns to him. "And I hope your shoulder feels better."

"Yeah, it will. And thanks for the meal and everything." He drifts away. "Take care."

"You too," she says, waves as he heads off. She catches how he glances behind him a couple of times at her. As she heads up to her room, she gets a sense of regret. She's probably not going to see him again, unless she scrounges up the money to join his gym—unlikely, since it seems geared exclusively toward men. And for some reason this bothers her, leaves a bad taste in her mouth as she gets ready for bed. And it hits her: she's already attracted to him.

Aw, hell.