Nikki POV
"Hey!" I called through the building as I opened the door, greeting the other two people.
"Nikki!" Wendy cheered, far too enthusiastically.
"Ow!" I yelped as an orange hit my shoulder, then fell to the floor with a Splat!
"Aw! Why didn't you catch it?" Wendy pouted from her spot at the counter, another orange in her hand, this one half eaten.
"A heads-up would have helped," I mumbled, picking up the orange and tossing it in the trashcan, then I grabbed a few paper towels, wadded them up and got the juice that had gotten on the floor. After getting all the fruit juice, I stood up from my crouched position and looked at the restaurant.
CJ's used to be two different restaurants; Chuck's Dinner, and Jay's Bar, owned by brothers Charlie and Jeremy Ross. They were twins actually. In the early 80s, they moved to Janesville after being traveling salesmen for forty years and built up the two biggest establishments in the town. About three years ago, Charlie went hunting, nothing out of the ordinary, both Ross brothers were avid hunters. Charlie never came back.
I didn't hear about it for almost a month. I was crushed. Charlie, or Chuck as he liked to be called, and Jeremy were like the grandfathers I never had. I was seventeen at the time. My foster brother, Chris, was twenty-four, and offered to drive me all the way from Wisconsin to Janesville, which was in Pennsylvania, for the funeral.
Jeremy, formerly Jay (He didn't answer to it after Chuck died), wanted desperately to keep his brother's memory and work alive, so he tore down the wall between the diner and the bar, and merged the two. It was really an odd looking place. The bar half of it was covered in wood paneling, the booths and stools covered in dark red, scratchy fabric. The dinner half was clad in faded, peeling red and white checked wallpaper. Both sides were so full of pictures and other things collected over the years you could barely see the walls, so it didn't really matter what they looked like.
"Hello Nicolette." I heard a gravely, deep voice ask me as I started to put chairs down from the tables.
"Hey Jeremy," I sighed, looking over my shoulder at the older man, who had managed to sit open the door, walk to the back of the place, and sit behind me silently.
"You ok?" He asked, his watery brown eyes looked concerned.
"Yes Jeremy," I sighed, like an annoyed teenager talking to her mother. I rolled my eyes when Jeremy wasn't looking. He chuckled and patted my shoulder as he walked out of the dinner. Although CJ's was Jeremy's whole life, he lived in a cabin somewhere in the woods. He took me there on one of my first visits when I was a kid, but he politely asked me to wait outside.
"There are two new guys," Travis stated plainly after several minutes of silence.
"Yeah. Max towed their car outside of city limits." I said, hopping up on the counter.
"You helped them break in, didn't you?" Wendy asked, falling into a booth.
"Yup." I admitted, unashamed. They both looked at me with shocked looks. "What?" I asked them, shrugging slightly. They just continued to stare at me blankly. "Oh come on, it's not the worst thing I've done."
I grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee. This was the part I hated. Waiting. The daily regulars came in later, so it made all three of us deal with boredom for hours on end. Wendy put her iPod on over the intercom so the silence wouldn't put us to sleep, but the country music almost made blood pour from my ears. I stayed in my spot on the counter, tapping my fingernails against my mug, trying to keep my mind active.
"Hello Nikki," Mr. Gregory, a fifty year old retired Boston police man, said as he came in.
"Hey Mr.G," I said, heading to the kitchen to help Travis make Mr. Greg's usual breakfast. To keep things interesting, we started timing how long it took us to scramble two eggs and make five buttermilk pancakes.
Seven minutes and three seconds later (a new record) later, I brought out the plates of food to Mr.G. "There you go," I said, trying to be cheerful to the old man. His thank you was muffled by the loud sound of a car engine driving past and then the louder sound that resulted in the black car lurching to a stop across the street from the dinner.
"Is that them?" Wendy asked, sitting up from her place laying down on the booth pulling me down into the seat across from her. It had a good view of the black car, Sam and Green-Eyed Guy.
"Yup." I said, taking another sip of my coffee.
"Huh." Wendy said, already having made her decision about them. "Did you talk to either of them?"
"Yeah. The good looking one mostly." I said, distracted slightly. I was trying to figure out what was going on. They had seemed pretty eager to get out of Janesville half an hour ago; Why stop?
That question was answered when Green-Eyed Guy got out of the driver's seat, slamming the door so hard the whole car shook and opened the hood with an angry look on his face. Jeez, he was more pissed-off now than when he was yelling about beating the crap out of Max.
"He's not that good looking," Wendy told me, looking at Green-Eyed Guy. She raised her eyebrows slightly as Green-Eyed Guy moved so his back was towards us, leaning over the engine. Conveniently, giving us a good view of his butt. In my opinion, it wasn't as nice as Sam's, but not too bad to look at that.
"Huh. I'm wrong." Wendy said, her eyes glued to Green-Eyed Guy's ass, tilting her head to one side.
"You're wrong more often than you think." I sighed, making her glare at me. "Yeah, yeah, he's hot and all, but I prefer the other one."
He had his elbow up on the door, his hand on his forehead, like he was still trying to ward off the headache. This left most of his nice looking face unseen, you could see it better after he ran a hand through his hair, turning his head and unfortunately, looked right at me and Wendy.
Sam and I stared at each other for a split second, then he said something to Bench Guy who looked over his shoulder at us. I quickly ducked down and pulled Wendy with me out of the window's view.
"Holy shit they are both smokin'!" She said, eyes wide.
"Oh shut up Wendy!" I hissed at her, getting up and quickly walking to the counter. I hopped up on it, and swung my legs over it, hopping off behind it and landed up on the back counter.
"Hey," I heard Sam say from the door. I snapped my gaze up from my phone, and looked at him slightly stunned. I tried to think of something witty to say back. Guys liked witty...Right?
"Hey, Sam-Not-Sammy," I said, smiling up at him. Damn, he has to be at least 6'3". I'm 5'7", which is a completely normal height, not short or anything, but he made me feel like a dwarf.
"Very funny," He said sarcastically, shrugging out of his jacket and lazily tossing it on a stool at the counter, then fell into the one next to it. "I-Uh...I never got your name." He stated. I could tell he was trying his best not to act awkward. He was only slightly failing.
"Nikki," I said simply, giving him a slight smile. "I guess your getaway car failed." I added with a nod out the window to the car.
"Getaway car?" Sam asked me, giving me a slightly confused, skeptical look.
"Yeah, from the little B&E earlier." I said with a mischievous smile sent towards him as I tossed my jacket under the counter and tied my waitress apron around my hips.
"Oh," He answered with a chuckle, shaking his head a bit. "Yeah, I guess it didn't go as planned."
"I'll say, now you're stuck here with the rest of us until Max can fix your car." I told him as I grabbed the white boxes of pastries from Travis to put in the glass case.
Sam chuckled and shook his head as he rested his arms, clad in a loose fitting, worn and stretched white woven thermal and a shirt sleeved, collared red shirt over it. "No, no way he-" he jerked his head towards the window, indicating Green-Eyed Guy. "-let's anyone but him touch his car."
"Oh, he's one'a those?" I asked, glancing at him as I put the doughnuts in the tray.
"Yeah," Sam said with a slight nod of his head. His voice was a bit distracted, and I soon saw why. His gaze was fixed on the chocolate covered doughnut I was holding.
"I should'a given you one'a these earlier," I said as I handed him a menu from behind the counter.
"Its fine…its fine," he mumbled, already looking at the old, laminated folder. I'm glad he was looking at that. He didn't see Wendy give me a huge grin and a wink. I rolled my eyes at her, then jumped slightly as I heard a slam.
Green-Eyed Guy had slammed the hood of the car shut. His face was screwed up in this cute little scowl as he stormed up the gravel the dinner and opened the door with so much force, that the bell that rang every time the door opened flew up and wrapped around the bar it hung on.
"Slam that door, I'll spit in whatever you order!" Wendy threatened before Green-Eyed Guy could take one step in the door. His eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, and he let the door shut slowly behind him.
"Car's shot. I'm gonna need more than the tools I have to fix her," Green-Eyed Guy said gruffly, falling into a seat at the counter, resting his elbows on it and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sam sighed and as his buddy sat next to him. I made a slight face as he grabbed the perfectly cleaned napkin dispenser with his greasy hands, and grabbed a wad of napkins, wiping his hands off, and tried to get a few smears off his face. I didn't tell him he missed a few stops.
I'd have to clean the napkin holder off later.
"Want some coffee?" I asked Sam, and I guess Green-Eyed Guy, when I heard the coffee maker beep.
"Yeah, sure, thanks," Sam said, glancing up at me with an appreciative smile.
"You?" I asked Green-Eyed Guy as I poured Sam a mug of coffee and set it in front of him.
"No thanks sweetheart, we gotta a gig," He said, sending me a smirk. "And you," He snapped, making Sam look up from his coffee, which he was currently stirring sugar into. "What are you doing? We gotta go find some tools 'ta fix my baby." He said, sounding like a pouting child.
"In the last twelve hours I've ran after a tow truck for four miles to get your car, slept on a gravel sidewalk, tripped a girl and listened to you swear at a car engine." Sam said, still looking at the menu. He paused and took a drink of his coffee before he snapped the laminated pages of the menu shut and looked at his buddy with an exasperated look on his face. "I'm gonna have an omelet."