it’s pure crap.
So instead, I shrug and turn to step off the stool. Before I can, the woman huffs and turns to me with a glare. The vitriol in her eyes makes me stop in my tracks.
“I just wanted a little quiet,” she snaps, getting up and yanking a coat and scarf off the stool on her other side. “I have three boys getting out of school in twenty minutes, and two more waiting for me at home with my mother-in-law, who moved in two months ago. Two. Months. Ago!” she barks as she shoves her hands angrily into the arms of her coat before continuing.
“The thirty minutes I sit here to drink two cups of coffee is the only peace I get these days, and now I can’t even have that, because some beautiful woman with too much time on her hands and skin that is too smooth to be real can’t mind her own business or pick up on the social cues screaming that I just want to be left alone!”
She wraps the scarf around her neck and shakes her head at me furiously. “How do you keep your curls from getting frizzy?” she shouts at me drill-sergeant-style, and I jump and stammer, shocked and a little afraid.
“I use a mousse called Cork My Screw and a little bit of coconut oil on my ends,” I answer hurriedly, but she just glares at me.
“Thank you,” she yells angrily back and then storms out of the diner.
I watch her leave, completely dumbfounded and floundering. I look over to find the two waitresses staring out after the poor, clearly exhausted mother, with sympathy in their eyes.
“Don’t take that personal, hon, she’s got a lot on her plate.”
I nod and close my open, flabbergasted mouth. “Well, on that note, I think I’ll just go,” I announce sheepishly, and then I tuck tail and practically speed walk to the door. The sleigh bells sound oddly more ominous when they jingle as I leave, and I swear it sounds like they’re laughing at me. I hurry to Rogan’s car and practically dive in.
“Omg, go, go, go!” I shout out, ducking my head like I’m some celebrity who’s trying not to get their picture taken. I’m completely mortified and feel so bad about setting a tired mom off.
“What? Why, did you just rob the place?” he asks as he slowly puts his car in gear and pulls out at a safe and calm rate of speed.
“No, worse! I poked a mama bear on accident, and I’m lucky I got out of there alive. Now go before she changes her mind and makes the bear attack in that Leonardo DiCaprio movie look like the Care Bear cuddles,” I yell, officially hitting the freak the fuck out stage of my flight response.
A low rumbling fills the interior of the car, and at first I think it’s some kind of attack—until I look over at Rogan.
“This is not funny!” I yell as I try to duck down lower in the front seat.
Rogan pulls out onto the road and stops at the red light, the car now shaking from the force of his laughter. I punch him in the shoulder, hard, implementing every lesson Tad ever taught me growing up about how to give the deadest of dead arms, but that just makes him laugh harder.
The light turns green, but before we start moving again, a charcoal gray minivan lays on its horn as it drives by. I look over in time to see the lady from the diner flipping me off as she streaks by.
“Oh fuck, she’s found us! Evasive maneuvers! Evasive maneuvers!” I order, pointing in the opposite direction of the van.
Tears drip down Rogan’s face as he guffaws and revels in my misery. I fold my arms over my chest and shake my head at his insensitive, immature ways.
What an asshole.
After about five minutes and another dead arm, he starts to calm down. He releases a satisfied high-pitched sigh to signal the conclusion of his laughing fit, wiping at his eyes and opening and closing the hand of the arm that I punched twice.
“Oh fuck, I needed that,” he coos, another fit threatening to sweep him away. Thankfully, he keeps it together, but the wide smile on his face is annoying as hell.
“You want to tell me what happened?” he asks in an effort to be kind, but each word gets higher and higher in pitch, and I can tell he’s on the cusp of