he was, the poor schmuck was in love with Francie. She was a cutie with shoulder-length red hair and an adorable pug nose, but she had the arrogance to match her looks. I was certain she’d grow up someday, but at this point, she saw only Lewis’s size. Not how wonderful he was. Or talented. Or dashingly handsome.
Then again, who was I to argue? I was attracted to evil incarnate. Our libidos didn’t always take the safest paths. And if I was completely honest with myself – again, something of a rarity – I wanted Francie’s eyes as far away from Reyes as I could get them. Not that her lack of interest would give me a snowball’s chance, but in my warped brain – the same brain that screamed for me to run in the opposite direction every time Reyes was near – it would up my odds that he would notice me. The heart wasn’t the most logical organ. The spleen, however…
What Lewis didn’t know was that, while I was going along with his plan to win Francie, I was secretly placing stimuli, kind of like those ads that used subliminal messages to get consumers to buy their products. Only I wasn’t quite as subtle.
“So, I heard Shayla was at your concert this weekend.”
“Really?” he said absently. “I didn’t see her.”
One of our third-shift servers, a tiny, elf-like creature named Shayla who looked about fourteen but was actually almost twenty-one, was just as much as in love with Lewis as he was with Francie. No, she was more in love. Lewis was simply infatuated. Shayla truly cared for him, so much so, she wanted him to have what he wanted, aka Francie. She knew he had a thing for her, and instead of flirting or asking Lewis out, she stood back and gave Francie every chance possible to see the wonderful man in front of her.
That was true love. So what I had for Reyes wasn’t so much true love as, well, stark raving obsession. Which, oddly enough, worked for me.
Erin rushed past with a tray full of drinks, reminding me I should probably get back to work. Or not. Everyone in my section was eating happily. Who was I to interrupt?
When we’d first come up with The Plan, as we were calling it, it was in direct response to a certain redhead falling head over heels for a certain raven-haired, preternatural regular. Her infatuation with Reyes had left Lewis miserable.
“Who am I kidding, Janey?” he’d said one afternoon, confiding in me, trusting me with his most precious secret.
As fate would have it, thanks to a spider bite and a headless picture that went viral of a man who’d dropped his jeans at a Chevelle concert, I knew his most precious secret, and it had nothing to do with Francie. The man in the picture became known as the Anaconda, and I knew it was Lewis because, again thanks to a spider bite and Lewis’s fear that he was going to lose his leg after he got one on the inside of his thigh, I’d seen the skull tattoo on his hip. It was exactly like the infamous Anaconda’s, right down to the words COLOR IS A LIE underneath the skulls.
Most guys would love for a photo of their little friend to go viral, but I suspected Lewis’s unwillingness to step forward into the spotlight had to do with his deep respect for his mother. He was a good guy. Who, for some reason, dropped his pants at a Chevelle concert.
Kids these days.
“She’ll never go out with me,” he’d said, drowning his sorrows, and a glazed doughnut, in a cup of joe. “Not when there are men like that on the earth.” He’d indicated Reyes with a nod.
“You’re right,” I said. When he gaped at me, I added, “Hey, I’m on your side. It’s just, the guy’s freakishly hot.” We glanced at Reyes again, my glance lingering a bit longer than Lewis’s. “She has to notice you. Really notice you.”
My mind raced, and I was busy nibbling my bottom lip when it hit me. The Plan. It was like a lightning bolt, and I was like a metal rod mounted on top of an elevated structure, electrically bonded with a wire conductor to interface with the ground and safely conduct the lightning to the earth. Excited, I turned to him, but my expression gave him pause.