Chapter 5

Miranda

When I got home with Jenny's chicken nuggets and Diet Coke, she could tell something was up with me. It took very little prodigy to get me to tell her everything. She laughed at the idea of asking to blow Simon for practice, but she didn't make fun of me for it. Until that night, the two of us had equal amounts of experience with guys. She said she probably would have done the same thing.

I admitted to her that I wasn't sure what to make of the interaction. Simon's so much older than me that I can't imagine he'd want to seriously be with someone with so little experience. And I told Jenny as much.

"I mean, he ate you out, didn't he?" she asked, tucking a strand of curly blonde hair behind her ear and revealing her eyes of two different colors – blue and green.

"That's what I said," I murmured, my face burning.

"Well, I doubt he'd do that if he wasn't interested in you," she pointed out. "Some of the girls I have classes with complain that they can't even get their boyfriends to do that. I bet her likes you as much as you like him."

I told her that I wasn't so sure of that, and she decided we should come up with a plan to test his feelings for me. We both agreed that she'd bring one of her male friends from the university in to eat at Lucky's. They'd sit in my section, and when Simon came into the dining room, her friend would flirt with me. I wouldn't flirt back so as not to break the professionalism rule that Simon issued, and we'd see how he reacts to the interaction.

Now that I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, I'm a little nervous about things. After having a day off, I've had plenty of time to think about what happened between the two of us. Distance from Lucky's has convinced me that Simon's behavior has all been courtesy. He can't actually be interested in me. He's just giving me the practice that he offered and I, in turn, asked for.

"You feeling okay?" Nicole asks when I walk past her a couple minutes later.

"What?" I ask, stopping in my tracks to face her. Then I shake my head, put on my best smile, and tell her, "I'm fine."

"You sure?" she presses, rasping her acrylic fingernails against the wood of her host stand. "You seemed pretty lost in thought."

"I'm positive," I say, sounding convincing even to my own ears. "I just didn't sleep well last night. I'll be golden after I swipe a cup of coffee from the kitchen."

"I sure hope so," she laughs. "I bet we'll be busy tonight."

"That means good money," I reply before shuffling away to clock in and get myself in the right mindset.

I'm a little distracted by my thoughts when I greet my first table, but once more customers start filtering in, I'm too busy to think much about what's going on between me and Simon. It's easy to fall into the organized chaos of dinner service. By the time Jenny arrives, I've nearly forgotten about the plan we hatched two nights ago.

"Hey, you," she says when I approach the table she and her friend are sitting at. "You remember Blaine, right?"

Blaine, a handsome man that's around our age, smiles at me and says, "Long time, no see."

"How've you been?" I say as I place their silverware in front of them. "I haven't seen you since our housewarming party."

"I've been great," he laughs, unrolling his silverware. "I've stopped by your apartment a few times, but you haven't been there."

"This place takes up all my spare time lately," I reply as I pull out my notepad. "Someone's gotta pay our rent."

"Oh, shut up," Jenny jokes. "Can we get two of those flavored lemonades? I want strawberry."

"That sounds good," Blaine says, glancing down at his menu. "Ooh, and can we do the mozzarella sticks as an appetizer?"

"Absolutely," I say, scribbling down their order. Before I walk away to send it to the kitchen, Jenny stops me by grabbing my sleeve.

"Can you point out Simon?" she asks, glancing between me and Blaine. "You've been talking about him all week, and I have no idea what he looks like."

"See that guy over by the bar?" I say after scanning the room and locating him.

"In the dark red shirt?" Blaine asks.

"Yeah, that's him," I confirm.

"Oh, he's hot," Jenny says. "I get why you're crazy about him."

"I'm not crazy about him," I protest, even though she's right – I'm wild for Simon.

"Sure, you're not," she says, rolling her eyes.

"I'm going to go ring this back now," I say, deciding to excuse myself before she can say anything else.

When I finish at the computer, I make my way to the bar to wait for the bartender to finish Blaine and Jenny's drinks. Simon's still standing there when I approach. Instead of a proper greeting, he gives me a glance and a grunt. It makes me feel like I really might have misread the entire situation between us.

"You were at that table for a while," he murmurs after a few seconds. "You know them?"

"That's my roommate," I reply, watching as the bartender pours their drinks.

"She here with her boyfriend?"

"No, that's her friend," I tell him as I take the drinks from the bar top.

"He couldn't take his eyes off of you," Simon notes before I'm able to walk away.

"Oh," I say, taken aback by the statement. It sounds like he's jealous already, and Blaine hasn't even flirted with me. "I didn't notice."

Simon grunts again. I hover for a second, waiting for him to say something else. When he doesn"t, I walk the drinks back to Jenny and Blaine. As I set them down, I give Jenny a look.

"What just happened?" she asks, taking a straw from my apron before I can hand one to her.

"I think he's already jealous," I reply.

"Really?" Blaine says, a playful smirk on his face. "I haven't even gotten started yet."

"Oh my God," Jenny says after taking a sip of her lemonade. "He's looking over here right now."

"Wait, really?" I ask, resisting the urge to turn around and confirm what she said.

"Yup," Blaine replies, reaching out to touch my arm lightly. When I give him a curious look, he says, "I'm trying to play it up for our audience."

I can't help the giggle that comes out of my mouth. Then, as if to continue the show he's putting on, Blaine rubs his fingertip down my arm before finally putting his hand back on the table. I think if it were Simon doing this, it'd make me melt, but since it's Blaine, it just feels silly.

"Is he still watching?" I ask, glancing at Jenny, whose eyes are trained on the bar.

"Mhmm," she hums, her lips wrapped around her straw.

"He looks pissed," Blaine adds, leaning forward onto his elbows. "I think this ploy you girls came up with is working."

"That I came up with," Jenny corrects him. "Oh, he's walking away."

"What?" I say, unable to keep myself from turning to look.

I spot him weaving through servers holding trays loaded with food. His shoulders are held tight, and his hands are balled into fists at his sides. It looks like he's upset; at what, I don't know. I can only assume that he doesn't like how Blaine's touching me.

"Huh," I murmur when he disappears through the double doors to the kitchen.

"Well, I think my work here is done," Blaine says as he picks up his menu. "Jenny, you ready to order?"

"Yep," she says, putting her drink on the table. "Get your notepad out, Miranda. I've got a lot of specifications."

"Of course you do," I say, shaking my head as I get my pen and paper ready.

I write down their order, taking special care to read Jenny's heavily modified request back to her. As I'm punching it into the computer, I wonder why Simon stalked off the way he did. The last time he didn't like one of my conversations with a customer, he confronted me. This time, he just walked away.

Worry eats at me. What if he's done? It's not like I did anything to stop Blaine. Maybe Simon thinks that I was enjoying it. Could he think the reason I wanted to "practice" giving a blow job was because I wanted to give one to someone else?

For the rest of the night, I'm distracted by my anxieties. The whole point of making him jealous was to confirm he was interested in me, not deter him from pursuing me. Our plan may have completely backfired. My thoughts only get darker when I don't see him for the rest of dinner service.

By the time the floor is cut, Simon is still gone. He relays the message through the assistant manager. I'm dreading closing time when the two of us are alone. I don't think I can take him ignoring me when it's just the two of us. If I have to, I'll force him to talk to me and come clean about the feelings I've been harboring for him.