52. Aiyana

Chapter fifty-two

Aiyana

K as pulls up to a diner in a small town that I'm not familiar with. We passed an emergency veterinary clinic a few minutes ago, but aside from that, there isn't much out here besides homes, well, and this diner, of course.

My stomach is rumbling and making some extremely unattractive sounds, so the moment Kas parks, I unbuckle my seatbelt and toss myself out of his truck, making a beeline for the door. He follows behind me, skipping ahead to pull the door open for me as if we're on some fancy date. Truthfully though, this is perfect.

I fucking love diners. There's nothing quite like fried eggs, white toast with butter and strawberry jam, and a freaking giant chocolate chip waffle. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

The outside of the diner is pretty basic looking. It's a small white building with red windowpanes and a matching red roof, but when we get inside, it's clear this place is super retro, and I'm already obsessed. Black-and-white checkered tiles line the floors. An old-fashioned jukebox sits in the middle of an empty dance floor that I fully intend to take up residence on if given the opportunity. The walls are lined with mirrors and old-time photos of Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy , as well as some older pictures of items from their menu, including malted milkshakes I'd love nothing more than to nosedive into.

We step up to the hostess stand where an older woman with short, curled blonde hair stands, her light-blue eyes still glittering under her wrinkled lids, lips thickly lined with red liner crinkling at every angle. She smiles brightly at us, my eyes snagging on her outfit, which is composed of a thick knee-length pink skirt, a white collared button down tucked into it, with a black-and-white ruffled apron around the waist, and white flat sneakers.

My heart flutters around in my chest with excitement. I've always wanted to go to a place like this.

She greets us warmly and walks us over to a square, silver metal table with a red-and-cream top, setting down two menus. "Can I get you anything to drink?" she asks.

"Do you have vanilla cola?" I ask with a smile.

"Sure do," she says, writing it down on her notepad before turning to Kas.

"Just a water for me, please." He smiles brightly at her.

As soon as she walks away, I beam at Kas. "For the record, I fully intend to get a milkshake too; I'm just not sure which one yet. This place is perfect, Kas! I love it!"

He smiles broadly at me and places his large, warm hand on my knee, which sends a zing of heat through my body. "I'm glad you like it, little viper. Now are we ordering one of everything on the menu?" he asks me, his serious expression telling me he's absolutely prepared to do just that.

I snort. "There are about two hundred items on this menu, Kas. Even the two of us couldn't finish all that."

"Hey now, I'm up for the challenge. You good just splitting a bunch of stuff?" he asks, but he knows that's my favorite way to eat out.

I nod enthusiastically, and when the woman I'd assumed was the hostess comes back with our drinks and pulls out a pad and pen, she asks, "You two ready to order?"

Kas looks over at me, and just as I'm about to order my usual, he rattles off our order. "She'd like the two eggs platter with white toast and strawberry jam, two chocolate chip waffles with syrup on the side, extra butter, and whipped cream." He pauses, confirming with me, and I nod, my chest clenching at the realization that after all these years, he still remembers my exact order. He continues, "We'll also take a cheeseburger done well with a side of fries and honey mustard. Could we also get an eggs benedict, a side of fruit, and a root beer float, please? Oh"—he turns to me—"what shake do you want?" he asks knowingly.

My gaze sweeps back over the menu before landing on a malted chocolate, cookies and cream shake, so that's what I order. The waitress smiles, not even remotely fazed by the size of our order, and heads back to the kitchen.

"You remembered my order," I tell him, leaning into him and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. He shudders under my touch, and I pull back, knowing I shouldn't be entertaining this but wanting to so badly.

"How could I forget?" He laughs. "We went to that diner nearly every Sunday for four years, and you always ordered the same thing, though I added the second waffle on for me."

The memories flood my system, my heart aching again, and I shake my head, pushing the thoughts out.

I steer my gaze over to the dance floor where the jukebox stands untouched. "I wonder if it works," I say absentmindedly.

I hear Kas's chair skid across the floor, making a loud noise, and he reaches down to me with his arm extended. "Let's find out."

Taking his hand in mine, he pulls me to a standing position and drags me along toward the shiny box. As he takes out coins from his pocket, my brows shoot up my forehead. "You carry coins with you now?" I ask.

He flicks me gently between the brows, rolling his eyes at me dramatically. "I planned ahead for this exact moment, obviously," he says, shaking his head with a small smile as he inserts a quarter and pushes me toward it with a firm hand on my lower back. I sort through all of the music, finally landing on a familiar song that's bound to shatter my heart in two, but I don't even care because I'm just trying to live in this one perfect moment with Kas.

I press K8, and the machine makes a noise before the music starts trickling through the speakers. The people at the tables around us snap their attention toward us, looking quizzically as Kas pulls me into his arms. We sway to the sounds of Elvis Presley's velvet baritone as he sings " Can't Help Falling In Love . " 1 My body presses tightly to Kas's, his arms bare in his tight-fitting black T-shirt, revealing the tattoos that wind up his hands, onto his forearms, disappearing under the shoulders and peeking back out around his neck. I wind my arms around his neck, letting the music envelop us in this moment, one I know my heart won't ever recover from, but I did this to myself.

Kas pulls me in more tightly as two older couples make their way down here, swaying slowly together, and a tear falls down my cheek, knowing Kas and I will never be like that. Old and gray and so madly in love with our spouse that we do cringey things like dance to old songs in the middle of a diner on New Year's Eve.

Kas catches the tear with the pad of his thumb, wiping it away and pressing a kiss to my mouth. His lips are soft as he peppers mine with tender kisses, and when the song ends, he pulls me even closer and holds me until we see our waitress heading toward our table, balancing our monstrous order in her arms.

He hooks my arm through his, and we shuffle back to the table, but I'm a little unsteady on my feet, my heart heavy and mood down as a result.

We take a seat as she unloads everything, and I look up to catch what her name is. Her name tag reads, "Lucy," and that gets a small chuckle out of me. How fitting?

Kas eyes me curiously, and when she's done, she looks between us and asks, "Anything else you need, sweethearts?"

We shake our heads. "Thank you, Lucy," I say, and she gives me a gentle smile before leaving us to eat our food.

My stomach grumbles on cue, so loudly that Kas peers over at me, holding in a laugh, and tells me, "Dig in."

He doesn't have to tell me twice! I unfold the red paper napkin and lay it across my lap, pulling the plate of eggs toward me. Just like the diner we used to go to, when you order two eggs, they give you three.

I start with a piece of toast, slathering a thick layer of strawberry jam on the toast point, and nearly moan when the buttery carby goodness hits my tongue. "There's just something so damn good about white toast with butter," I groan, speaking around mouthfuls, and Kas smirks at me, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners.

He shakes his head, smiling down at his plate as he cuts the burger in half, placing one side on my plate. I grin up at him and take the top bun off, placing a fried egg on top and returning the bun. I bring the burger to my mouth, and this time, I release a low groan that has my eyes twitching. It's that good.

You'd honestly think I haven't eaten in years with the way I'm eating right now. Kas leans into me, whispering in my ear, "If you keep making those sounds, this whole restaurant is going to find out what it sounds like when you come around my cock in a diner bathroom."

A jolt of pleasure zings through me, straight to my core, and my inner walls clench. He leans back in his seat, taking a bite of a fry, but he does it slowly, eyes locked on me, and it feels so sensual, I'm starting to get hot. I shift in my seat, putting the burger down and wrapping my hand around the pretty light-green glass that's overflowing with the chocolatey shake and topped with so much whipped cream it defies the laws of gravity that it ever made it to this table at all.

I pluck the maraschino cherry off and keep my eyes locked on Kas as I put the sweet but sorry excuse for a fruit into my mouth, chewing slowly. After I swallow, I lower my lids seductively, pop the stem of the cherry in my mouth, and tie it into a knot. When I'm done, I flick my tongue out, showing him the tied knot sitting on the end of it.

When he leans in to take it from my mouth with his, I smile into the kiss, the tension from earlier gone and replaced with a new one, something lighter and more flirtatious that crawls under my skin and makes me dizzy with lust.

He sweeps his tongue through my mouth and tugs my hand into his lap from under the table, placing it on his hard erection. I squeeze as he steals the knotted stem from me before pulling away and setting it on a discarded plate that once held the eggs benedict he devoured.

I smirk at him, grazing my hand down his length and returning my hand to my fork to continue eating. He lets out a long, shaky breath and mutters, "You're gonna be the death of me, woman."

I chuckle at that and dive back into my food, glad that a more familiar air of lightness is surrounding us.

A while later, we're full. I'm slurping up the last drops of my milkshake, making a loud noise that has Kas chuckling into the crook of his elbow.

Lucy heads over to us. "Could I interest you in some dessert?" she asks, and while I'd love to say yes, I'm absolutely stuffed.

"I'm so full, I think I'd explode if I ate anything else, but thank you so much," I tell her and Kas. They both laugh, and he declines as well. She brings the check back, and he hands her his card before I can even offer to pay.

"You're such a guy. Next time, I'm paying," I say, rolling my eyes.

His hand grips my thigh, squeezing as he leans in. "You can try," he says in a low, gravelly tone.

When she returns, he fills out the check, leaves her a large tip in cash, and scoots out of his chair, holding his hand out for me. I stand, work my way into my coat, and loop my arm through Kas's when he offers it to me.

Tonight, I'm letting myself off the hook from all the guilt I know will still be there tomorrow. I might as well give myself the night off from some of it.

Kas opens the truck door for me and helps hoist me up. I know I'm short, but I can get up into the truck myself. I swat at his hands, and he chuckles softly behind me, finally letting me grapple for purchase on the side rails, pulling myself the rest of the way in.

He rounds the side of the new, shiny red truck and climbs in behind the steering wheel. I also notice the twine necklace I made him the year everything went to hell with his parents, but what I don't recognize is the small, wooden tribal emblem hanging like a pendant through it. He has them hanging over his rearview mirror. "Where'd you get this?" I ask as I reach forward, rubbing my thumb over the smooth carved wood.

"Your dad carved it for me and gave it to me for our graduation from high school. I found it the other day and figured I'd put it somewhere I can see it."

That has those butterflies taking flight in my stomach again. I give him an awkward smile and change the subject. "So where are we going now?" I ask, trying to sound eager. But truthfully, I'm so damn full, I'm not sure I can do anything right now.

"Well, I planned around your massive appetite, so I figured we'd go park at this place I came across a while ago and watch the sunset before heading over to the real event of the night."

"Sounds like a plan," I tell him, skin warming from the truck's heater.

We sit in silence as he drives us toward the national park, which ends up only being a seven-minute drive. He reverses in, parking so the back of the truck is facing the massive rock side on our left that meets with the brush and dips in the middle like a valley where the sun is starting to set. It's gorgeous.

He leans behind the seat, grabs a duffle bag, and tells me, "Wait right here; I'll grab you in a second." I nod, suspicious but unwilling to ruin his fun.

A few minutes later, he's helping me out of the truck, bringing me along the other side of the vehicle until we're standing in front of the truck bed, which he has popped open with an air mattress he must've had back there already blown up. There's a mountain of tan-and-green blankets, fuzzy cream pillows, and a string of twinkling battery-operated lights. He grips my hips and seats me on the edge of the mattress, then climbs in after me.

My heart is swelling, and I feel like the fucking Grinch, except my heart grows three sizes every time I'm with Kas, and it's starting to become a problem.

I can't help the way my eyes well with tears, but I brush them away quickly, and when he lies down, resting his head on a pile of pillows with his arm behind his head, his bulging biceps and monstrous thighs catch my eye, and a new feeling starts to overwhelm me.

I smirk at him, gripping onto this new feeling, though holding on for dear life is more like it.

Scooting down toward him, I lay my body across his, my hands framing his face, and he doesn't miss a beat. Arms wrapping around me, he pulls me on top of him and devours my mouth in a searing kiss that sends shivers down my spine. He pulls back, looking so deeply into my eyes that I'm afraid he's seeing my soul splayed out and raw. Rubbing the rough pad of his thumb over my cheekbone, he says, "Come here," and pats the bed next to him. "Watch the sunset with me," he murmurs so quietly I almost miss it.

I shift in his lap, rolling over onto the side he was patting, and rest my head on his shoulder, slinging my arm across his taut abdomen. We watch as the sun slowly sets along the horizon, and as the chill starts to set in, he wraps me in his warm embrace and covers me in a soft blanket.

The sunset is gorgeous, one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. The colors are the most vibrant shades of purple, pink, and orange, the sky lighting up like it's the universe's canvas and it's decided to paint with watercolors tonight.

Kas clutches me to his body, and when the sun has finally set, I look up to see that his beautiful face is blotchy, and a single tear has fallen down his cheek. He sees me and gives me a small smile, but I kneel over him and kiss the tear away, brushing the salty wetness with my lips before pressing a series of kisses across his face and finally landing on his lips.

I know how special sunsets are to Kas. When he was little, his mom and grandma, whom he called Lola, would take him and Kat to the shore or really anywhere with a nice view for holidays and birthdays. They'd have a picnic and talk about what the new day would bring them, saying the sun was setting to wash away the bleakness of the day before, and that with the new day, beauty would rise with it.

When his mom was shot, she was never the same, constantly agitated when he or Kat would go to see her, and eventually, her caretakers asked them to stop. Then, a few years later, Lola passed away too. During both of those times, Kas shut down, and even though he wouldn't talk to anyone but me for such a long time, I'd still see him watching the sunset from wherever he was. He'd sometimes sit out on the back patio for hours in silence, just thinking. I always thought it was where he felt most connected to his mom and Lola.

He wraps his arms around my waist, crushing me to him, and leaning in, he presses a kiss to the divot between my shoulder and collarbone. "Thank you, little viper," he whispers.

1. Can't Help Falling in Love – Haley Reinhart