The bell jingled again for maybe the fourth time all day. It was going on four in the afternoon, and the diner opened at six in the morning. Sundays are always really slow, despite the church crowds, and Tommy was the only one working. He shut the walk-in freezer door and walked through the kitchen to get to the front counter and desperately take the order. Just to cure the boredom.
Glancing through the kitchen window to the main area of the diner, he saw long dark blonde hair and nothing else. Only when he walked through the swinging doors did he see her face. Walking slowly toward her end of the counter, he took in her deep almost golden eyes. The sunlight coming in the front windows made them shimmer as she looked right back at him. When he got to her, she smiled.
"Hi. I need a to go order. It's kinda long."
He smiled back at her and said, "That's fine."
Back in the kitchen, he kept looking to his left as he was cooking, watching where she was looking. Every now and then she would look away just as he looked at her, like a shy teenager. He really hoped that she wasn't a teenager. Eventually she started to wander closer and closer to the kitchen window. All the while, Tommy was starting to wrap up the first few orders and moving on to the next on this golden-eyed goddess' list.
"So how much longer do you think you might be?"
"Well, it's just me back here, and I'm almost halfway there. So, I think I can say between a half of an hour to forty-five minutes."
"Well, damn," she said with playful sarcasm, flashing him a smile, looking directly at him. "So, how long has this place been here?"
"A few years. We opened about nine months before Katrina. A little bit of money here and there has been put into restoring it since the storm, but I think it just took so long, most people think we closed down. Haven't had too much time or money for advertising on top of everything. Five years is a long time though. Hard to believe."
"Damn. I hadn't even heard of this place but my mom came in a while back. She's been raving about your burgers ever since." There was that smile again.
"Well, you and the rest of the family should come over all together."
"I think we will. Are you the owner?"
"Yes, I am. I'm Tommy Breaux. Hence the name 'Bro's Place'."
"I like the name. Yours and the diner's." That last comment made her blush a little bit. "My name is Daniella. It's nice to meet you, Tommy. Could I possibly help you at all?"
"If you'd like. Am I just going too slow?" She giggled as she walked through the back kitchen door that read "Employees Only". She immediately started plating and wrapping an order while continuing to sauté another that was still on the stove. It was like she was born in a kitchen. He really liked her.
"Wow. You really know what the hell you're doing. I'm impressed."
"Well my mom is full-blown Cajun, and my dad's Italian. I kind of pick up on cooking whatever pretty quickly."
"Very cool. So, why so many orders?"
Daniella giggled again, "My three siblings are in town. One of them with a husband and child in tow. Plus two cousins dropped in."
"Oh big Southern families." The rest of the food was finished in almost absolute silence. The same furtive glances given before the conversation took place, only she looked a little bit longer, wanting to look into his blue-green eyes, his dark hair occasionally getting in the way. But only for a second before looking away again. Everything was finished and put into bags. He rang her up, she paid (with a credit card, granting him access to her ID; turns out she was twenty-three to his twenty-eight), and all the while, they kept staring at each other, longer and longer until she said goodbye with a sly smile and walked out with her bags.
Over the next few days a couple of extra customers were coming in every day and every night. Then at the end of that Friday, almost around midnight, as the last late-night coffee drinker was leaving, Tommy and his two other cooks were feeling miserable that despite the increase in customers, they still had almost an hour left on their shift and it was looking like no one else was going to come in. Good tips were a little sparse for a Friday, and Tommy was considering calling it an early night. When the little bell jingled again, and a cacophony of giggles filled the diner. At the head of a pack of beautiful ladies of all shapes and sizes was Daniella, looking lovely as ever with her hair pinned up and all decked out for some sort of bash.
"Tommy!" she squealed adorably.
"Hey there!" he replied, reaching to hug her over the counter. "What are you doing here?"
"We're here to eat, duh! We just got out of a great party with not so tempting food and we were all craving something filling, and we were in the neighborhood. Hope you don't mind. You guys aren't closing yet are you?" All three of the cooks all shook their heads no as quickly as possible and started to take orders. By the end of the night, all of the gorgeous women were extremely satisfied with the food and had left extremely generous tips to show it. As the ladies filed out to their respective rides home, saying goodnight to Daniella and everyone else, Tommy's other cooks were giving him knowing looks, as they told him to have a good night. No doubt they would both try to hook up with any number of Daniella's friends as they were walking to their cars.
As the last of her friends left, she turned to Tommy as he was finishing cleaning everything up for the evening. "Thanks for accommodating us."
"Thanks for all of the business tonight."
"Oh I've been telling everyone about this place. Word of mouth is just free advertising. And it's pretty effective in New Orleans."
He laughed a little at this. "Very true." He paused to look at her, eye to eye. "What are you doing?"
"What?"
"What are you doing right now?"
"Um, just looking-"