Terri Osburn - Up to the Challenge

A towheaded boy, maybe six years old, looked up from the Matchbox car he’d been pushing around his plate. When he caught sight of Sid, the car zoomed off the table. “You look like the ladies on daddy’s secret calendar.”

Daddy choked on his tongue and covered the little guy’s mouth. Thanks to a receding hairline, the blush covered his entire head. “Yes, we’ll take drinks all around if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all.” Sid winked at the little boy. “That’s not a dog calendar, is it?”

Munchkin shook his head.

“Good. Be right back with the drinks.”

Weaving through the tables, she reached the bar and found Lucas back at her end filling a beer from the tap. “You shouldn’t have sent Daisy out with those drinks. I wasn’t gone that long.”

Lucas looked up and froze, the beer still pouring.

“Not you, too,” she said. “Did someone spray brain fog in here while I was back in the office?”

“You took your shirt off.” The beer flowed.

“That is why I went back there.”

Beer reached the top of the glass and spilled over, drenching his hand. “Shit.” Lucas cut off the tap and set the glass in the sink. Pulling the rag off his shoulder, he wiped his hands. “You look … different.”

Sid looked down. Nothing looked different from that angle. “Did I grow a third eye?”

“No, but you grew something.” Lucas huffed, pacing the two feet to the back counter, then back to the bar. “That’s what you hide under those T-shirts?”

“You act like I’m wearing a sidearm. They’re tits, Dempsey. Every woman has them.”

“Not like those they don’t.”

Daisy stepped up next to Sid. “Look,” Sid said. She stood close to the other waitress for comparison, ignoring the fact the blonde’s boobs were at her eye level. “She has them too. In fact,” she waved an arm in the air, “this place is crawling with the things.”

“I hope we’re talking about eyebrows,” said Daisy, “or this would be weird.”

Sid snagged the pitchers of sweet tea and soda. “We’re talking about boobs. Dempsey here’s never seen any before.”

“I’ve seen plenty,” he argued, but Sid kept walking.

Sid considered pouring the pitchers over her own head. The heat in Lucas’s eyes had loosened up her gut and sent currents shooting through her limbs. Felt like when she used a drill too long and the vibrations skittered along her skin even after she’d turned it off.

The night Beth had dolled her up, Sid had felt like a girl for the first time in years. Maybe ever. But the look she’d just gotten from Lucas made her feel like a woman. Something new and freaky and unexpected. In a good way. Kind of.

“Who needed the refills?” she asked, returning to the little boy’s table. The mother and daughter had returned. The dad kept his eyes on his plate.

“I’ll take one, but no more for the kids, thanks,” said the mom.

“She’s our calendar girl,” the little boy said, smiling to reveal a gaping hole where a tooth used to be. “Ain’t she, Dad?”

“Our what?” the mother asked.

“Nothing, dear.” The dad wrapped an arm around the boy’s head, tucking him into his side. The move looked more like an attempt to suffocate the kidlet than hug him. “Could we get the check, please?”

“But mom said we could have cherry pie for dessert and we haven’t even ordered that yet.” The girl looked slightly older than her brother and sported the same toothless grin. Sid wondered if they’d knocked them out for each other the way Randy had once knocked hers out during a wrestling match.

He’d panicked at the sight of blood, giving Sid the chance to pin him the required three seconds and claim victory.

“One piece of pie for each?” she asked the mom.

Headband askew on her short brown hair, the woman looked from one child to the other. “One piece and they can split it.”

“Aw, Mom,” echoed in stereo.

“One piece of cherry with two forks on the way.” Sid glanced over to the dad, who looked ready to bolt. “And I’ll bring the check.”

Spotting new customers filing into an empty booth in her section, Sid decided to get their drink orders before hitting the kitchen for the pie. Though she’d never admit it, she kind of liked being called a calendar girl.

Lucas had never been punched before, but seeing Sid standing there looking like a goddess in white cotton and hints of pink lace knocked the wind out of him. The one or two times he’d seen her smile had sent him back a step, but the full blast of that body about put him on his ass.

How the hell could anyone hide all that? From the smooth, olive shoulders to the trim waist and sultry curve of her hips. And the breasts were perfection, especially in that lacy number clearly visible beneath the white cotton of the tank. The designer of that garment deserved an award.

And that begged another question. What was Sid doing wearing a girlie number like that?

Lucas decided there needed to be a law against Sid Navarro ever wearing anything baggy. Ever. Maybe he could file the papers to add a statute to the island bylaws. Gather a petition if necessary. Every male on Anchor would sign.

For the two hours following what he now thought of as the big reveal, Sid barked out drink orders and he filled them. No casual banter. No snide insults. No harmless teasing. Something had changed between them. As if a switch were thrown and a cloud of sexual tension fogged up his brain.

He’d like to think the same cloud fogged Sid’s brain, but then he hadn’t taken anything off (something he’d be willing to correct) and her face gave nothing away. The woman was operating like a robot. No facial expression, unless you counted that crease between her brows and stubborn set of her chin to be a facial expression.

“Looks like the place is still standing. That’s a good sign,” said Joe, joining Lucas behind the bar. “Everything go okay?”

Lucas was tempted to say no, then demand to know why Joe hadn’t warned him about Sid and her best-kept secret. Or secrets, in this case. But then Joe wouldn’t notice a glacier unless it landed on his boat. He never did have much of a radar for hot women. Until Lucas had put his fiancée in Joe’s path. Then the radar zoomed right in.

“What’d you think, that I’d ruin the business in one day?”

“Forget I asked.” Joe dropped his keys in a drawer below the register. “Let me grab some rags, then I’ll take over so you can count your drawer.”

A simple “thanks” should have been his response. Instead Lucas said, “You do that.” Six weeks of acting like a douche was not in his plans, but he needed another day or two to adjust his attitude. He’d prefer to make the adjustment himself rather than force Joe to take matters into his own hands.

Lucas had been ready for a brawl six weeks ago, but that night he’d been running on anger and hurt. Both emotions remained, but neither would be quelled with his fists. The fact Joe worked out with a punching bag on a regular basis put the odds squarely in his brother’s favor anyway. Lucas preferred litigation over pugilism.

“I’m heading to the office to count my tips,” Sid said, dropping her tray with the other spares under the bar. “I’ll take your jar with me so you can’t add to it while I’m gone.”

“You don’t trust me?” Lucas asked, struggling to keep his eyes above her neck.

“You’re a lawyer.”

“And you’re a mechanic.”

“So what?”

“So mechanics are notorious for telling people they need shit fixed when they don’t.” The line between Sid’s eyes deepened at his words. “If we’re going by occupation, you’re more likely to cheat.”