Midnight Shift

It was 2 a.m. and Denny’s was crammed with convalescing college kids. Sherry wiped up the coffee on table three and tried to ignore the wave of drunkenness that splattered the tacky walls with idiocy. It was the weekend before finals, and everyone was wasted.

A waitress’s worst nightmare.

Sherry finished cleaning and strode toward three guys sitting at a booth. They didn’t acknowledge her as she pulled out her notebook; two of them were too busy laughing at the third, who poured a goop of syrup into his black coffee.

She wasn’t paid enough to tell him to stop. She tapped her pen against the table, and they whipped their heads towards her with varying degrees of alertness.

“Y’all know what you want?”

They looked confused, but eventually Sherry got most of their slurred orders. Two buttermilk pancakes, and one side of ketchup. They’d burst out laughing. She didn’t bother finishing the last guy’s order. He’d laid down on the padded, greasy booth, stared at the ceiling, and hummed what sounded like “We are the Champions.”

Sherry left and put the orders in. She couldn’t believe she was working tonight. She should be at home chugging energy drinks and studying, not dragging her blistered feet, wearing a uniform that smelled like hash browns, and avoiding the spot on her shirt where she’d spilled syrup. Yep, she had to be here tonight. An idiot with a truck made sure of that last week.

“Yo Sherry! New customer. Table ten,” said Brian, who leaned against the host stand, eyes half closed. Sherry was sure he’d shown up to work high.

Was she the only person here who took her job seriously?

Sherry sighed. She’d thought the night was close to winding down. She dodged a couple of girls gyrating on the stained carpet, surrounded by the brightly lit, tawdry décor of a chain restaurant. It wasn’t as sexy as they thought it was, but that didn’t keep the guys from staring.

Except for one.

He’d spotted her first, blue eyes watching as she approached his booth. His shaggy auburn hair reached his shoulders, and he wore that same stupid smirk from last week.

Sherry stopped a couple feet away and crossed her arms. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

***

Wyatt may or may not have known Sherry worked at Denny’s. What he did know was that he’d been craving hash browns ever since their encounter last Wednesday. Had she been wearing a Denny’s uniform? Wyatt didn’t remember, he’d been too busy getting screamed at to notice. Even if he had known Sherry worked here, it wasn’t like he’d expected to run into her. That was the last thing he wanted.

Still, he could make the most of it.

Sherry stood with arms crossed, fuming. Her grey eyes could cut steel. She looked like a character from a sitcom. It was funny.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. A streak of brown hair had fallen from her tight ponytail and onto her face. She’d be cute, if she didn’t look like she wanted to cut him up into tiny pieces.

He decided he wouldn’t leave here until he either got her to smile or yell at him. One was going to be a lot harder to accomplish than the other.

“Same as everyone else, I guess. Y’all haven’t run out of hash browns yet, right?”

“We’ve never run out of hash browns.”

“You sure? One time I asked for hash browns and they said they didn’t have any potatoes. They looked at me crazy when I said I brought my own—”

“Our hash browns are from a can, dehydrated. We don’t run out. You gonna order or not?”

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “Somebody doesn’t want a big tip. You’d think with the accident you were in last week­­—”

“You ran into me!”

“After you slammed on your breaks.”

“You were tailgating.”

“You were going too slow.”

Sherry huffed and looked away. “It’s still your fault.”

“No.”

She glared at him. “No?”

“No.”

Sherry was about to explode, and Wyatt thrived. Who knew ditching his studying roommates would lead to this? Maybe he had been hoping to run into Sherry, but that was only because she was so much fun to mess with. If she wouldn’t smile, then this came as a close second.

Unfortunately, she rebooted herself. He didn’t know what caused it, but she plastered on a blank expression and raised her notebook.

“What would you like to drink?”

Wyatt leaned and rested one arm behind the back of the booth, pretending like they’d just had the most normal conversation ever.

“Eh, surprise me.”

She didn’t take his request to heart, because he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she returned and set down a cup of cold black coffee.

***

Sherry scowled at Wyatt from across the restaurant. She could see the smugness wisping off him like a bout of fog on a chilly morning. She wanted to throw her notebook at his head when he took a sip of cold coffee like he was enjoying a latte. He took his time looking over the menu, like he didn’t know what to get at a freaking Denny’s.

He’d acted exactly like this when he ran into her car. Oh, he apologized lazily at first, but when Sherry gave him a piece of her mind, he acted like the whole thing wasn’t his fault, all the while wearing that stupid smirk on his face. He was the reason she had to work an extra shift tonight and miss studying for her Biology exam, all to make up for the hours she lost last week. And he wasn’t even sorry.

She couldn’t glower at him all night though; she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. She knew guys like him, and she did not want to hear his crappy pick-up lines.

Sherry took the orders of the two girls who had finished whatever ritual they’d been doing, and spared a glance at the table of three drunk guys. The one that had been laying on the seat was now under the table, eating a packet of sugar.

This Denny’s that sat within walking distance from both the bars and the university was a lawless land. Whoever built it was a sadist.

Ten minutes passed and Sherry could no longer pretend that Wyatt was looking at the menu. She could have, if he hadn’t been leaning out of his booth, filming the guy with the sugar problem.

Sherry marched over and stood in front of his phone. “Do you have a problem?”

Wyatt stopped recording and glared up at her. He had the audacity to look exasperated. “No, do you?”

“You’re not allowed to film in here.”

“You know,” Wyatt said, and then grunted as he pulled himself back into his seat. “I never understood that policy in stores and stuff. Any publicity is good publicity, right?”

Sherry glanced at the table of the three drunk guys. “Not when you’re supposed to be a family friendly restaurant.”

“Why’d they hire you, then?”

Sherry’s eyes narrowed. That was too far. She tossed her notebook on the table and sat down across from Wyatt. They were getting this over with, here and now. He smiled at her like he’d already won.

She rested her forearms on the table. “Do you get some sort of sick pleasure from torturing me?”

***

Wyatt spun the saltshaker on the table; it made an awful grinding noise. He kept doing it.

“I’m not torturing you,” he said. “I’m just trying to get you to lighten up. It’s not my fault you don’t have a funny bone.”

Sherry grabbed the saltshaker and put it in the tray by their window, then she crossed her arms. She did that a lot.

“People who don’t take things seriously get under my skin.”

“So, you’re saying you seriously didn’t find it funny when I tripped over my feet getting out of my truck Wednesday? I fell on my ass. I was laughing before I hit the ground.”

Sherry dropped her jaw. “No! I was worried you had a concussion…and I was angry that an idiot rammed into my car!”

“I guess we do think differently. To be fair, I knew you hadn’t seriously gotten hurt.”

“Can you stop saying seriously?”

Wyatt pretended to think about it.

“Nah,” he said.

Sherry rolled her eyes. “You really love to be annoying, don’t you?”

“It’s seriously one of my best qualities.”

Sherry rested her head in her hands. But wait, was that a smile? No way. Had she finally cracked?

Finally. That was all he wanted. He could sleep soundly tonight.

“On a serious note­…uh, that time was on accident­.” Wyatt cleared his throat and started again. “On a genuine note, I am sorry I ran into you. I just tend to make a joke out of everything, and sometimes it comes back to bite me in the ass. It wasn’t a situation I should have joked about.”

She looked at him like he’d spoken in tongues.

***

Sherry looked at Wyatt like he’d spoken in tongues.

Had he really apologized? Genuinely?

Finally. That was all she wanted. She could sleep soundly tonight.

“Thank you for apologizing,” she said.

“No problem. Thanks for the smile.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “What smile?”

She climbed out of the booth as Wyatt shook his head. Her manager was eying her from across the restaurant. This place might resemble a barn, but that didn’t mean she could slack off.

She brushed off her uniform, avoiding the syrup stain. “I have to get back to work.”

“You always work the midnight shift here?”

“Not always. Just when someone runs into my car.”

Wyatt hummed. “Must be some idiot who’d do that.”

“Must be.”

Sherry didn’t bother hiding her smile this time.

She took Wyatt’s order and continued with her shift. The night started to dwindle down. She was cleaning up the table where the three guys had been when she saw Wyatt leaving. He paused with his hand on the door and looked over at her. She smiled, and he winked. Then, he was gone.

Sherry would probably run into him again. She was sure of it. Maybe their next encounter wouldn’t be so serious.