Feeling Entitled

After dropping her luggage off at the motel's office, we headed back to the same café we'd had lunch at the day before. "So, where'd you sleep last night?" she asked when the waitress walked away after bringing us our menus.

"In Bourbon," I said without looking away from my menu.

I explained about the small town, refusing to look up from my menu because I just didn't trust myself not to get caught up in her eyes again. We'd been quiet for a few moments as we both studied our menus until . . . "I think I'll have the corned beef hash and eggs with a side of biscuits and gravy."

Now my eyes were on hers, fully expecting her to be looking up from her menu as well. Possibly even grinning in a teasing way. But she wasn't. She was still reading her menu, and I sat there, my insides heating as I tried to figure out if this was her way of being funny—breaking the ice. If it was, she was about to get a mouthful because, after last night, this wasn't cool.

Finally, she looked up, doing a doub