What's Next - Pt. 3
What's Next - Pt. 3
The Reluctant Queen - Chapter 3:
“Here you are,” the girl said, handing me a room key, “You’re in room 202. That’s on the second floor all the way at the end.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile.
“My pleasure. My name is Claire. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with, I will be here until six tomorrow morning.”
“I’m Mena. Where can I get a good burger around here?” dinnertime was approaching and I was craving a juicy cheeseburger with all the fixings.
“Cecil’s Diner has the best burgers and milkshakes around. It’s about two miles down the road on the right-hand side. You can’t miss it,” she said.
“Ooh, I haven’t had a good milkshake in ages! What flavor do you recommend?” I asked her. She was a sweet girl and I wanted to bring her a milkshake. I got the sense that she had a tough life. She couldn’t be older than 18 and was working an overnight shift at a cheap motel. That's not exactly a dream job.
“Chocolate cherry,” she answered with a dreamy look in her eyes at the thought.
“Thanks, Claire. I’ll see you,” I said, leaving the lobby and climbing the exterior stairs towards my room for the night.
The room was outdated in the decor, but surprisingly clean and neat. You could never be sure what you’d end up with when you found a motel online, but the four-star review average for the Shady Oak Motel was well deserved.
After dropping off my bag, I returned to the car to seek out the diner Claire mentioned. It was still a little early for dinner, but I had skipped lunch and was hungry. Claire was right, Cecil’s Diner was almost impossible to miss. It was a low, flat-roofed building decorated in an old-fashioned car-hop diner style with a huge, neon sign sticking up from the roof. It would have been hard to miss even if it hadn’t been one of the few businesses in the sleepy town.
I settled myself on a stool towards the end of the long service counter that occupied one side of the restaurant. It was a force of habit from a life spent watching my own back to pick a seat that offered a clear view of the entrance.
I grabbed the slightly sticky laminated menu from between the ketchup bottle and paper napkin dispenser and perused my options.
“What can I get started for you?” the waitress asked as she sauntered up to me. She was wearing black leggings, a slightly stained t-shirt advertising the diner, and neon pink sneakers. Her curly dyed blond hair was impressively piled on top of her head in a mound that looked both messy and intentional. She pulled a Bic pen from her pile of hair and held it hovering over the order pad in her hand and snapped her gum.
“Hi. I’ll have the double bacon cheeseburger with fries, please,” I said.
“Drink?” she asked, flicking her eyes only briefly to me as she scribbled my order.
“A glass of water would be great.”
Without a word, she turned, tearing the slip off her order pad and slapping it down in the window to the kitchen. She returned to me with an empty plastic cup and a pitcher of water, plunking the cup down onto the counter and filling it. A paper wrapped straw appeared from somewhere and she unceremoniously tossed it down next to the cup for me. Her actions signified someone who had worked the same dead-end job for far too long. The service was exactly as I expected from this sort of road-side establishment in a nearly dead town. Just what I liked.
There were a few reasons for this. First, people tended to mind their own business and didn’t bother to remember anyone who came and went in a diner like this. That suited my desire to go unnoticed as much as possible; which was sometimes a difficult task as a young, objectively beautiful, woman traveling alone. Second, I loved people watching. In my training I had learned to read body language and size people up quickly, but I also had a natural knack for it. Within seconds of observing someone, I usually had a pretty good read on them. I used the times I ate alone in restaurants while on the road to practice my skills and stay sharp.
My food arrived in front of me without a word from the waitress. I contemplated if I was going to need to somehow unhinge my jaw to take a bite of the huge double cheeseburger. My eyes nearly rolled back in ecstasy as the delicious beefy smell wafted into my nose. I hadn’t realized how starving I was or how long it had been since I had a good, greasy burger.
I tried not to moan as I took my first bite. Claire was right when she said the diner had the best burgers.
I took my time and enjoyed every last bite of the burger and almost all of the fries, which were excellent too. As I sat back from my feast, wiping the corners of my mouth, I noticed the older man six stools down on the counter starting at me in awe. I’m sure he couldn’t believe a thin, athletic girl like me could finish off a double burger and fries so easily. Werewolves had big appetites and fast metabolisms.
The waitress looked a little skeptical as she cleared my plate, “guess you were hungry,” she murmured, almost more to herself.
“I was. Also, can I get two milkshakes to go?” I asked, trying not to grin as I saw out of the corner of my eye, the older man’s jaw drop open for a moment before he slammed it shut and just shook his head.
I paid the bill and took my two milkshakes, chocolate cherry for Claire and Oreo for me, gave the older man at the counter a quick wink as I passed him, and drove the short distance back to the motel.
As I approached the lobby door, I heard a low voice speaking, although I couldn’t make out the words, followed by a whimper. Any human passerby would not have been able to hear this through the closed door, but I could with my wolf hearing. Taking a few quiet steps closer, I positioned myself next to the door, but out of sight of the window, and listened in.