“Oh, come on. There’s no one else here, and I can’t exactly wait on ghost tables,” I protested.
Ursula’s laugh was husky, betraying her enduring smoking habit. “I’m just saying you seem distracted tonight.” She pushed her circular spectacles up the bridge of her nose until they settled and magnified her eyes twofold. “Or should I say more distracted than usual.”
“That’s because she is distracted, Ursula.” Millie was back, and whipping off her apron. She was leaving an hour before me, and in that moment I slightly resented her for it. “We should tell Ursula.”
“Yes, we should,” Ursula echoed, shuffling sideways so she could prop herself against the wall beside me. We were exactly the same height, so she could bore her eyes right into mine very effectively with little effort.
“But I don’t have anything to tell,” I swore.
“Lies!” Millie slipped in front of the counter, hoodie in hand. She shrugged it on, smiling so broadly nearly all of her clear braces were visible at once. She zipped it up and her name tag, MILLIE THE MAGNIFICENT — I don’t know how she had snuck that one past Uncle Jack — disappeared. Then she leaned forward until her hair brushed the countertop, and dropped her voice. Ursula responded like a magnet, coming closer, and training her attention on Millie.
“Well, you probably won’t believe this,” Millie began, gesturing subtly at me with her thumb. “But Sophie has developed a crush on a shadow. A real bona fide shadow-crush. Rare as a solar eclipse, but they do happen. Our Sophie is a shadow-creeper.”
Ursula pulled her eyebrows together until they almost touched. “What?”
“She’s just kidding,” I explained, throwing Millie a death stare.
“Am I, Sophie? Am I?” She smirked suggestively, in the way only Millie could. “Ursula, I’ll need you to take over that table of wonderful specimens now that I’m leaving,” she said, gesturing toward Erin and her friends in the corner, before crossing the diner and shouting, “See you guys tomorrow!”
Once Millie had disappeared, Ursula turned her penetrating gaze back to me. “So what’s this shadow thing all about?”
“It’s nothing, really. There’s this new family living in the Priestly place and I think I bumped into one of them the other night, but then I ran away from him, and now Millie thinks it’s the funniest and most tragic thing she’s ever heard.” I grabbed a cloth and started to wipe down the countertop, which was already gleaming.
Ursula narrowed her eyes as if trying to determine whether there was more to my story, but before she could chase up a line of questioning, the bell above the door jingled.
Against the backdrop of our abrupt silence, two figures swept through the door.
I tried not to gape. One tall, dark, handsome boy is difficult to ignore, but two is near impossible.
They paused inside the door, their broad shoulders brushing as they stood side by side. They began to militarily scan the diner, as though they were looking for something that could have been under any of the tables or swinging from the ceiling fans.
Without meaning to, Ursula and I both took a step forward.
There was something effortlessly fashionable about them — their dark, straight-leg jeans were tailored to break perfectly above expensive leather boots that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and they wore designer T-shirts accented by the simple silver chains around their necks.
I studied the boy on the right, feeling something stir inside me. I knew his shape, his height. I dropped my gaze and recognized the silver buckles on his boots.
Ursula and I weren’t the only ones hopelessly distracted; fleetingly I noticed how the three girls in the corner had fallen out of their conversation and suddenly looked a lot hungrier than they had been a moment ago. I didn’t blame them. The boys were like something out of a movie.
Without glancing toward us, they glided — yes, glided — over to a window booth and slid in, keeping their attention on their own whispered conversation.
“Can you take this one, hon?” Ursula sighed. “I don’t think I can stand next to them. It’s too depressing.” She made her way across the diner to tend to the girls in the corner instead.
My midnight encounter had seemed like little more than a bad dream, but now that Shadow Boy was here, I realized I would have to confront the reality of the situation — he was Mount Olympus, I was Gracewell’s Diner, and I still had no idea why he knocked me over. With any luck, there was every chance he wouldn’t even recognize me.
Although their distinct appearances and obvious similarities had led me to assume they were brothers, the fact that they were speaking Italian when I approached their table confirmed it — it was that same lilting dialect that Shadow Boy had spoken to me.
“Hi, my name is Sophie and I’ll be your server this evening,” I rhymed off briskly, handing them each a menu.
Shadow Boy snapped out of his conversation. He turned and, up close, he was younger than I expected — still older than me, maybe, with chestnut brown hair that curled beneath his ears and dark, almond-shaped eyes flecked with gold. I was struck just then, not by his handsomeness, but by his familiarity. I couldn’t shake the sense that I had seen his face before — long ago — and though it was undeniably handsome, I had the unpleasant compulsion to look away from him. I tried to blink myself out of it. He had just thrown me off. If I had seen him before, I wouldn’t have forgotten him.