Bachelor Number Five (The Bachelor Series, Volume 1) (23 page)

“He’s filming at Fox, over in Culver City,” Bridget said before turning to Warren.  “It’s not that far!  Besides, any day we both get off for lunch is a good one.  You shouldn’t complain.”

“I’m not complaining!”

“You guys are too much,” Amanda laughed.  “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Just the check,” said Bridget.

“You got it.”  Amanda moved off, stopping at a few other tables in the dining room to top off glasses of tea.  Back in the kitchen she dropped off the pitcher and then moved to the server’s terminal where she punched in the table number and printed a check.  She was placing it into a plastic sleeve when Ariel came through with a tray of dirty dishes.

“Your buddy is here,” Ariel said.

“What buddy?” Amanda asked.

“You know, your high school buddy!”  Ariel stopped at the dishwashing station and emptied his tray.

Amanda felt a sudden panic.  She stood where she was, unable to respond.  Could it be?

“I told him you were here,” Ariel went on.  “He’s in my section.  You should go out and say hello.”

“You’re talking about Grant?” said Amanda.  “Grant Hutchinson?!”

“Yes, hello!!  How many other high school buddies do you have around here?”  Ariel didn’t wait for an answer.  Instead he swept back out of the kitchen leaving Amanda where she was, frozen with apprehension.

Grant Hutchinson was
here
.  The embodiment of her fantasies.  All she had to do to finally meet him was walk out that door.  The simplicity of that fact was hard to fathom, yet how could she speak to him without being caught out in a lie?!  She didn’t go to his high school.  She’d never even been to Texas.  Unfortunately, Amanda couldn’t afford to stand around thinking about it.  She had customers to wait on.  Bowing her head and pursing her lips, she darted back into the dining room and made her way to Bridget and Warren’s table where she dropped off the check.

“I can pick that up whenever you’re ready,” she said, even while she peered out the window, trying to spot Grant, her heart racing a mile a minute.  He wasn’t seated on the porch.  Nor did she spot him in the garden.  Amanda picked up Warren and Bridget’s empty plates and balanced them on one arm.

“Let me give you a card right now.”  Warren reached for his wallet.

“Excuse me, waitress?”  One of two women seated at another table waved a hand in the air.  “We’re ready to order!”

“I’ll be right with you, as soon as I run this gentleman’s credit card,” Amanda answered.

Warren slipped his card into the plastic sleeve and Amanda put it in an apron pocket and then hurried back to the kitchen.  When she had a chance, she would have to move closer to the front door to get a better look at the outside tables.  She dropped off the dirty dishes, printed the credit card slip and then hurried back out.  She gave the slip to Warren, who signed it and handed it back.

“Thanks, guys!” said Amanda.  “I hope to see you again soon!”  She put the slip in her pocket and moved to the next table where the women waited to place their order.  “Thank you for being so patient.  What can I get for you?”

“How is the Asian salad?” said the first woman.

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“How can you order a salad at a burger joint?” said the woman’s friend.

“I can order whatever I want!  I’ll have the Asian salad and a house Chardonnay.”

“Wine for lunch?  You
are
daring!” her friend continued.  “I’ll have a French dip and a coke.”

“Look at you, complaining that I don’t get a burger and then you get a French dip!”

“At least it’s in the same food group.”

“Would you like anything else?  A basket of bread, maybe?”  Amanda craned her neck but she still couldn’t spot Grant.

“Bread would be fantastic,” said the first woman.

“I’ll bring those drinks right out as well.”  Amanda cleared a few plates from another table before getting the women’s wine, coke and bread.

“Your buddy wants to see you,” Ariel said as moved out of the kitchen with a food order in each hand.  “He’s very eager to reconnect.”

“I’m a little bit busy right now!” Amanda snapped.  “It is the lunch rush, if you hadn’t noticed!”

“Lordy, I think I hit a nerve.”  Ariel kept moving, back on out to his section.

When she had a moment, and summoned the courage, Amanda took a detour past the front door.  She stood just inside peering out onto the patio, her eyes darting from table to table until she spotted him; blond hair with a boyish cut, white T-shirt, baggy shorts, flip-flops on his feet.  He had a broad smile on his face and an animated air as he told a story to his male companion.  This could have been any other surfer boy in Southern California, but it wasn’t.  This was Grant Hutchinson, in the flesh.  He was real.  An actual, living, breathing human being.  That fact alone came as a shock somehow.

“Excuse me, miss?!” said another one of her customers from a table nearby.

“Yes, can I help you?”  Amanda turned around, moving from the realm of fantasy back to the real world.

“Is our order almost ready?  We’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Let me go check on that for you!”  Amanda hurried off into the kitchen.  It was time to forget about Grant and her silly dreams.  She was dating someone else now, right?  Peter was taking her out to dinner that very night.  There was no sense in confusing the situation.  Amanda found her customers’ order waiting under heat lamps.  How long had it been there?  She had no idea.  She picked up the plates and hurried back out to the dining room.

For the rest of the lunch rush, Amanda did her best to put Grant out of her mind.  She focused on her job, never once looking back out to the patio at all.  Neither did Ariel mention his famous customer.  It was Amanda’s hope that by the time her shift wound down, Grant Hutchinson would simply be gone.  The whole idea that she could warn him away from a hideous fate with
The Bride
suddenly seemed entirely naïve now.  So was the thought that she could ever end up with him herself.  It was all a preposterous figment of her imagination that she would rather forget.  Only when her tables emptied out one by one did she begin to relax.  As she rang up the check for her very last customers, Amanda felt that the coast must be clear.  She walked into the dining room with the check in hand.  And there he was.  Bachelor Number Five, standing in the front doorway.  Amanda paused briefly as she spotted him and then ducked her head.  She motored straight to her customers, placing the check on their table.  “Here you go,” she said.

“Thank you.”  Her customer picked the check up and began looking it over.

Amanda set about clearing one of the other tables, fighting the desire to look back up even when she sensed him hovering nearby.

“Ariel tells me you’re from Houston,” came Grant’s voice.

Amanda had no choice but to acknowledge him.  “Not really,” she looked up.  Just like that, they were standing face-to-face, having an actual conversation.  “I moved around a lot as a kid.”

“He says we went to the same high school.”

“I think, maybe.  Where did you go?”

“Boone High.”

“I guess I was mistaken.”

“That’s too bad.  Where did you go?”

“It was a small private school.  You probably don’t know it.” 

Grant nodded as he considered this information.  “So you just moved out here?”

“Yeah, about a month ago.”

“How’s it going so far?”

“I’m adjusting.”  She watched as her customer cobbled together some cash and put it into the plastic sleeve with the check.  “Do you need some change?” Amanda asked.

“Nope, we’re good,” said the customer.  When he and his companion walked out, that was it.  Amanda was all alone with her bachelor.

“Ariel told me a few things about you.”

“Is that so?”

“He seems to think you’re ok.”

“Does he?”

“Mmm hmm.  I think he’s a little bit worried about you though.”

“How so?!”  Amanda’s curiosity was piqued.

On cue, Ariel walked through the front door and whizzed on past.  “Finally, you two get to catch up!” he said and then he was gone, through the kitchen door and into the back.

“He seems to think you don’t have many friends around here,” Grant went on.

“I’m meeting people!” Amanda protested.

“That’s good.  Did he tell you that I used to work in this joint myself?”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“I didn’t know anybody when I got out here, either.  I remember how that is.”

“I’m doing fine, I really am.”

“That’s good, I’m glad to hear it.  If you need somebody to show you around, though, I’d be happy to.  I’ve got this town pretty well dialed in at this point.”

“You want to show me around?!”

“Why not?”  He seemed disappointed by her response.

“When, right now?”

“Sure.  Your shift is over isn’t it?  Or do you have something more important to do?”

“What about that guy you were sitting with?  Don’t you two have something else to do?”

“What, him?  Nah.  That was my agent.  He’s already gone.  He picked up the check and split!” Grant laughed.

“You’re agent?  Why do you have an agent?”

“Why not, doesn’t everybody out here?!”

“I don’t.”

“Well most people do.  Anyway, that’s not important,” said Grant.  “What time do you get out of here?  How ‘bout I drive us up to Mulholland?  You been up there yet?  The views are spectacular.  You can see right down on the Hollywood Bowl and the whole city and everything.  Sometimes if it’s clear you can see all the way to the ocean!”

Amanda took a moment to think about the timing.  Her date with Peter wasn’t for another three hours.  What would it hurt to go for a quick drive first?  Despite her best intentions, this was an offer she simply could not refuse.  Besides, Piper would never forgive her if she didn’t take him up on it.  “I’ve got some cleaning to do around here first, and then I’ll have to run home to change.”

“All right, look, why don’t you just meet me at O’Neill’s Bar in an hour?”

“Where is that?”

“It’s the Irish pub three blocks west of here.  Haven’t you been there?”

“No.”

“You’ll find it.  North side of the street on the corner.  I’ll see ya there.”  Grant gave her a sly grin and walked out the door.

Amanda was taken aback by his self-confidence.  He’d never come off as being so cocky on the show.  “See you there,” she said quietly to an empty room and then went to wiping down her tables.  She wondered if she was making the right decision.  Then again, it wasn’t really a decision at all.  She’d come to Los Angeles for the express purpose of meeting this man, despite any justifications she made to the contrary.  He was the guy who was going to completely turn her life around. 
The one.
  Her perfect match.  Maybe that was really true and maybe not, but she wasn’t about to pass up the chance to find out.

“You never lived in Houston, did you?”  Ariel waltzed back through the dining room.

“Is it that obvious?”  Amanda looked up.

“Please...”

“Do you think he knows?”

“I don’t think he cares.”  Ariel raised his eyebrows in a sign of disapproval as he continued on past.

Chapter Twenty-Six

He was sitting at the bar with a half-empty pint of beer when Amanda walked in.  She couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty about this illicit meeting, though she tried to tell herself not to.  She was still single, officially.  At the same time, Amanda felt spoken for on some level.  She liked the feeling.  It was one she hadn’t had in such a long time.  So why was she putting that at risk?  The answer was obvious.  This was Grant Hutchinson!  The object of her obsession.  Besides, it was just a friendly beer and maybe a drive in the hills.  Even Peter wouldn’t begrudge her that, right?  Peter…  She couldn’t even think his name without that pang of remorse.  When she’d gone home to her apartment to change, she’d hurried in and out as quickly as possible hoping to avoid being spotted.  Mission accomplished, she’d seen no sign of him.  Now as Amanda approached the bar she was still in awe that this was actually Bachelor Number Five. She owed it to herself to pursue this to the end, wherever that might lead.  What if he really was her perfect soul mate, as she’d dreamt for so long?  An entire lifetime of happiness was potentially on the line.

“Hey, there she is!  Pull up a stool!” said Grant.

Amanda was nervous as she sat down beside him.  “Hello,” she said, doing her best to hide her apprehensions.  She’d changed into one of her flowery sun dresses, hoping it was something a man from Texas might appreciate.  She put a sweater and her small purse on the stool beside her.

“What can I get you?  A pint of beer?” he asked.

“It’s a little early for me, I think.”

“What do you mean?  It’s after lunch ain’t it?”