Maybell passed me walking to the kitchen, "Table 5, dear." She said and I nodded and made my way over there, it was just a single person. As I got closer, I noticed the blonde hair. Could it be? As I got to the table, my insides busted with excitement! "Taylor!" I say and she looks to her left and her jaw drops.
"DaKota!" She beams and she stands up and we hug it out. I've missed her so much, she's my best friend. We've been friends since diapers, seriously, our moms are best friends, too.
Taylor was a gorgeous girl, inside and out. She had blue eyes that sparkled all the time, she had perfect blonde hair, a bubbly personality, and a great smile. We had everything in common. We're basically sisters.
"Here come to the counter so we can talk." I say and take her menu for her and place it on a spot with a stool under it.
"I just came here to see if the rumors were true." She smiled at me.
"So you're not going to order?" I joke with her and rolls her eyes at me.
"I'll have a water because I have a lot to tell you about." She gives me a devil's grin and I smirk too, gossip time.
"Okay, I'll just take my break now, since I wasn't really signed up to work." I said to her and walked away to go get her a glass of water.
When I came back she was looking at her phone and texting, but she was smiling like an idiot. Could it be a boyfriend? "Who ya texting?" I ask her as I go across the counter from her on the other side.
She looked up at me and blushed a little bit, "Beau." She sheepishly said and my jaw dropped.
"Are you guys dating?" I ask her, please say yes! Everyone knew Beau had a crush on Tay since we were in Elementary school. Tay just denied it because she thought it was crazy the most popular boy in school liked her. Beau is the star football and basketball player here, and he also does some rodeo. He also had a lot of good looks, and he was really nice. Overall, he was perfect for Taylor. I considered him more of my friend, because I knew of his crush with Tay.
"Yeah." Really, that's all she gives me? I raise my eyebrows at her and she giggles. "Since last August." The thought of them together warms my heart.
"I want details." I rest my elbows on the counter and place my head in my hands, and wait for her to begin what has happened these past two years.
*************
Tay was finally done spilling everything, man I missed a lot. A lot of party drama, rodeo drama, and relationship drama. I didn't like to be evolved in drama, but I sure did like hearing about it. Most of it was about Avery and her little group.
Avery Johnson and I have never gotten along, and I would like to keep it like that. Avery is a spoiled little girl who has never worked a day for anything she "owns", and she acts like she's the biggest deal around. Not saying that I am, but seriously.
Avery jumps horses, and she bashes anyone who owns or lives on a ranch. I always try to be nice to her, but once she starts something, I'll try to match her. I usually win an argument because I am way smarter than her, and more witty and sarcastic. At the end of an argument she crosses her arms and stomps her foot and walks away.
Two years ago she really hated my guts, because I was dating Mason Bishop. Mason wasn't a cowboy, but he tried to be one. That was only the really bad thing about Mason, he was sometimes fake around people. But when it was just us two, he was a really good guy.
My thoughts were interrupted by the bells on the doors. I looked up from Taylor talking, and saw that it was the boy I met yesterday, Cooper Blackwood. I looked away before he could see me staring at him. Today he was wearing light blue jeans and a fitted black tee. His arms were very toned and very tan, and the t-shirt wasn't the only thing that fitted him in the right places. He went over to a table and started talking to Mr. Daniels.
I grabbed a rag from under the counter and grabbed the disinfect spray and began to clean. Taylor had stopped talking, and I took a risk. "What do you know about Cooper Blackwood?" I asked Taylor and she slowly looked up at me and smirked, and she caught me looking at him. She turned around and looked at him, then back at me.
"I see you already met him." She said like it wasn't a shock to her. I raised my eyebrows at her, telling her to explain. "Every girl in this town is in love with him," She said. Well I don't blame them, look at him.. "He's very charming, and he's got a bad boy reputation to him." She said.
"What do you mean?" I ask her.
"He's gotten into a couple fights, he always comes out on top, and he's not afraid to speak his mind." She said.
"Well I don't think that's bad." I said and shrugged my shoulders.
"Fighting?" She questions me.
"No, the speaking his mind thing." I shake my head. "We need more people like that." I added.
"Did I tell you he's a bull rider?" She said and this really got my attention.
"Is he any good?" I ask her putting down the rag and looking at her.
"He's real good." She winked at me and I rolled my eyes. "Well I better be going, Beau and I got a date." She smiled, I was so happy for her.
"Okay, oh did you hear about the cookout tonight?" I ask and she nods to me. "Okay, I'll see you later. " I said and she hugged me over the counter and left the diner.
I bent down on my knees and I started to wipe the insides of the shelves on the other side of the counter, does no one care about this dust?
When I was almost done with the first one, I heard the call bell ding once. I looked up with just my eyes and I saw Cooper leaning over the counter and smiling at me. I blew the hair out of my face and I wiped off my hands and stood up. "Hi." I gave him a small shy smile and handed him a menu.
"Hey Kota, can I call you that?" He politely asked me, making me smile a bit.
"Sure. Can I get you something to drink?" I ask him.
"I'll take a short Coors Light." He says and I raise an eyebrow at him. He looked older than me, but not 21.
"I'm gonna need an ID." I say to him in an obvious tone and he reaches into his pocket and grabs his wallet. He opens it up and pulls the ID card out and hands it to me. I inspect it carefully, I know what to look for on a fake ID. The cops never noticed it though, or club bouncers. "Sorry, but I know this is fake." I smirk and hand it back over to him.
"I've gotten away with this bad boy so many times, how did you know it was fake?" He asks me and puts his wallet back into his pocket. He looked very intrigued and interested.
"What makes you think I don't have one?" I smirk at him and he looks a little shocked but he smirks and chuckles a bit. I leave as I go to the kitchen to get him a root beer. The root beer does come in a beer bottle shape.
"So you comin' tonight?" I ask him as I put the root beer in front of him. When he sees the bottle he laughs. His laugh was deep and attractive to me. The weird thing is that I actually feel comfortable talking to him.
"Plan on it, will there be beer there?" He asks me with a delighted grin on his face, he was too cute for his own good.
"Will you be 21?" I ask him and he drops his head and laughs with me. "They'll probably will be if my brother and his friends are there." I say and take my notepad out.
"I like your brother." He says to me and I look into his eyes.
"Do you guys hangout?" I ask him and he shrugs.
"Well we hangout with the same friends, but I don't think we would every hangout just us two." He says and I nod my head.
"Are you ready to order?" I ask him and he makes a sound like you would to call a horse. You know, the one where you pull one cheek back and it makes that sucking sound.
"Not quite yet." He says and I nod.
"Can I ask you a question?" I randomly say to him, shocking myself. He looks up from the menu and his eyes glimmer, man he had the most gorgeous eyes.
"You just did." He plays and with me and I roll my eyes at him. That just reminds me of when you would ask someone if you could go to the bathroom and they replied with, 'I don't know, can you?'. I thought it was weird. "But yeah, I'm an open book." Which is the total opposite of me.
"Do you have a problem with my father?" Cooper sighed at this question and shook his head. Taylor had told me that him and my father and had never seen being friendly towards each other.
"No, but I think he has a problem with me." He didn't seem to worked up about it so I decided to leave it. He was going to say something but that bell on the door stopped him. We both looked and it was Mason and his parents. Oh crap, I can't do this today.
Before he could see me, I ducked behind the counter. I could hear Cooper start laughing and I put my head against the wood and closed my eyes, because I probably looked stupid doing that.
What I wasn't expecting was Cooper to come around the counter and sit beside me. He was so close to me I could could smell him, which was not a bad thing, he smelt like the outdoors, and some kind of cologne. "What are we doing down here?" He whispers in my ear, I'm hoping he didn't see the goosebumps on my skin that he gave me.
"Ex-boyfriend." I whisper and he sucks in a breath, like he knew the awkward feeling.
"And how do you plan to get out, just sit down here for an hour?" He whispers to me, obviously knowing I had no exit plan.
"Well that's where you come in." I looked at him and he shook his head.
"Oh no." He continued to shake his head and I pouted my lip.
"Please Cooper!" I grabbed his arm, getting his full attention. I almost took my hand off his skin, because it felt like electricity running through my fingers and up my arm. We both looked at our skin-to-skin contact, and he looked at me in the yes. "Pretty please. I can't do it today, and his parents are here!" I said and he took a deep breath.
"What can I do." He sighed as he gave into me. I looked in front of me and tried to think of something.
"Can you look over the counter, and just see where he is?" I ask him and he gives me the are-you-serious- look and I nodded to encourage him. He pushes himself up by using his arms, which I watched his biceps flex as he did this motion.
He comes down and lets out a breath and looks at me like he did something wrong. "Uh we might have a problem.." He says and I widen my eyes at him..
"Well what is it?"I whisper yell at him.
"He kinda saw me, and I think he might be walking over here." He said and I slapped his arm and I looked at his cowboy hat on.
"Well I wonder how he saw you?" I sarcastically say to him and he begins to smirk.
"Taking of my hat wasn't part of the plan, sweetheart." I was suppose to be mad at him, but the way he called me sweetheart, made all of that go away.
"Well a little bit of common-" I whispered to him but was cut off from a deep voice above us.
"DaKota?" I slowly looked up and saw Mason leaning over the counter, just like Cooper had done earlier. I quickly put on a fake smile to get Mason to think I was excited to see him. "What are you doing down there?" He says and then frowns when he sees Cooper. I look at Cooper and he has an emotionless look on his face.
"I uh lost an earing and Cooper was helping me find it." I lied and then I stood up to met his eye level and Cooper did the same.
"Did you find it?" He asks and I nod to him, and then he looks at Cooper, and it wasn't a polite look. "Good."
Cooper then chuckles and uncrosses his arms, "Okay, I get it. I'll just be right here, Kota." Cooper says and walks around the counter and sits back in his spot.
"Can we go talk?" Mason asks me and I really do not want to deal with this right now. If I hadn't talked to Taylor earlier, I would of been fine with talking to him. But Taylor told me everything he's done since I've been gone. Hooked up with a lot of girls, and even bashed me and my family. I don't really care about the hooking up, since we broke up.
"Now's not a good time, I have to go wait and figure out some things with the diner." I try to lie my best to him, the look on his face told me he that he didn't believe me.
"I've seen a lot of waitresses around here, DaKota." He says and I didn't look at him.
"Mason, you know this is small town right? People always hear what you say." I finally say and he looks confused but then he realizes.
"So you've talked to Taylor I see," He says and puts his hands on his hips and clenches his jaw. "That girl."
"Hey, you are talking about my best friend." I warn him and he sighs and drops his head. "Look, Mason. Can we just do this another day?" I plead him, but he doesn't budge. He reaches down and takes my hands into his.
"C'mon DaKota, I miss you and I miss us.. Let's just go back to my place and we can talk." He softly says to me and I shake my head and pull my hands away.
"I-" I was just going to turn him down again, but the call bell rang three times. Mason and I both looked over to Cooper, who had a inpatient look on his face. Telling me, that he was ready to order. "I have to go Mason." I say and walk back behind the counter.
I return my position in front of Cooper and side-eyed Mason looking at us and then leaving out the door. I put my hands on the counter and drop my head in between my shoulders.
***************
I just finished unpacking my boxes and I was really glad I did it because it was drivin' me crazy. But now I was gonna have a little fun at the cook out, but first I had to get myself lookin' pretty.
I walk over to my newly packed closet and I go through all of my dresses. It was a beautiful warm summer night, and just a light breeze to cool you down. I decided to take a shower before, just cause I had some time to do so.
As I was letting the water get my hair wet and ready for shampooing, I started thinking about Cooper. I started working at the diner at 9 and I ended at 5, and 95% of that time, I was talking to Cooper. I found it easy to talk to Cooper and I really liked it. He knew how to keep a conversation and he sure knew how to make me laugh and smile.
Cooper and I mostly talked about me, I tried to get him to talk about his life, but he somehow avoided it. It was really fun talking to him. He even did some flirting, and I shocked myself because I even flirted back.
I shook my head because I doubted he was thinking about me like I was thinking about him. From what Taylor had told me, he was quite the flirt to every girl he could talk to.
I flipped my hair up and down a couple of time after my shower and then wrapped it in a towel. I tied my robe belt in a knot and walked out into my bedroom. I still hadn't picked out my outfit, and now was a good time to do so.
I hummed along to a Willie Nelson song as I searched my closet and I finally found it. It was a light blue, spaghetti strap dress, it was so perfect for tonight. But since it was spaghetti strap, I had to wear a cardigan over it. I had gotten a tattoo while in Bismarck, and my parents were not big fans of tattoos, but it's not their skin. The tattoo had a special place to my heart, and it was on my left shoulder blade. I picked out a cream flowing caridigan to match with the dress, and I laid the outfit on the bed.
I heard a truck coming down the rode and I walked out to my balcony that faced our huge front yard. My jaw dropped when I saw a whole lot of people already here and mingling. I automatically spun on my heel and ran into my room. My heart was pounding in my chest, what time was it?! I grabbed my phone and it was already 7:18, and the party started at 7! My mom is going to kill me!