A Dangerous Game

He had found the place where she was working after moving next to her a few weeks ago and since she was a waitress, he could sit down at a table to eat and observe her when she was working without getting caught. Sometimes she was the one serving him, but not always. He didn't want to attract her attention, thus he needed to be smart and avoid sitting in her section every time he was going to that restaurant.

She was so pretty, he thought. He couldn't help watching her running between tables and the kitchen to retrieve the food plates. His blue eyes were beaming with joy when she would come to his table and smile at him. He wanted to believe that she could love him, but she was probably just smiling at him as a way to be polite, after all, it was part of her job to be polite with the guests. He had noticed this, he wasn't the only man she was smiling at...

"Are you ready to order sir?" She stood in front of his table with her dark clothes modeling her slim and short silhouette. Her ginger hair trimmed into a short pixie cut gave her the look of a gamine. He kept looking at her pale blue eyes when she repeated him the question.

"Are you ready to order sir?" She held the pen in her small hand, waiting for him to tell her what he wanted to order.

"I'll order the steak of the day, sounds good, right?" She noted down on her pad what he wanted to eat and she quickly departed the table, once again running to the computer to enter his order before walking toward other tables to greet other customers arriving for lunchtime...

He knew she was way younger than him, he could exactly remember how old she was, she had told him she had celebrated her birthday a few weeks ago and that she had turned 30 years old... But she wasn't looking like a 30-year-old woman at all, he clearly thought she was in her early 20's. Her little tomboy look with her short hair, her jeggings, and striped t-shirt gave her the appearance of a much younger woman.

He was aware that he was way older than her, he was almost on the verge of turning 55 and even though he was still in good shape and quite of a tall guy at 6'4", he wasn't sure he had attracted her regard on him. Perhaps she wasn't into older guys and he just couldn't ask her anyway. She would probably realize his infatuation toward her and he didn't want this at all.

He wanted to believe that he was still a handsome man with his short wavy blonde-grey hair and his blue eyes, and his broad shoulders, but he wasn't attracting the women he wanted to. Most of them were old and boring thought Frank. Even though he was going to the gym 4 times a week, he thought he'd at some point meet an interesting woman, but he hadn't. They weren't as pretty as Michelle. Nope, none of them were as mysterious and as sweet as his little Michelle. The way she was laughing when making jokes with her co-workers, or the way she was focusing on her computer when ordering the food, were simply things that were unique to her.

"Oh sorry sir, I'm just behind you and the plate is burning!" She added while laughing. He titled his body on the left, allowing her to put down the heavy and burning plate of food on his table. As she bent her body forward, he caught a draft of her perfume, almost bringing back memories of the sweet candy cotton scent lingering in the air when going to the amusement park during a hot summer evening.

"I love your perfume, it's lovely!" He added while tenderly looking at her. He caught the embarrassment in her eyes, or was she just shy? He didn't know, he barely knew her.

"Ah, well, thank you, Sir!" This time, he could tell that her smile was fake, she didn't really mean it, she didn't care that he had complimented her on her perfume. Her cheeks were flushing red and she didn't seem to be pleased.

"Please, call me Frank. Don't call me sir! We're neighbors after all" He grinned at her and she backed off a bit.

"Alright Frank, you're right... Enjoy your meal!" She once again departed his table in a hurry, a bit angry with the fact that this whole moment felt awkward between them. He tried to eat his steak, but the cooking wasn't what he had asked, perhaps the cook had screwed up his order, he didn't know and he didn't care. He caught Michelle chatting with a female co-worker near the computer station. Lunchtime was rather calm that day and she was having few tables to take care of... His blue eyes shifted in her direction and he caught her looking at him with that female co-worker. She covered her mouth to muffle her laughter, and that's when he realized she was probably talking about him with that other woman. Was she making fun of him? He didn't know and he didn't want to know, he was rather frustrated and couldn't believe how hypocrite she was.

She finally came back a moment later and asked him if he liked his steak.

"Nope, I don't like it. I asked for a medium cooked steak, but it's more like well done!!" Her eyes widened when he explained to her that the cooking wasn't what he had asked her. She seemed to be sad for him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry... Frank! I will ask my cook to fix his mistake and I'll bring you another steak." She tried to smile at him and to retrieve the plate, but Frank quickly squeezed her small wrist with his long fingers which startled her.

"You're having few tables, which mean you aren't that busy and I spotted you near the computer station laughing loudly while looking at me, were you making fun of me??" She looked down at his hand wrapped around her wrist, flabbergasted, even stuttering a little when she tried to speak to him.

"No, no..not at all. I was.. Ju..Just.." He quickly interrupted her by standing to his full height, easily towering her small frame, releasing his grip on her lower arm at the same time. He was almost enjoying that moment way too much when he seized that shameful look on her face. He drew out his wallet from his pocket and put down a bill of 20$ on the table to pay for his lunch. He knew the steak cost around 19$ which meant she wouldn't get a big tip.

"You can keep the rest, next time be more of a professional young girl!!" She gulped loudly and he realized that her blue eyes were starting to get flooded under heavy tears.

"I'm very sorry, I swear, I wasn't making fun of you..." She said almost on the verge of sobering. Quite embarrassed with the situation, the young woman quickly ran toward the kitchen to cry away from the guests in the restaurant. He caught the nasty regard of the female manager in the other section, and he knew he had royally screwed up his chance with her as he ended up making her in tears.

He sighed loudly and decided to leave the restaurant knowing well that he had made her cry after assuming that she was making fun of him. As he was on his way to get inside his car, the same woman with the nasty regard ran to him and asked him why he had been that rude to Michelle.

"She said that you've been rude to her for no reasons! She wanted to change your steak and by the way, she wasn't making fun of you if that can reassure you!" Of course, the woman didn't reveal Frank what they were laughing at, but he was scolded by that manager woman which made him feel like crap.

"I know you're coming often here and we do appreciate it, but I hope you'll apologize to my waitress if you ever come back here!" The woman returned inside since she had some stuff to do and Frank leaned against his car, knowing he didn't really have the choice. He came back inside the restaurant five minutes later, and Michelle was seen coming back from the kitchen with an obvious pair of red and swollen eyes from crying too much. He watched her going to the computer, once again ordering the customer's meals. He slowly approached the computer station and bit his lower lip as he set his eyes on her.

"I'm very sorry, I've acted like a complete jerk! I didn't mean to make you cry." But she didn't speak back to him, she kept punching in the orders on the computer, totally ignoring him.

"There, take this!" He drew out his wallet from his pocket and held her a 20$ bill. "That's for you... As I said, I'm very sorry!" He smiled at her but when she turned around, she looked up at him and stared at him in a cold manner.

"Please, leave me alone, I got a job to do and I certainly don't want your money!" She then walked away from him, not accepting his apologies, which infuriated him, but he knew better than making a scene out of this. He convinced himself to leave the restaurant and return home, knowing time would fix things.