Paxton Legacy 1.5 – The Man in Black

THREE YEARS AGO

Dishes clattered as a bus boy cleared a newly vacated table, idle chit chat mingled from every direction as hungry customers dined and enjoyed each other’s company, sizzling sounded from the kitchen as the cook started another order of crispy bacon, and the wonderful sweet smell of it filled the neon lit diner. The smells and sounds of the place created a perfect symphony, to my ears at least. That is, when I wasn’t working the night shift.
Mornings were the best time to work at Randall’s. Our customers were generally the elderly coming in to eat their cheap breakfast platters, drink their coffee, and maybe read a newspaper. The sounds, the smells… it was home to me. But it was my turn to work the night shift. A time when our customers, if we had any, came to sober up because nowhere else was open. A group of young, sleazy looking guys who smelled faintly of sweat and shimmered beneath the glow of the neon, not bothering to hide the body glitter that clung to them in compromising places. Suspicious looking customers who hid any distinguishable features beneath black hoodies as they met someone in the parking lot and not so discreetly slipped them a plastic baggie of what I could only assume was marijuana based on the pungent odor after he came inside for a to-go coffee and paid with cash. The occasional “couple” meeting for a milkshake before an exchange of bills under the table and the woman runs her hands up the man’s thighs with a serpentine smile on her face. Deplorable, my mom would say. Degenerates.

But tonight the diner was empty save for myself and my mother, who has worked as a cook at Randall’s for as long as I can remember, as I wiped down a particularly dirty counter top. Or maybe it was just permanently stained that way. Hard as I scrubbed, I couldn’t get the reddish-brown stain to come off the counter. Forty hours of every week I spent serving people food and drinks, mopping up spills, and occasionally scrubbing toilets when it had been left too long and someone complained about how nasty they were. Randall, the owner, wouldn’t let anyone clean them until there was a complaint. Otherwise it was a waste of cleaning supplies, or so he said. I wasn’t really sure how the health department hadn’t shut this place down a long time ago. But here it stood, open 24 hours a day for the convenience of all but those who worked here.
From the outside, it probably looked like any other cheap, greasy fast food diner that most decent people wouldn’t bother spending their hard-earned money at. The linoleum floors were stained with ages old spills, and the red vinyl coverings on some of the booths was dried and cracked from years of use that the owner refused to replace because he claimed he couldn’t afford it. Though we all suspected he could, he just didn’t want to spend the money to fix them. Tables were chipped, silverware and dishes were mismatched, and depending on who was washing that day, they weren’t always perfectly clean. But it was my favorite place to be.

I didn’t mind the work really. The atmosphere was familiar and welcoming. Everyone who came here to eat or work were generally good, down to earth people. No one thought they were better than anyone else, and everyone liked it that way. This diner was like a second home to me, and it’s staff like family. At the young age of fifteen, Randall hired me to bus tables and clean when necessary. I was cheap labor, and I needed the cash to help my mom pay the bills. My dad had died when I was four of lung cancer, and my mom did everything she could to give me the best life possible. Of course, that wasn’t easy for a single mother whose only source of income was working as a line cook. After I graduated high school, I became a full-time employee at Randall’s Diner waiting on tables. I’ve been doing that for two years now, and it’s been good honest work. Not glamorous, but I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given. My mom feels otherwise. She hates that I’m living the same life she has. As any mother does, she wants a better life for me than working at a greasy, 24-hour diner serving the elderly during the day and the degenerate after dark. Her hopes are that I will one day meet a nice enough man who makes a decent living, get married, and have a family. All of that sounded wonderful really, but I wanted more than that. I didn’t just want a nice enough man. I wanted to fall in love, preferably with someone very handsome. Love mattered more to me than financial stability. We had struggled my whole life, and I wasn’t afraid of that the way my mom was. But I couldn’t ignore the appeal of a life without financial worries.

Those were the thoughts drifting through my head when the little bell over the door to the diner tinkled, and a tall, red-haired gentleman walked in. It was pouring outside, the rain fogging up the windows and glass doors leaving small trails in their wake as they ran down the glass. The weather was most likely to thank for our lack of customers. Not even the morally questionable were willing to brave the storm. But the man who walked through the door wasn’t our usual sort of customer. I looked up from the mystery stain that hadn’t lifted a bit, my knuckles red and raw from the scrubbing, just in time to catch his gaze as it drifted distastefully across the diner taking it all in. But he stopped looking when his eyes met mine, the look of disgust changing into one of silent appraisal. He looked away first, taking a seat at one of the booths along the far wall. He looked entirely out of place with his expensively styled hair, dampened from the rain, and fine dress suit. What was a man like that doing here at this hour?
Leaving the rag on the counter top, I smoothed my apron down cringing at the stains and overall dirty looking uniform. I lifted one hand to my lackluster hair, messily pulled back into a pony tail, and let out a sigh. There was nothing special about me. Unlike that man, I looked like I belonged in this place. So I brushed off my apron and held my head high as I walked up to the table the fine man was seated at. His eyes lifted to watch my approach, and my back straightened a little more.

“Welcome to Randall’s. What can I get for you?”
The man’s eyes flitted around the diner taking in his surroundings, obviously displeased with them before turning his attention towards the pictures on the wall next to him. Again, I wondered why he would come into a place like this one. “I’ll just have a coffee. Black.”
“I’ll bring that right out,” I flashed him my best smile and hurriedly made my way behind the counter. Most of our mugs were chipped or dirty or both, so I picked the cleanest looking one of them all and filled it with coffee. No sugar. No creamer. Black. I exhaled through my nose. Why was the man drinking a black coffee so attractive to me? I had never really cared about that sort of stuff before. But that man… I looked back to where he sat examining his nails, really looking at him this time.

His crisp suit looked expensive, like he was a lawyer or some sort of business man. His nails were clean and well-manicured, but not in a feminine way, just in a way that showed he liked to keep a neat appearance. The man exuded confidence even in his tiniest movements as he flipped through the newspaper, his dark brown eyes full of knowledge. From up close, his eyes were the color of chocolate. Dark, but beautiful in their own way. And his red hair, a color you didn’t see very often in this town at least, was styled messily while still looking professional. My gaze moved over his sharp facial features and alluring full mouth. He was extremely attractive.
The mug clinked against the tabletop’s surface, and the black liquid sloshed inside the cup nearly spilling over I was so distracted. “Let me know if you need anything else,” I said to the man who didn’t bother to look up from the tabletop.

From behind the counter, I snuck glances at him as I rinsed out the coffee pot, started brewing another carafe, and busied myself with other menial tasks. Truth be told, I didn’t get any real work done. I was too busy watching him. Lost in my own silly fantasies of a life I would never have. He looked young, maybe not much older than myself. But with looks like those and an income I assumed was more than enough to make ends meet, he had to have a girlfriend or fiancée somewhere. A man like him wouldn’t give a plain diner waitress like me a second look. That didn’t stop me from daydreaming what that woman’s life must be like, and what it would be like to be her. Fancy clothes, nice cars, a cute house that was big enough for our growing family, but not too big that it didn’t feel like home. Beautiful children, a boy and a girl. I always wanted one of each. And a handsome adoring husband who would kiss me as soon as he walked through the door when he came home from a long day of work at the firm- or whatever it was he did for a living.

“You should go talk to him.”
I jumped at the sound of my mother’s voice just behind me. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, hot from doing to prep work for tomorrow’s breakfast rush. Her face was lined from years of stress and hard work, her hair streaked with gray, but she wasn’t unattractive in the least. My mom was beautiful. I was envious of her good looks and wished I had received more of them and less of my father’s.
“What would I even say? We have nothing in common. It would just be a waste of his time,” I answered her without a hint of pity. It was the truth.
She made a sound in the back of her throat indicating that she thought I was being ridiculous. “I saw him when he came in. Fine man that like doesn’t belong in a place like this. It isn’t right. You could see his thoughts plainly on his face soon as he walked through that door. But I also saw the way he stopped looking for a second when he saw you. If that isn’t a window, I don’t know what is.”

I looked at my mother trying to decide whether to believe her or not. The man did pause when he looked at me, but that doesn’t mean anything. “You don’t know what you saw. Besides, I’m just a waitress. He probably thinks of me as dirt beneath his shoes. Barely worth a thought,” I said flatly.
“You are more than just a waitress at a greasy diner,” she jabbed a finger at me. “You are beautiful and smart and any man with half a brain would see that. Go talk to him and prove me right! You deserve so much more than this life.”
I shook my head, ignoring the advice of my mother just like most children do. “What’s so wrong with this life? Why do you hate it so much?”
“Every mother wants more for her daughter,” she replied simply her face softening into a smile. “You’ll understand when you have a child of your own.”

She patted me gently on the arm and went back to her griddle in the kitchen leaving me with my thoughts. The coffee pot finished brewing, so I grabbed the carafe and walked over to the man’s table to quietly refill his drink. He didn’t bother looking up at me, and I decided to leave him alone with his thoughts.
After putting the carafe back in its place, I busied myself with small menial tasks to keep myself from staring at the handsome stranger. There was a clatter and a crash that nearly made me jump out of my skin. I turned to see that the man was now standing as he had been making his way to leave, with a few bills placed on the table, and the front of his nice suit was soiled with black coffee, the mug in shattered pieces on the floor. I moved quickly to grab the previously abandoned rag off the counter top to clean up the spill. The man was patting the wet spot on his suit with a handful of napkins from the table, a somewhat sheepish look on his face. It was actually quite endearing how almost embarrassed he seemed to cause such a commotion.
“Great. Just great,” he spoke to himself with an exasperated tone. “First my car, now the coffee. Could anything else go wrong?”
I was on my knees making one last swipe with the rag over the spill and answered him despite the fact he wasn’t actually talking to me. “You shouldn’t say that you know. Bad luck.”

He chuckled humorlessly, low and throaty. “I might actually be concerned if I was at all superstitious, but I’m not.”
“Me either,” I smiled at him as I stood looking over the stain on his clothes. “It’s something my mom always tells me, but I don’t really believe it. I’m really sorry about your suit. Is it ruined?”
“Probably.” His dark brown eyes met mine giving me the same appraising look I thought I had imagined when he walked into the diner. A blush heated my cheeks at the attention. “Know of any good dry cleaners?”
“No, sadly.” I replied gesturing to my own stained outfit. “Don’t we make a pair?”

A charming smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I suppose we do.” His gaze moved from my eyes to my toes and back again no doubt taking in my disheveled appearance. “I never did catch your name.”
“It’s Bethany, but my friends call me Beth.”
“Are you doing anything tomorrow evening, Beth? After your shift is over, I mean? I would like to take you for dinner to thank you.”
I blinked, surprised by this turn of events. “Thank me? What for?”
“The coffee. Cleaning up the mess I made,” his eyes twinkled.
“You don’t need to thank me for that,” I responded shaking my head. “It’s my job.”
“It would be my pleasure. You wouldn’t reject a man after the rough day he’s had in front of an audience, would you?”

Whirling around, I spotted my mother peeking around the doorway to the kitchen, but she didn’t try to pretend that she wasn’t watching. I could almost see the approval shining in her eyes from where I stood. She nodded her head vigorously at me, urging me to accept the man’s offer.
I was too stunned to reply with anything other than, “That would be lovely.”
“Meet me at The Bistro tomorrow night at 8pm. I look forward to seeing you again.” There were a few murmurs from my mother at the mention of the five-star restaurant, a place we could never dream of affording to dine at. I reached hesitantly to touch the man’s arm as he turned to leave.
“I never got your name either.”
He flashed me a smile that gave me butterflies. “Caleb.”

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A/N: Oh wow you guys. I feel like ReShade looked waaay better in game than the screenshots do. All of my pictures were super dark and even bringing up the brightness on them leaves them too dark or with too much glare. These are so heavily edited too, so don’t worry they won’t be this bad for the next chapter. I’m just too lazy to retake/edit all of these pictures right now haha. It’s a work in progress, but I still can’t decide if I like ReShade or not. I figured this chapter was the best time to use it since it is the first flashback and the pictures being dark would make sense since we know Bay’s past was troubled. It gives them a nice contrast I think to the present day pictures. I’m glad Chapter 1.6 will be present day again because I really prefer that style to the one I’ll be using for the flashbacks. Also, you may have noticed that Bay looks different because I changed her looks… again. She just looked too pretty, and I wanted her to look a little more plain without being too plain. An understated beauty. If any of that makes sense lol. A huge thank you to Lila Remonn for the Neon Diner download. It looks amazing and was the perfect setting for this chapter. 💜

P.S. – I must be dead inside because I watched Endgame with my husband, and I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. 🤷🏻‍♀️ My husband thought it was so good, and I’m not saying it was bad, but Infinity Wars was so much better IMHO. Maybe my expectations were too high going into it but yeah. The other Marvel fans who read this are probably going to want to fight me now. 😂