Bullies Targets The Wrong A Waitress — Unaware She's A Karate Black Belt Working Part-Time
Chapter 11
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Walt nodded slowly, like a piece of a puzzle had just clicked into place. "Explains a few things," he said."Like what?""Like how you got to me so fast when that kid tripped me up. Like the way you stand, even behind that counter. Like your eyes. You watch a room the way trained people watch a room."Joe shrugged, a little uncomfortable under the attention. "I don't like people knowing," she admitted. "It changes how they treat you. Some people get nervous. Some people get competitive. I'd rather just be the girl who pours the coffee.""Fair enough," Walt said. "Your secret's safe with an old man who barely remembers where he put his keys most mornings."She laughed—actually laughed, the first real laugh he'd heard from her in weeks. "Why do you come here, Walt? Really?"He considered the question for a moment before answering. "After I retired, I started feeling useless," he said. "Forty years of watching out for people, and suddenly nobody needs you to watch anymore. This..." He gestured around the room. "This makes me feel like I'm still worth something. Even if it's just learning how to fall down safely at my age.""You're worth something regardless," Joe said quietly.Walt looked at her a long moment, something warm in his expression mixed with something else underneath it he didn't quite let surface. "Your grandfather used to say things exactly like that," he said. "You know, I worked with him for almost twenty years.""I know," Joe said. "Grandma talks about you sometimes.""Good things, I hope.""Mostly," Joe said, smiling.Walt laughed, low and genuine. "He was a good man, your grandfather. Best I ever worked with. Taught me more about patience than my own father did." Something flickered across his face then, quick, there and gone. Joe almost asked about it. Something told her not to, not yet; she let it pass.They finished folding the mats in comfortable silence, and Walt headed home, walking a little slower than usual, lost somewhere in thoughts thirty years old.The following week, things at the diner seemed almost normal. Braden didn't come back right away, and for a few days, Joe let herself believe the whole thing was over. She should have known better.On Thursday, Dina showed her something on her phone during their break, her face tight with worry. "You need to see this," Dina said.It was a review posted online about the diner: one star, claiming the food was cold, the service rude, and worse, that a waitress had been hostile and aggressive toward customers. The account posting it had Braden's face as the profile picture, grinning in a wrestling singlet. Beneath it, three of his friends had left similar reviews within minutes of each other."They're lying," Dina said. "Everyone who was there knows they're lying.""People online don't know that," Joe said, reading through the comments slowly. "They just see one star and a story."