Chapter Two: Getting to know, Me or You?
Rad follows Kale in without question thinking he may have some reason for what just happened, yet like before he was not going to question this. Rad takes a seat and waits for someone to show up. "You did not have to go with something like this! Just a simple sandwich would've been fine, Sir." Rad still bent on being respectful.
A very tired looking waiter drifted over to the table, she was a brunette with curls bouncing around her moon shaped face speckled with freckles, which her foundation couldn't hide very well. She was not overweight but thick in areas that most males would find attractive. The skirt that came just to her knees was red with checker white squares, and her blouse matched with a little button on the left said with something faded on it, fitted in with the diner. Her dark brown eyes darted around the black apron around her waist looking for her ordering pad, while she pulled a pen out from her ear read to take an order.
"What can I get you two?" her accent was so deep Georgia south that Kale had to smile.
"Oh I want the best burger you have here with fries and coffee." Kale requested, letting his body lounging all in the booth, his right arm resting on the back of the booth. The diner lights giving a much clear look of his face, his eyes had dark rings under them and sometimes it would seem he had smaller scars but very fine and thin. "An anything my friend here would love to have!" he beams a smile at the waiter.
She stepped back some, her pen dropped to the floor, "Ah...yah uhm..." She stumbled over her words, and then rolled her eyes as her pen dropped.
"It's ok Ma'am, he is a long lost friend of mine, and here." Kale leaned down from his position and found the pen, handing it to her.
"Alrighty," she wrote something on the pad, while Kale went back to lounging in his booth. "You Sir, what can I get you? Oh names Kim, I'll be your waiter tonight." She tried to paint smile on her face.
"No sandwich Rad!" Kale wiggled a left finger at him, "Something that will stick to your sides." beaming another smile so child like the waiter Kim even blushed. "I've learned that if you are going to help someone, you go the extra mile."
"No one says that anymore." Rad stated, his lips pressed into a fine line looking at the waiter Kim, when she shyly stepped back away from him, and then back at Kale. "You seem different. I mean even she looks at me and see dirty clothing." Rad spoke up, but his face turned to a grimaced, "But this is not my choice of clothing if I could..." his voice trailed off looking down at the table mat. "Wow I just opened up to him just like that." He looked back up then placed his order.
"Honey, I've been where you are." Kim softens her smile, "Coffee is on the house for you two." Kim went to get the coffee and place the order with the cook. Which it didn't take long for her to come back, drama was unfolding and like a Georgia woman she was soaking it up.
Kale reached his left hand across the table and softly placed it on Rad's hands, "Speak your mind and see it set to purpose." The pale softness of his skin on Rad's made it almost seem unreal. "Rad, I seek nothing in return from you. Yet know I use compassion for what I do not pity." Before moving his hand back, he squeezed Rad's hand then reached for the coffee the waiter set on the table for both of them.
Rad watched while Kale just about emptied half the sugar container into the coffee and took a long sip, then set the cup down with a smack of his lips. "Wow, seems he likes his coffee with sugar, hope he is not the type to go bonkers after that much." Rad's sarcastically told himself just reaching for his cup and took a sip.
"Well, do I need to break out my Dr. Philip chair?" Kale was grinning now like a cat with a new toy, getting ready to pounce and rip the insides out of it.
Rad set his cup down clearing his voice out with a faked cough. He starts to speak like there is a moment where Rad wants to ask something, "Shit spit it out man!!" Rad screams at himself, "What do you do for a living?"
"Oh, I help the local military with classified projects." Kale mumbled around his coffee, then set it down on the table.
"I bet you have some good friends to keep you company in the military?" Rad looked amused with Kale's answer until it hit home. That is when he notices why Kale picked this very booth. "Well from what I've seen in movies I've watched." His mind wondering for a second, drumming his fingers on the table, "Do you have family?"
"As for a family,.." Kale seemed to gaze off, lost in a memory. "My mother died giving birth to me, and well my dad kinda off'd himself when I was five." Kale shrugged it off like so many times before.
"That's tragic!" Rad's mouth turned down as he lowered his coffee. His eyes open wide hearing this, face painted with fear to ask any more on the subject of Kale's family life. Rad looked around just to see who could have dropped into the conversation, the waiter Kim moved on from the table.
"My military friends mostly avoid me and call me up when." Kale's hand disappeared under the table, playing at the inside of his jacket pocket. Pulled his cell phone out, discharged the battery off the phone and set it on the table top. "Let's just say, when things get out of hand on a supernatural aspect of things. As for friends, I only have five I can count out when I need to."
Rad made another sad face, and then it goes completely blank when he hears "I wonder if he is off his rocker or something? Supernatural?" Confusion was written all over Rad's face, "Supernatural? What you hunt ghost for the government or something?"
Kale tried not to spit coffee up with a laugh, "No Ghost are just left over energy after someone dies, kinda of like when you turn an old TV off and you can still see the image. No, we handled the big bad's human's don't see every day." His hands reaching for napkins to clean up the mess he made, but his eyes darted around.
"Oh, there are bigger things?" Rad couldn't help but snicker at Kale, it was very odd watching Kale, some of the body movements just seemed to flow different for a human. "I guess, I should've known. Every myth has to start with a grain of truth. So, do you like your work?" Rad looked at his now empty cup of coffee, so he set it down.
Waiter comes back with the food, and coffee looking over the people in the booth, "Thanks Ma'am, just keep the coffees coming and we are good." Kale slipped her a twenty dollar bill, "Please make sure your children get something good to eat tonight. I know you are doing the best you can." Kael winks seeing the lady almost fall over, but holds her head up and smiles walking off.
"Well, for there is a fine line between work and duty. I do my duty because this world hangs on the very edge of being destroyed and every human soul being made into something not part of the natural order of things." Kale steamed right into a topic, very schooled in his manners of the subject.
Rad watched Kale with wondering look, "How did he know that about the woman?" Rad slide deeper into his booth seat, "Better yet what does he know about me?" His hand started fiddling with the fork on the table, "Does he know my parents disowned me for being gay! The very fact they called my work and make something up to get me fired." Rad's mind was falling into a pity party and it seemed to show on his face. "I lost everything just for being me. I hope Kale doesn't just up and change his mind if I tell him."
"I can hear people's thoughts when they don't shield their minds. As for you being gay where I came from in the Otherworld, what you are is not important. It is what you do and how you live your life." Kale's foot brushed against Rad's leg to help ease him.. Seeming that contact does help some people feel more wanted. "I'll never turn another person down for who they are or what they are."
"You speak of things I've never heard of." A single tear rolled down Rad's cheek, "No one has ever said anything like that to me. Crying is going to make me look weak in front of him." Rad did what he could do to compose himself, so with a sniffle he gained control. "Are you allowed to do that?"
"Allowed what, to be myself." Kale's eyes flare with a small dim light, letting his aura unlock over the room. Kim was pouring coffee into their cups just seemed to slow down, a fly off to the right moved at a snail's pace but around Rad and Kale everything seemed to move at a normal pace. "I help the military but I'm not a soldier." Kael reaches across the table and wipes the small tear off Rad's cheek and looks at it fondle. "Never fear to shed a tear, to the gods it is the greatest gift one can give them."
"I...I don't know how you are doing this!" Rad's voice shocked, "What are you and who?" Rad poked a finger just out about five feet and the images seemed too static, distorting the world around him. "What the hell, the clock on the wall has stopped?!" Rad pulled his finger back then looked at Kale. "You are something amazing, just amazing. I do not know how you came to me, but." His eyes drop to table, "Thank you Kale." A smile creeps across Rad's face like it has not been there in a while.
Kael relaxed his aura bringing everything the world back to normal motion. He starts eating his food and cutting looks back Kyle. After fighting down a mouth full of food, leaving his plate almost empty, he puts the rest of his fries on your plate hoping you would eat them. "Rad, would you like to come with me?"
Rad forced himself to eat the food, "You want me to come with you?" downing the fries on his plate. "Why?"
"Because, you're wanted? I found you because you need to be shown how special a person you really are." His hazel eyes look up at Rad, his head leaning close to the table. "I'm not giving you a hand out, a hand up." Kale reached across the table moved the hair away from Rad's eyes. Some guy across the way made a disapproving sound, but when Kale looked at him, the man got up running for the door.
The waiter walks back to the table slipping the check under the plate, and just smiled looking at both the men in the table. She just smiles, and walks away holding a locket in her hand.
"Me, special?" Rad was taken aback by this, "I...I do not know what you are talking about, I'm nothing special." Rad found himself gazing into Kale's eye getting lost in them. A warm flush came across his face, when a hand slowly touched Rad's cheeks.