As Ande came off her short lunch break and went right back to waitressing at a little local diner, she was met with a familiar sight of a long haired man with a menu in his hands. The backs and knuckles of his hands were inked heavily, and Ande was always curious of what they had on them, but never got close enough to find out. She grabs a clean glass and fills it with just a little bit of ice and the freshly made lemonade. As she walks up to him, the man looks up from the menu and flashes one of his heart-stopping grins at Ande. Her breath catches like it does every day.

"Hey, Tony. The usual right?"

Today would make it the third week in a row that this guy had come into the dinner and ordered the same thing. His smile just stays the same intensity as he smiles. Ande goes to the kitchen window and grabs the plate that had just been brought up. She had put it in just before going on her break, since he always seemed to come in right as she got off of her break. And each day he would ask,

"Will you eat lunch with me, today?"

And she would reply, "Sorry, Tony, I've already eaten. Maybe next time."

She took her lunch break at the same time every day, and he came in every day at the same time. Did he not realize that he should come in about fifteen minutes earlier so she could eat with him? She really wouldn't mind, since he seemed like a very persistent guy, and he wasn't that bad looking either.

"Maybe next time," he repeats, just like always, and takes a bite into his chicken salad sandwich. His onion rings are extra greasy with a side bowl of honey mustard, just as he likes them. Ande keeps Tony's lemonade well refilled, but goes on to her duties as waitress of about five other tables.

Somewhere between Ande giving Tony his plate to when he finishes his sandwich, the two strike up a conversation. This is unusual for the two since they usually keep their conversations to small talk and 'hey, how are you's. There's a flat screen television hanging on the wall behind the counter. Ande leans forward on her arms, watching as Tony eats his onion rings one at a time, smothering them graciously in honey mustard.

"Breaking news! The First Union Bank of California has just been robbed! This makes the sixth bank robbery in the last four months here in San Diego. Stay tune for more information."

Ande looks back at the screen for a moment. Tony clears his throat.

"That's a lot of robberies."

"Yeah, you think they're connected?" Ande asks, turning back to Tony. He shrugs his shoulders and keep eating. Ande simply smiles softly at him and walks over to her current customers.

As always, Tony finished his lunch in fifteen minutes and walks over to the cash register. Ande, the only waitress on duty since the other is taking her lunch break, finishes refilling drinks and giving them back to the elderly couple before she wipes her hands off on her apron and walks over to charge Tony for his lunch.

"That'll be nine seventy-three, Tony."

And, lastly, as always, Tony hands Ande a twenty dollar bill and says, "Keep the change."

As Tony leaves, hands deep in his pockets and head ducked under a bright red flat-bill snapback hat, Ande wondered where Tony got all those twenties from. She wasn't complaining, however, since Tony was her best tipper.

"Ande!"

The waitress turns as soon as she hears her name. Ande's coworker, a bubbly college student named Lauren, is bouncing in from the kitchen door.

"That guy has been here three weeks straight," Lauren starts, not able to shut her mouth or speak softly. "And you still haven't gotten his number? He specifically sits there so you'll be his waitress and we both know how bad Oliver's chicken salad is. He isn't here for the sandwich."

Ande rolls her eyes and pulls out what was Tony's change before putting it in her tip jar under the cash register. It now has a fair amount for it to only be 12:30.

"He's a nice guy. Maybe he has OCD and has to do the same thing again and again each day and this just happens to be it? I'm not complaining. He tips really well."

"No, Ande, he is so interested in you."

"And what gives you that idea?" The brunette asks the blonde. Lauren just grins and wiggles her eyebrows.

"He may hate to see you leave the counter, but he loves to watch you go."

Ande's face burned a bright red for a good minute before she shushed Lauren and went back to cleaning off the counter and returning Tony's dirty plates to the kitchen to be cleaned. Lauren cackles behind her as she goes to get the orders of a few other college kids that just walked in. Once Ande is alone, other than Oliver who's in the kitchen busy cooking and whistling, Ande sighs and puts the dishes in the sink.

"She's right, ya know," Oliver starts, his thick Texan accent showing through his exterior. Ande looks up at him through her bangs. "He's interested in ya, that boy. Seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders if he tips you like Lauren says he does."

Ande sighs again. "Not you too, Oli..."

"Hey!" Oliver points his spatula at Ande. "I'm just making an observation. You choose whether to ignore it or not." And their conversation ended there.

Ande leaves the kitchen with a cleaning rag in one hand and a spray bottle in the other. Their lunch rush will be coming in any minute, and she needed to clear her head of Tony before she took on that task. But for some reason, every time she heard the bell jingle to signal a customer coming or leaving, Ande looked up hoping it was Tony.

-------

Ande wakes up to a crick in her neck and a soft hand rubbing circles on the small of her back. Her whole body is happily pressed into the warmth of another, and Ande makes me complaints about it. However, the most awake Ande becomes, the more she realizes just how uncomfortable her couch really is when slept on.

"You awake?" he asks, his breath tickling her ear. Ande muffles a giggle and moves her ear out of his direct speaking line, only to shuffle closer to him, her legs tangled with his. She feels his chest shake as he laughs quietly. "Ande, I know you're awake," he says to her again, only to get a whine from Ande in return. This was her first day off in a long time and she wanted to take advantage of it.

"Okay..." he mumbles, and Ande doesn't catch what he says afterwards. They don't move for a few moments until, suddenly, ten digits are digging into the back of her knees, tickling her. Ande squeals and tries to jump away, but only her upper body makes it off the couch. Her lower half is still on the couch. The brunette tries kicking, but as he tickles her, her reflexes can't react correctly from the agitated nerve endings.

"Okay, okay, I'm awake! Uncle, uncle!" Ande squeals, trying to slap at his hands, but can't seem to get him to stop. "Tony, stop! I'm awake, you asshole!"

Tony just laughs heartedly and tosses his head to keep his hair from falling in front of his eyes. The tickles ease off until they're completely gone and Ande can catch her breath. She frees her legs from Tony and lets them fall onto the shaggy carpet she's laid out on. It's quiet, and Tony's silent movements surprise Ande when she finds him on top of her, his hair tickling her chin as he kisses her shoulder. Ande rolls her eyes but cannot stop herself from linking her arms around his neck loosely, happy to just spend those few moments together in silence.

They stay like that, her hands playing with the ends of his soft black hair, and his lips slowly, gradually, pressing against her skin, starting from her shoulder up her neck and to her lips. The seventh months it had been since Tony finally asked her to go on a date with him had flown by in front of Ande's eyes, and she didn't regret anything.

"The movie is still on," he mumbles, grinning as he looks up from her to the menu screen of the third Star Wars movie. Tony had finally talked Ande into watching them with him since she had never seen the series, and she finally agreed since she knew how much he loved the movies. A majority of his tattoos were Star Wars themed. She was always amazed at finding a new one, or just sitting in his lap and asking the story behind one.

Like the turtle with an RV-shaped shell: that was her favorite story. As a teen he lived in an RV with some friends, who she had met only a few times, as they tried to get through high school after they grew tired of being under their parents' iron fist. Or, there was the samurai Ninja Turtle that covered his entire back. It was just an outline, right now, and he had told Ande that when he went to get it colored he wanted her there with him.

Ande didn't have any tattoos, but she was always interested in getting one, she just didn't know what she wanted or where she wanted it. Oliver wasn't against tattoos, he had plenty of his own, so he wouldn't fire her if she showed up one day with one.

"Ande," Tony whispers, and Ande opens her dark brown eyes to look up at him. He's got this look on her face, one she can't quite place, as he watches her. "You okay?"

She smiles. "Yeah, baby, I'm fine." Ande strains her neck just slightly to press her lips to his again. They kiss; it's just a simple, chaste kiss while the two lay in the floor with the Star Wars menu screen plays on a loop, waiting for one of them to either turn the television off or start the movie again.

Somehow the kiss ends, much to both of their displeasure, and Tony looks at the little clock Ande has hanging on the wall. He grumbles under his breath.

"I have to go, baby. Got work."

Ande frowns, but nods nonetheless.

Tony hasn't really told Ande much on what he does for a living. All she knows is he as security for one of the bank-money trucks that goes from San Diego to Los Angeles. Sometimes he's gone until that night, and sometimes he's gone for an entire week. He calls, he keeps her checked in on his wellbeing and gives a good estimate and when he'll be back. Other than that, Ande doesn't know much about Tony's job.

He does know how to work a gun, as she found out one day when she went through his closet looking for a pair of clean clothes to give him while he was recovering from a hangover and found a shot gun and a rifle leaned against the inner walls. Not long after that he told her he had a glock in the bedside table on his side of the bed, and plenty more hidden throughout his home.

Ande didn't ask why or ask where they were, but her curiosity sometimes got the best of her and she just wanted to know, to know.

And, she knows his job pays well, as that is how he continued to pay for a ten dollar meal and give her a ten dollar tip for a month straight, along with how he affords the payments on his truck and the gas it guzzles like water.

Tony stands and helps Ande to her feet, too. She wraps her arms tight around his waist, not wanting the best thing that has ever happened to her to leave. "Be safe," she whispers, tightening her hold. He embraces he back, rubbing her back and tangling his fingers in her long dark hair.

"I always am, Ande," Tony tells her, but she's still fearful. Almost every two weeks there's a news report of another bank being robbed, and it's about that same time again. She doesn't want Tony to get in the middle of that, no matter how much he likes action while on the job.

"I'll call you as soon as I can, okay?" he tries to compromise, and Ande knows the drill: that's the best she's going to get.

"Okay."

Tony pulls away first, and even though Ande is clenching the back of his tank top, she has to let go in order for him to grab his phone and keys. She gets one last kiss.

"I love you," he tells her for the first time. It surprises Ande, and she doesn't reply right after because, well, she was thinking this moment would be a bit more romantic, but somehow it fits the both of them. She smiles, and Tony gives her one in exchange.

"I love you, too, Tone."

He leaves her with one more kiss, but this time, the usual feeling she gets isn't there, and worry bubbles in her belly. Ande knows something about this time won't be the same as all the other times.

Notes

Comments are appreciated! I'm working on the next chapter now. :)