Saying nothing more, he swung the glass door open for me and motioned me inside.
I’d passed through the doors to Mickey’s dozens of times, but never had it felt like this. Like every eye in the place was at on me. Or at what was right behind me.
It was usually really noisy inside, conversations and laughter filling the place, but now all I could hear was the jukebox playing an old Beach Boys song and the spit of burgers sizzling on the grill in back.
Kids were gaping at Grant as if Superman had just flown his spandexed ass out of the sky, women were admiring him in a way I was all too familiar with, and everyone else had been struck with a serious case of hero-worship. Even back when we’d been teenagers, Grant’s name held a certain degree of awe in the area. He was setting records in high school football as a freshman, and even then, I think most of us knew we were watching a great in the making.
But now, the prodigal hometown hero had returned, and all at once, it felt like every last diner in Mickey’s was reaching for their camera phones and digging around in purses for a stray pen.
“Shit. Should have gone with the drive-thru,” Grant whispered to me, putting on a smile for the crowd.
“Too late for that now, Invincible Man.”
He gave me an unamused look when I glanced back at him.
“Well? What are you going to do now?” I asked as bodies started rising out of chairs.
Giving me a look that suggested I was clueless, he tipped his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, everyone! I’ve got a box of signed jerseys in the bed of my truck!” Grant pointed out the window where his truck was gleaming in the parking lot. “Help yourselves!”
In twenty-four years of life, I’d never seen a herd of people move so quickly. Never even close.
In less than a minute, the restaurant had cleared out, even most of the employees, and people were tearing through a couple of boxes in the truck bed.
Turning around, I was met with a victorious-looking Grant. “You keep a pile of signed jerseys on you all the time?”
“Only when I want to step out in public.” He shrugged, moving for a couple of empty stools at the end of the counter. “I don’t travel anywhere without a few signed somethings on me. Or, in this case, a bunch of signed somethings.”
I kept staring out the window at the mass of people around his truck. Surprisingly, they were all working together, instead of every man for himself.
“Because you don’t want to get mobbed by your adoring fans?” I guessed.
“Because I’m thankful for my adoring fans,” he said, settling onto a stool.
It made me smile, seeing him propped up on that tiny thing. He’d been too big for them when he was fifteen, but now he looked like a lion trying to balance on top of a Barbie chair.
“Do you need a menu?” He pointed at a stack of menus down the counter.
“Do I ever?”
Smiling, he motioned at the waitress who had just stopped in front of us. “Then take it away.”
“Your usual?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Always.”
After I rattled off our order to the waitress, she turned to Grant as she stabbed her pencil behind her ear. “Nice to see you come in here with somebody beside you for once.” After patting his hand resting on the counter, the waitress disappeared into the kitchen.
I didn’t recognize the waitress as one of the regulars that had been here before I left, but she obviously knew Grant. I turned in my stool to face him. “How many artery-packing trips have you been making here, Grant Turner?” He’d made it sound like he came every once in a while, but maybe he was more of a regular than I’d guessed.
“I make it a point to make a stop at Mickey’s every time I’m in town. Sometimes two stops per trip.” His gaze wandered around the diner like that should have been obvious.
“How often are you in town?”
“In the off-season, I’m here a lot more, but I try to make it back once a month or so.”
My eyebrows lifted. I had no idea he came back here so often. If anything, I’d guessed the opposite now that he’d made it big. This area was not the kind of place a person thought of nostalgically.
Then I realized why. “To check on Aunt May.”
“To check on her . . .” He cleared his throat, hesitation sweeping across his face. “And to check on the football program I started in The Clink a few years ago.”
“The football program?”
He swallowed, studying the wall across from us. “I had a couple of football fields made and hired a few people to hold practices and games for the kids in the community, free of charge. Their equipment, gear, snacks, everything, it’s all taken care of. Boys, girls, toddlers, teenagers, there’s a place for them to get out of their homes and play ball.” Grant shifted on his stool, still unable to look at me. “Francis’s grandson is one of the kids who plays on one of the league teams,” he said as Francis returned with a couple of milkshakes.
“This boy is an angel. A real-life angel. My James was getting into a whole heap of trouble before Mr. Turner started the Football For All program.” Francis winked at me as she set a strawberry shake in front of me and a vanilla one in front of Grant. “A real living, breathing angel among us.”
Grant snorted as Francis patted his hand again before she wandered away. “If I’m an angel, then humanity is screwed.”
“Here, angel,” I teased, which got me an eye roll, “milkshake switch.”