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If there was anything Axl Rose had learned after 50 years on this godforsaken Earth, it was that the paparazzi in America were out for blood; and like sharks in the water, they could smell it from a mile away. This was exactly how things played out on a particular Wednesday, when he decided he wanted a sandwich from a particular shop on a particular side of town, and realized only after arriving at his destination that the place was absolutely crawling with them—particularly well-dressed jerks with cameras and microphones and a sharp eye for celebrities.
At first, Axl thought he might be able to make it out of there alive. He’d worn a pretty sizable cowboy hat (his favorite, mellow white with tan Santa-Fe fringe detailing); the brim was just wide enough so that if tilted the correct way, he could block a camera’s view from at least one side of his face. And besides that, nobody really noticed him walking up to the doors—so far, so good. But then he entered the shop, and that threw a hell of a monkey wrench in his plans.
Axl cursed quietly at the sight of the line in front of him. At least fifteen patrons were queued up, waiting (some impatiently, others respectfully) for their turn at the black marble counter. He sighed, tapped his foot, and watched as the two harried servers at the front tried to quell the demands of the lunch rush. One of them looked about fifteen and new, and kept forgetting where the takeaway bags were on the opposite side of the counter, so his coworker (not much older—maybe nineteen?) had to make half the orders and help bag them up, too. He was five minutes into waiting his turn when the first whisper sounded.
“Hey, is that…?”
Fuck, he thought to himself, and sighed through his nose. The guy in front of him looked over his shoulder to shoot him a questioning look, to which Axl gave a dismissive shake of the head.
But where there was one whisper, more followed.
“Oh my gosh, it totally is…”
“What do you think he’s…?”
“I bet…”
“Hey, isn’t there some…”
And from there, it was really only a matter of time. Like he’d said before: sharks in the water. Within the next two minutes, there was a sudden onslaught of paparazzi, with their ever-pressing annoying questions and microphones and goddammit, if he saw another flashbulb go off—
“Axl, hi, how are you—is there a chance that—?”
“Axl, have you met with Slash in a while? Where is he, mentally speaking? Are you still friends after nineteen years of radio silence?”
“Mr. Rose, sir, if you could just—thank you—could there possibly be a Guns reunion tour in the works?”
“Axl—”
Though he tried his best to ignore them, they were like flies on sugared honey, and only more came flooding in. No matter where he looked, there was a camera, a curious face, a pair of glasses, a hungry look, a craving look, a “this’ll-make-me-so-much-money” look—on and on and on they chattered, clamoring for so much as a grain of attention. Instead of answering, he resolved to control the quiet anger that was building in the back of his skull at the increasing insensitivity of their questions. They jabbered on around him as he leaned slightly to look past the line, which had shortened considerably, allowing him to move closer to the counter. Though there was no hope of getting his particularly-nice sandwich here (not without throwing a right hook into somebody’s camera lens, he reckoned), Axl was able to peer past the nervous teens-in-aprons at the front of the shop and see a glimmer of hope: the kitchen’s back door. Specifically, the back door to the outside. As in, the outside alleyway. Where there was no paparazzi. And where there was a relatively good chance he could get away.
“Hey. C’mere.” He beckoned with an index finger and a secretive smile to one of the camera jerks who’d just asked a brutishly insensitive question about his love life. Taking the bait, Camera Boy moved in, ready to ask another prodding question—but before he could, Rose leaned in and said clear as a bell and twice as elegantly,
“Fuck you.”
The camera jerk’s eyes bulged in feigned shock and immediately, the camera lenses started snapping at three times the rate they had been. With a quick jostle here and a mumbled “s’cuse me” there, Axl broke free of the crowded line and dashed to the front of the shop, where a woman was ordering a turkey on rye with spiced mustard. He took a running start, leapt over the counter, and landed with a painful jolt on his bad foot.
“Hey, I’m sorry about this,” He said breathlessly to the kids behind the counter before bolting through the kitchen to the back door. The paparazzi crowd screamed, half in confusion, all in excitement. The poor fifteen year old looked like he was going to have a heart attack, but the older one just gave a deep sigh, like he’d already seen everything and was just waiting for the day he wouldn’t have to put up with society’s bullshit any longer. Axl laughed to himself as he ran past a couple of employees in the back who were equally shocked and mystified to find him in their midst.
As he collided with the back door and sent it flying open, he could hear the exclamations of the paparazzi behind him and knew there wasn’t much time to get very far. The door clicked shut behind him and suddenly, he was in the blissful silence of the alleyway, dashing along the pitted pavement like a giddy trackstar at practice.
“Where’d he go?” A female voice shouted from the front of the building.
“Out back!” An irate voice, probably the guy he’d spoken to, answered. There was a collective flutter of footsteps on tarmac as the crowd sought to get more and more pictures of what they probably considered a man in his 50s going absolutely crazy under pressure; potentially back on cocaine; potentially going senile thirty years early. Axl rounded a corner and skidded to a halt right next to a ripe-smelling dumpster. For a moment, he bent over, huffing a little, really wishing he’d turned the other way—the alley he’d run into was a dead-brick end, and the crowd was coming closer and closer, camera lens covers clicking against shirtpockets full of stupid little ballpoint pens, concerned and excited hems and haws growing louder and louder. It looked like the end of the line, and he wasn’t looking forward to explaining his impulsive moment in the next interview he had to do—because eventually they’d get him, of course they would—but suddenly, like a ray of sunshine, an opportunity presented itself.
“Fate, you are a circumstance dressed in gold,” Axl murmured to himself, noticing a man in a white hat walking at the far end of the alley. Carefully picking up a good-sized rock that lay near the base of the brick wall, he huddled closer to the dumpster (hiding his nose in his collar and trying his best to breathe shallowly) and waited for the exact second before the paparazzi encountered the junction of the alleyway. Then, he threw the rock with all his might in the direction of the man at the end of the street.
It worked perfectly. The stone clattered off the wall just as the man turned and walked around the corner, making the camera- and microphone-wielding sharks scream with venomous joy and rush past, thinking they’d just seen and heard Axl Rose nonchalantly walking away after having jumped a lunch counter. He crouched, low and unnoticed, as the crowd stormed past, smiling so hard his face hurt from trying not to laugh at the utter stupidity of the situation he was in. He couldn’t believe it worked. He really couldn’t believe it worked. It was the type of shit you saw in movies, and yet…
Wow. After the sharks were long gone, he stood up, dusted himself off, and laughed himself down the alleyway in the opposite direction, trying to remember the next time he’d said he’d meet up with Slash—God, he couldn’t wait to tell him this story. He snickered to himself, quieted down, and then thought about the whole debacle again, and kept laughing. It really was too funny. At some point, though, his stomach reminded him rather unkindly that he was, in fact, still hungry; because he had not, in fact, gotten his sandwich.
“Well, can’t go back there,” Axl muttered, and then chuckled again, remembering the look on the fifteen year old’s face as he jumped the lunch counter. Well, no problem, not really. He decided to wander wherever the back alleys took him—staying off the public roads would be better at this point, and besides, who knew; there might be a nice place wherever he ended up. A man could always follow his nose, he reminded himself as he caught the delectable scent of burgers sizzling somewhere.
So that was exactly what he did. Relying solely on his nose (well, okay, and his feet, too—Axl was surprised he could still walk after landing so badly, he thought for sure his doctor would kill him for breaking a bone at his age), he wove his way through unsuspecting side streets and unbeaten paths to finally resurface on a public road, right in front of a short, squat building affectionately labeled “Ronnie’s Diner”. The building itself looked like it had seen better days—the white brick was chipped and peeling on the more weatherbeaten side of the establishment, but was intact in most places; the red-tile roof gave way to a neon sign reading RONNIE’S in cursive (which had almost definitely been blown out since the early nineties—it looked decrepit as all hell), and the clear glass windows and doors shone with the exception of a fingerprint or two from some extraordinarily sticky-fingered child. But most importantly, it was empty. Though it was technically still lunch hour, the place looked as though it might as well have been closed. Even so, Axl knew his nose wouldn’t lie to him; and somebody was definitely in there frying up some onion rings—so he took hold of the door and, swinging it open, stepped in.
The interior of the restaurant was about as unassuming as the front, but with more of a 50’s flair. Axl Rose gave the red-leather booths and shiny chrome-trimmed tables a nod of approval as he strode up to the front to see who was on shift. Checking over his shoulder for anyone that might be around in the dining area (at the tables on the far side, perhaps?), he said in a loud voice,
“Hey, anyone there?”
Almost immediately, a greasy, ponytailed (and thankfully, hairnet-wearing) head popped around the corner of the kitchen, wearing a solid glare and clenching a cigarette between his teeth. Andrews’ expression softened only slightly when he realized he was looking at a potential customer, but all the same, he sighed irritably at having to break his concentration away from the grill.
“Yeah, we’re here, we’re here. (Y/N)’s waiting tables today. It’s been slow so she’s in the back doing inventory. Gimme a second.” With a curt nod, the chef took a few steps away from the sizzling meat to shout into the pantry.
“WE GOT ONE!”
Axl stifled a laugh as he heard a yelp, crash, and finally, a woman answer:
“For God’s sake, Andrews, you made me drop a crate of tomatoes! I hope you’re happy!”
“Never will be, (Y/N), you know that.” The chef muttered, rolling his eyes and resuming his position at the grill, checking the patties he was making for his lunch break to see if they were done yet. He flipped one, and as it landed back on the white-hot metal with a sharp hiss, a flustered young woman threw open the pantry door with a bang and rushed to the counter where Axl stood, still trying his best not to laugh.
“Apologies for keeping you waiting, sir.” She sighed with exasperation, taking a moment to tuck a loose strand of (h/c) hair back under her hairnet. “Some people don’t have the decency to alert their coworkers to a customer’s presence without scaring the living daylights out of them, and unfortunately…” She cast a glare in Andrews’ direction, who was miming along with her words silently, mocking her as he flipped his patties onto a hamburger bun resting on a plate beside the grill. “...I happen to work with the most insufferable of them all. Your order, if I may?”
“Wow.” Axl Rose shook his head in a mixture of admiration and amazement. “Well, no harm done. Let’s see… got a house special?”
“Ronnie’s California,” she answered right away. Axl thought about how pretty her eyes were under the fluorescent lighting as she rattled off the ingredients. “One patty, regular seasoning; split-top bun, small fried egg, guacamole, Chipotle mayo, romaine, tomato, two strips of bacon, and if you like, we can throw in some Swiss or cheddar. Comes with an 18-ounce drink and a side of fries. Crinkle-cut, if you’re wondering.” (Y/N) smiled pleasantly. “That sound okay?”
“It sounds great,” he answered honestly, and she nodded in return. As he handed over a five dollar bill for the meal, she hollered so loud Axl swore he felt his eardrums rattle around in his skull. “ANDREWS! Pop another one on there!”
“Aye aye, captain,” the chef mocked, and paused in the tomato-and-lettuce decoration of his own lunch to saunter to the fridge for another hunk of ground beef.
“It might be a little bit of a wait, but your food will be ready soon. In the meantime, do find somewhere to sit down. I’ll bring your meal over as soon as it’s ready.” The rings on her fingers glittered under the lights as she punched a few numbers in on an ancient cash register and handed him his change. As a quarter, a dime, and two pennies tumbled from her hand to his, she smiled sweetly, and Axl found himself nodding in agreement.
“Sounds good. Thanks,” he added. She dipped her head in a gentle nod and told him he was very welcome.
While he waited for his meal, Axl sat at one of the tables furthest from the bank of windows and thought about what a relief it was that of the two people in this building, both of them seemed completely, blissfully unaware that he was considered a celebrity in his own right. Even more than that—they were entertaining as all get-out. Lunch and a show, he thought as he listened to the two argue over who got to play what and when on the radio in the kitchen, chuckling to himself. After a heated debate, it was decided it was Andrews’ turn to pick the station, since (Y/N) had been playing it on and off all morning, and it was her problem if she couldn’t stand David Byrne’s voice. Soon enough, the argument came to a short end as the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place” blasted out over the cruddy speakers of a boombox situated in the far window of the restaurant. Then, like an angel delivering manna from heaven (though this may have been his ravenous stomach speaking), (Y/N) descended from the less-than-cloud-nine of the kitchen to bring him a Ronnie’s California special with seasoned fries and a glass full of ice.
She set his plate down in front of him with a genuine smile, despite the tired aggravation in her eyes at having to deal with the chef; and asked, “What can I get you to drink? I forgot to ask earlier. Scatterbrained of me, I know.”
“Oh, no problem.” He considered for a moment, and then continued. “Whatever you think is good. I guess I’d like to try something new.”
She nodded slowly, as if his request had put her into deep thought. “New… huh. Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Without another word, (Y/N) glided back into the kitchen, where there were a few quiet words exchanged between her and Andrews. Though Axl was curious, his stomach was growling too loudly for him to ignore any longer, and so he took a bite of the California burger. God, was it ever good. The chef might’ve been a greaserat with an attitude but damn, could he cook. Everything blended together perfectly—the mayo was spicy, the bacon crunched, the egg yolk ran with the tomato juice and the lettuce tasted crisper than usual, like it had actually been washed and prepared within the last five minutes—and boy, was that guacamole good. (Y/N) couldn’t have been gone for three minutes, but when she reappeared with a glass half full of ice, what looked like a very astringent lemonade, and a quickly-condensating honey weiss beer in the other hand; he’d already finished a good half of the burger.
“I take it you’re enjoying your food,” she laughed as he noticed her presence and immediately snatched up a napkin from the dispenser to swipe at his face.
Axl swallowed before speaking. “Are you kidding? It’s delicious. What’ve you got there?”
“Thought you might like a mixer. Andrews says it’s an acquired taste of mine, but really, I think he’s the one with the weird tongue. Don’t tell him I told you this, but—the man puts licorice on his ice cream.” She shuddered and made a face, and Axl laughed.
“Don’t tell him I said this, but I believe it.”
At this, she tilted her head back and cackled like a hen. Andrews poked his head around the corner and asked what was so funny.
“Oh, nothing.” She answered quickly, and shooed him back into the kitchen with a wave of her hand. Axl shot her a look, and she returned it. They both stifled their glee like schoolchildren in a silent classroom.
“Anyways,” she continued, still giggling under the tones of her voice, “Before I get fired, I oughta tell you—it’s just a concentrated lemonade base with some blended pineapple and a couple of cherries in it. And I brought you some honey weiss to top it off—I usually have it three parts weiss and one part cherry-lemonade, but I’ll leave it up to you.” She winked, and Axl felt his heart flutter a little.
“Girly drinks, huh?” He grinned, and she rolled her eyes with a smile.
“Bet you’ll like it.”
“How much?”
She had been walking away from his table, but at this, turned to face him once more with a sly expression. “Well, how much are you willing to bet?”
-
“I can’t believe I lost fifty dollars,” Axl groaned.
“I can’t believe I won fifty dollars!” (Y/N) crowed, laughing at the look of what could only be described as existential despair on her new friend’s face as he sipped on the last few dregs of his second honey weiss-lemonade mix. Though Axl hadn’t exactly been skeptical as to whether he’d enjoy the drink, and though he really didn’t mind being down by fifty bucks, it was worth a little showmanship if it got her to smile. (Y/N) really was beautiful—she had a no-nonsense attitude and a good sense of humor, and—as was glaringly obvious from the way she’d bent over the tables to viciously scrub them into submission—a good body, too. Though she couldn’t possibly have known he was looking (Axl had, after all, had 50 years to practice sneaking glances), she always turned to look right at him like she knew he was watching; and she liked it.
But there was a hint of recognition in each of those looks, so much so that Axl really started to wonder if she knew him after all, and she wasn’t just being playful. Maybe she did know him from the limelight—and maybe she was just extraordinarily good at respecting well-known people as if they were still regulars. Maybe so, maybe so. She was looking at him that way right now, as she gathered his plate and empty glasses to take back to the kitchen; and it unnerved him. Did she know? Was she going to mention it? Would she crack and ask for a photograph or an autograph or some such thing? He held her (e/c) gaze and prayed.
“I swear, I know you from somewhere,” she said, squinting at his face. He resisted the urge to pull his white cowboy hat lower than it already was.
“Uh… you do?” Axl asked. Very smooth, his brain chided unhelpfully.
“Yeah. Yeaaaah, I do!” Her eyes lit up and his soul dropped like an iron weight in his stomach. “You know Tim DeMorro, right? You were that guy who DJ’d at his cousin’s wedding!”
Holy fuck. She… she was wrong. Axl blinked once, and twice, and broke out into a relieved laugh. “Nope, I don’t know a Tim DeMorro. Sorry.”
And oh, look how she blushed—she was like a strawberry in the sun. “Oh, no, no, I’m sorry. That’s so… augh. I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought. That I knew you, I guess. I—my bad, I really am sorry.”
“It’s not a problem,” he said, still laughing at her embarrassed expression. “Not at all. Happens a lot.”
“People mistake you for wedding DJs a lot?” She laughed too, unbelievingly.
“Well, no, not exactly.” He was absolutely enthralled with the way she folded her hands prayer-style in nervousness and flexed them back and forth, making a few rings on her fingers click-clack in time with the music coming over the radio. “People just… well, I guess I have a pretty recognizable face.”
“I’ll say.” Her blush, if it was possible, seemed to deepen. “It’s a nice one, though. Very unique. You smile like the sun on Easter morning.” (Y/N) seemed to become quite aware of the words that had just slipped out of her mouth, then, and as Axl was processing what she said, completely unprompted—had she flirted with him? She had!—she tried to backpedal. Or clarify. Or make it worse. Or something.
“Oh, God, that sounded so weird,” she cringed. “What I mean is—you have a face like springtime, you know? Gah, no, you don’t know, that just sounds weirder… you know what? Forget it, forget I said anything. You have a nice smile. There.” She wrung her hands again, folding her fingers, making her rings click; looking down at the floor—and only when he was silent for a little too long did she look back up.
Axl stared at her in a mixture of gratitude, awe, and amusement. “Thank you,” he said. She turned and began to walk away, but he stood and grabbed hold of her wrist. “I mean it, (Y/N), thank you.”
“It was a silly thing to say,” she said, her voice small and embarrassed, still turned away from him. But she slipped her wrist out of his grip just enough to take hold of his hand. Good lord, were her palms ever soft. It took him by surprise. For how rigidly she was scrubbing down the tables, he figured she would have hands as tough as his, but they were softer than rose petals. Ha, rose petals. How ironic.
“No, it wasn’t.” He reassured her. “It was nice. Now, how long are you going to hold my hand behind your back? I’d like to see your smile too.”
She turned to Axl with the shyest, most beautiful smile he’d seen yet, and silently, he thanked whatever entity of nature it was that had seen fit to allow them to exist in the same universe at the same time. He admired her there for a moment or two, loving the way that unruly strand of hair kept finding its way out of her hairnet to frame her face—and the way her uniform complemented her figure so nicely, and the way she regarded him with light in her eyes rather than a question begging to be answered or a past waiting to bubble forth. She was like a beam of light in the ether, she—wait a second, she’d just asked him something.
“What was that?”
“I said,” She giggled, “I don’t know your name. To whom do I owe the pleasure of my fifty dollars?”
“You can call me Bill,” Axl said, wondering how long she would let him hold her hand. He really didn’t ever want to let go—it was nice like this. She was nice like this, right in front of him, tilting her chin up to see him better, laughing and smiling and carrying on.
“Alright, Bill. You have a nice day, now.” She said, patting the back of his hand neatly and letting go to clear his plate and glass. Axl watched, longingly, as she walked back to the kitchen, a new kind of sway in her hips that suggested… oh, hell, he didn’t even know what; he just liked watching her leave, though he wished she’d come running right back. (Y/N) wasn’t like that, though. In fact, the Easter Sunday smile comment was probably the one and only step out of her comfort zone she’d make with him. Best to enjoy it while it lasted—while she didn’t recognize him at all.
(Y/N) popped her head out of the kitchen, just then.
“Come back soon, Bill! I’ll have another girly drink waiting for ya!” And she blessed him with a wink and a wave of his fifty-dollar bill before she tucked it into her back pocket and returned to the pantry.
He smiled a real Easter-Sunday smile, then, and left the restaurant feeling better than he had in a long time.
-
Over the next few months, Ronnie’s Diner became Axl’s new favorite place to hang out at when the lunch hour got too crazy. Usually the scene was pretty dead, which left him wondering how they managed to stay open; but other times there were other people there—nobody who knew him, though, which was both a miracle and a blessing. He dropped in once every two weeks or so to say hi to (Y/N), grab a bite to eat, and talk for a little while—and he especially loved the drinks she made for him. Girly or not, they were damn good. Just this last time she’d talked him into trying a sangria made with apple juice and Kool-Aid.
“I call it a ‘Bad Apple’,” she said, while handing him the tall, reddish-hued drink. He’d simply raised his eyes and wondered if it was a coincidence that she should name it after—well, yeah, of course it was a coincidence. What else could it be?
And yet, her smile had him wondering. A few days after the paparazzi incident, he’d walked into the restaurant and greeted Andrews with a polite nod, only to find her in his usual spot, skimming the newspaper. A brightly-colored picture of him running through the kitchen of the sandwich shop dominated the first page with a cheap heading he didn’t even bother to read. He was more interested in the way she looked up at him, with a hint of recognition in her eyes—but his interest had only to sigh when she smiled and said “Hey, Bill, how are you?”
It wasn’t that she was stupid, he thought as he sipped on another of her (quite addictive, if he was being honest) fruity drinks. This time it was some sort of banana liqueur mixed with a pineapple malt base—iced just enough to take the heat away from the lunch he’d just had, on which Andrews had gone a little heavy-handed with the jalapeños. No, no, no. It wasn’t that she was stupid, because she wasn’t—she was smart enough to make witty little comebacks to his occasional quips, and smart enough to come up with a hundred different drink mixes to satisfy every personal craving that had ever gone unrealized in his subconscious. Honest to God, who knew coffee went so well with raspberry flavoring, a cinnamon stick and a dollop of whipped cream? Only she did. And she was good with music, too—kept a good rhythm. He watched her waltz around the restaurant, singing along to some Spanish ditty on the radio and sweeping every possible inch of the floor she could reach with her industrial-sized broom. He whistled as she bent over to retrieve the dustpan and she turned to stick her tongue out at him.
Not stupid. She wasn’t stupid. Just… highly unobservant. He took another lengthy sip from his chilled glass and savored the taste of banana with raised eyebrows as she ignored him, got into the music once more, and gave a full-bodied shimmy that would make any man stare. Twirling around with the broom at her hip, she didn’t miss a beat as she sashayed back to the kitchen to grab her cleaning supplies. The tables were next—and oh boy, what a view that was going to be. Axl wiggled his eyebrows to no one in particular, and laughed to himself.
The radio went to commercial just as she was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves in preparation for the table-scrubbing commencement, and although she usually didn’t pay much attention, something held her to the fast-paced jabber of the disc jockey like a fly to Vaseline. Instantly, he knew what it was.
“Hey, thanks for listening to MA-95—did you know you could win 2 free tickets to the Guns ‘N’ Roses reunion tour coming up? Yeah, you remember the greats; the baddest rock ‘n’ rollers on the scene in the eighties—well, they’re coming to Los Angeles in 2016—hell, they’re probably already there! Just call 555-2726 to enter, 555-2726…” And with that, the disc jockey ran out of time and Paradise City began to play. (Y/N) seemed to lose her playful energy, then, looking as lost in thought as ever as she brought the heavy-duty spray bottle over to the right-hand corner of the restaurant opposite Axl. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking behind that (e/c) veil, and he realized he desperately wanted to know. Especially now. Did she know she was in the building with the main act? Did she? The question plagued him again: how could she not?
“(Y/N)?” He asked, finally, when she didn’t turn to him for a while.
“Yeah, Bill?” Friendly as ever, she looked up with that blessed smile of hers. “Ready to go?”
“Nah, no, not yet.” He scratched the back of his head, just beneath the brim of another favorite hat of his. “What’s on your mind?”
“Oh,” she laughed. “Sorry. Just Guns and Roses. I love this song.”
He waited for her to continue, but she seemed intent on cleaning tables, mouthing a few of the lyrics here and there. “...are you a big fan?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so. I know a little more than your average Joe.” She scrubbed the table so hard it shone, and then moved onto the one next to it, spritzing the blue cleaner over the greasy fry-crumbed surface. “I know they were pretty big back in the day. I was seventeen when they broke up the band, though, so I didn’t get much time to listen while they were still together.” She turned to look at him, and he half-prayed she would find something; something in his face to recognize. But there was nothing. She simply blinked at him, smiled, and said, “Of course, if they hadn’t broken up, I might not have realized how great they were. A few of my girl friends were upset about it, like, really upset, so I figured I’d see what was up. I went to the record store down the street—Lauhey was the guy that owned it, he was pretty cool—and got myself a few records to play when I was bored. But man…” She shook her head and looked off to the side, out the window to where an old woman was carefully stepping out of her car and into the parking lot to wander in for a late lunch. There was a long, long pause before she continued; and Axl’s attention was held rapt by the look in her eyes. Something mysterious bounced around in those (e/c) depths, like reflections dancing in summer lakesides—little fragments of glass, shimmering, shining. Again, she spoke. “Nothing quite compares, you know? Sometimes I’d listen to the songs just for the hell of it, because nothing’s as good to hear when you’re in a mood than an angry little man screaming obscenities.” She laughed, and Axl had the humility (could that even be said?) to blush. “But other times… God, wouldn’t you know it, it sounded like he was singing right to me. I loved it.” She continued wiping down the table she’d paused at. “Of course, I know how dumb that must sound. There’s gotta be a hundred, a thousand, a million people just like me. Who think that Axl Rose was trying to reach across time and space to tell them something special.” She rolled her eyes, but sighed like a morose woman waiting for her lover at sea to return. She fiddled with the spray bottle in her hands, still deep in thought; and to Axl it felt like she was fiddling with his heartstrings; no matter how stupid that sounded. “And yet all I ever wanted was for someone to sing those things to me, you know? It felt like something special. Maybe it was. Maybe special things are supposed to be shared with millions of other people. Who knows. But I do know I liked it. Still do.” She turned to him, then, smiling. “What about you?”
“Me?” He had been so caught up in her mellifluous speech that he’d completely forgotten the role he was supposed to be playing. “Uh—” he coughed awkwardly and hid his face in his drink for a few seconds, sipping at the banana goodness once more. “Hum. Well. Me. Hm. I, uh, I liked their earlier stuff more.”
At this she broke into a full-bellied laugh, like hearing him stumble over his words was the most joyful thing. “Oh, don’t let me intimidate you, Bill—at least tell me your favorite song. I know I sound like a weirdo, talking about them, but—but that’s just me.”
“Who’s intimidated?” He asked, straightening up in his seat and propping his elbow on the table as he turned to face her more completely.
“Well, you are blushing,” She pointed out. Cursing quietly to himself, Axl glowed pink as he lifted the cold glass to his lips, sipping on the remaining banana-pineapple dregs as she giggled to herself, moving from table to table with renewed deftness. The radio toiled on with its tunes. Some Def Leppard song played in the background and she got back into her little groove, swinging her hips and mouthing the words she knew, making faces at the words she didn’t. Axl watched her curiously for the better part of an hour; as she cleaned and scoured and greeted and served the occasional visitor. Finally, when the afternoon had crested three o’clock, he knew he had to be going and so left her a generous tip at the table. Upon walking out of the restaurant, he passed her reorganizing cups and straws at the front counter and mumbled,
“November Rain.”
The look on her face as he crossed the threshold of the restaurant was one of mild surprise. “Bit of a cliche one, huh?”
“It’s a good song,” he called back.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” she giggled, a hand flying up to her face to stifle it, worrying that the grouchy chef would hear and tease her. “It’s just—well, never mind. Have a good day, Bill. See you soon.”
He nodded to her, a silent “you, too”, and went on his merry way to a practice session where he would most certainly be playing that song on the piano. The whole time, he would most certainly be thinking of her—the way she knew, but pretended not to know.
Or the way she was terribly, horribly unobservant.
Only time would tell.
-
The next time he wandered over to Ronnie’s to get lunch and a good drink, she was on shift alone, no Andrews to be seen. The reason Axl knew this was because the second he stepped into the building, he could hear her singing. The radio had been turned up to a volume just under the level of ‘tolerable’ for the neighboring restaurants, and she was howling out the words of the song like a rockstar invigorated by the ferocity of her fans. And by all the fate in the universe, it was another Guns ‘N’ Roses song.
He watched her as she danced wildly behind the counter, spinning here, giving a toss of the hand there, leaning and leaping to and fro, and all he could think was damn, she really does belong on stage. Though her voice wasn’t perfect, it was clear as a bell, and she sounded like an angry songbird. Of course the radio was playing Bad Apples—she loved that song. Well, enough to name a delicious drink after it. That much he knew.
“When the shit hit the fan, it was all I could stand, oh—I’m a frequent flier! My body’s breathing while it can, but what I don’t understand is that—my world ain’t gettin’ no brighter! If I could touch the sky, well, I would float on by… well, everybody’s talking, hell—I’m just another guy—”
Axl took a deep breath and prayed his voice would hold without practicing his warm-ups first. “If it were up to me, I’d say just leave me be—why let one bad apple spoil the whole! Damn! Bunch!”
(Y/N) was in the middle of a rather elaborate spin when she heard him, spun the rest of the way around to see who it was, screamed a little in surprise, and tripped over her shoelace. She went down like a sack of flour with an audible ‘thud’ and the music continued in the background as Axl ran over to help her.
“Did you hit your head? Aw, fuck, I didn’t mean to scare you.” More than a little panicked at her dazed expression, he rambled on and on, apologizing more than was surely necessary. But she shook herself out of it with a laugh.
“No, I just tripped, don’t worry. Though I’m sure it’s gonna hurt later.” She blew a hiss of air through clenched teeth as she took hold of his outstretched hand and swung herself back up to her feet. “But—you just—caught me off guard.” She shook her head once again in amazement and looked at him, searching his eyes for something.
Axl Rose searched her eyes right back. She knew it was him. She had to. There was no way she would be able to deny it. She was staring right into his soul—or it felt like that, anyway. He was cold all over and couldn’t decide if he was going to stick it out and deal with her being an over-ecstatic fan or if he was going to make a run for it. Honestly? He wanted to run. Candidly? He didn’t think he could handle this. She was so nice. So nice. He didn’t want to give that up, but he also didn’t want to have to answer a bunch of stupid questions every single time he came in to eat, and god forbid she sing canary to the paparazzi—why had he done that? Stupid, stupid, he berated himself—why couldn’t he have just…
“Do you know something?” She said, and he suddenly became very aware that she hadn’t yet let go of his hand. The rings on her fingers were cool to the touch, but her hand itself was sweet and warm, like a flowerhead in the sunlight.
“What?” He asked, hoping she’d get that coy look off her face and just tell him already, just tell him what he’d known for 50 miserable years, that he was William Axl Rose and she knew it.
“You sound just like him!” She squealed with joy and pressed her other hand atop the one she was already holding. “Oh, you so have to teach me how to do that. I’m jealous. I really am.” Before he could say anything in the way of shock or amazement or scream in frustration and disbelief, she’d walked into the kitchen to fire up the grill for his lunch order. “Honestly, Bill, you have a gift. I’d kill to sound like Axl. You think you could teach me?” She leaned around the corner to catch his gaze; unperturbed by the stunned look on his face, how his hand was outstretched from his side like she was still holding onto it.
“I… maybe?” He asked, unsure of anything anymore. Was she for real? Was she? He had to know. Goddammit, he had to know.
“Awesome. Thank you. And—what was it you said you wanted for lunch this time around?”
“Oh, the usual,” Axl said, slipping into the booth in the corner he’d claimed as his own for the past few times he’d visited Ronnie’s Diner. She smiled and ducked back into the kitchen to put her skills as a greaserat to the test—since, well, Andrews wasn’t there to help out. For the rest of the hour he spent there, Axl made idle conversation and gave (Y/N) some pointers on her voice; but was ultimately lost in his thoughts. How could she not know? She had to. She just had to.
But did she?
He left more conflicted than he usually did, offering her a generous tip for her lunchtime service and a similarly pleasant, fruitful (and yet so fruitless) conversation. The sun poured down on him in speckled rays through the green leaves of trees that lined the streets nearby, and he walked off into the distance, hands tucked in his pockets, cowboy hat pulled low to guard against the weathering beams. (Y/N) watched him go with a mixture of guilt and intrigue, wondering if he suspected her yet.
Andrews walked in through the employee door in the kitchen. “So, I take it your visitor’s left.”
“Yup.” (Y/N) dunked the dishes she’d cleared over the past few hours into hot soapy dishwater and tried not to think about him—but she always did. Her thoughts floated back to Bill—Bill? Should she call him that? He’d been Axl to her for so long, since she was seventeen, in fact, but—Bill, yes, Bill. Her mind drifted to him like a butterfly on a circular breeze, free falling to the same vanilla-scented blooms. Him, and that lovable cowboy hat. Him, and the way he watched her and looked away when she caught his glance. Him, and the way he kept coming back, because she had something to offer—whether that was food, looks, or personality, she couldn’t be sure; but just to see him smile like that—well, it was all worth it. She sighed dreamily and slipped the washrag over the surface of a plate.
“Well, did he figure you out yet?” Andrews pulled a hairnet over his newly washed and shorn hair. Too bad his girlfriend didn’t like the mullet he’d had coming in. He thought it looked great, but the way she’d held the kitchen shears in her hand suggested that his time of looking like an eighties movie star was up. Teresa was like that, though. Demanding. He leaned out of the kitchen to check the front windows for customers. Two or three were coming across the little sidewalk, so he fired up the grill once more, noticing that it was still a little hot.
“No, and he won’t.” (Y/N) said, scrubbing the plate she was working over in the sudsy water a little harder than necessary.
“Why are you doing this again?” Andrews asked with a deep, deep sigh as the customers walked through the front doors. There was a woman and her daughter whose name he couldn’t quite recall, and a junior named Sullivan, who hung out around the back sometimes. Andrews was in the habit of sharing cigarettes with the kid, since quite often Sullie had some little nugget of wisdom to spout if he got one—it was weird, but the cancer sticks seemed to turn him into a pint-sized poet, if only for a moment. He checked the produce bins at the tabletop nearest him for burger toppings, looked at (Y/N) absentmindedly scrubbing the same plate she’d been scrubbing 10 minutes ago, and sighed, knowing he’d have to do prep this time.
“I do want to see him again, you know.” Finally, she dunked the plate underwater and hung it out to dry in the rinse-rack. Andrews went forward to the counter, took some orders, told Sullie he’d be out back as soon as the burgers were up, and came back to the kitchen, yanking open the freezer to grab some beef.
“This is the only way I know how to see him again. I’m sure you can figure out how absolutely thrilled he would be to come here every day for lunch if he knew I was one of those… one of those…”
“Crazy fans who tries to trick their favorite singer into thinking that they don’t know them when in reality they do?” Andrews asked, peeling the plastic from a few prepackaged hamburgers.
(Y/N) shot Andrews a dirty look over her shoulder. “Groupies, Andrews, one of those groupies.”
“Well, what can I say. What you’re doing now is bound to keep him coming back.” Andrews rolled his eyes and slapped a patty on the grill, admiring the way the fat sizzled on the white-hot surface. “And eventually get you checked in to California’s best looney-bin.”
“I think he likes me,” She dared to say, having abandoned her light-handed scrubbing of the dishes to stare longingly out the front windows at the sidewalk Bill had strolled down not twenty minutes before.
“(Y/N), you’re an idiot.” Andrews sighed.
“I know.” He didn’t even have to look at her to know she was smiling.
-
Axl Rose stood outside Ronnie’s Diner, resplendently dressed in his usual crowd-avoiding outfit of a cowboy hat and matching boots; blue jeans with worn patches at the knees, a faded grey shirt with a rattlesnake on it, and what he considered to be his best black leather jacket. He breathed in, and breathed out; palm resting on the door handle of the restaurant. The plan today was to get it out of her. He knew that she knew who he was. Or at least, he thought he did. Scratch that: he was ninety-nine percent sure she knew.
Maybe ninety-eight percent, now that he thought about it.
But he was going to drag it out of her, if she knew, and she almost certainly did. The way she’d looked at him when he sang a verse of Bad Apples with her was too close to recognition to be anything but. He knew she knew. And so, Axl marched in.
Within a few seconds, he saw her at the counter in her usual spot, yakking at Andrews about one of their district managers—but the instant she saw him, she lit up like a Christmas tree on the fourth of July, and waved an excited “hello”.
“Hey there! You’re early!” She said, face alight with cheer.
“I am,” He admitted. “But I don’t have much time to talk. Big plans today, you know.”
“Actually, I don’t know. Do tell.” She smiled. “And what can I get you for such a busy day?”
“You remember that little coffee thing you made me, with the raspberry and—?” Before he’d even finished asking, she was nodding, stepping over to the counter behind her which held the coffee machine and several obscure ingredients in bottles labeled with Andrews’s messy handwriting. Axl stifled a laugh as she fiddled with the ancient machine, which malfunctioned more than anybody liked to acknowledge, and was almost certainly as old as her. (Y/N) managed to get it working, though, and turned to chat with him.
“So, what’re you up to today that you can’t come through on our lunch date?” She smiled a darling half-smile, half-smirk and he chuckled internally, waiting for just the right moment to let the phrase slip; to let the other shoe drop.
“I’ve got practice with the guys,” he continued, nonchalantly. “Going to brush up on a few songs. Maybe write something, like we used to. Who knows.”
“Ohoho, you have a band?” There! There! She already knew! He could see it in her face.
“Indeed I do,” he ambled on.
“I should have figured.” She grinned. “Such a good singer. Do you play an instrument? Is the sax your axe?”
Oh, not yet… she wasn’t giving in that easily. Axl told his inner monologue to shut up for a second so he could focus on tripping her up in conversation, and continued: “Well, yeah—not the sax, but I do play the piano pretty well. Mostly old stuff. You might know some of it.”
“Mmm.” (Y/N) hummed and took the coffee pot off as the machine chirped and growled its final notes, and she poured the hot liquid over a mug which contained a mix of raspberry-flavored syrup and two cinnamon sticks. “I like that. Not a lot of guys my age—well, not a lot of guys in general—find it rewarding to play the piano. There’s this weird stigma around it, that it’s a girl’s instrument. Believe you me, if that were the truth, I’d be able to play it,” She laughed, scooping up a dollop of whipped cream from the container in the fridge and depositing it in the mug with a tiny whup.
“Hey, it’s a mystery to me, too,” Axl shrugged as she turned to him, carrying the mug carefully. She handed it to him with a gentle warning of the heat it carried. He thanked her, took a gentle sip, and then wiggled his eyebrows at her. “After all, you know what they say about pianists’ fingers.”
At this, he wasn’t expecting much, but she gasped a little and blushed that endearing strawberry red all the way from her neck to the tips of her ears.
“You have such a dirty mind,” She whispered.
“Really? Well, what do they say about pianists’ fingers? I’ve never been able to figure that one out.” He asked innocently enough, and grinned when she turned a shade darker. “Something tells me you have an idea, though. And you accuse me of having a dirty mind…”
“You, my friend, are a menace to society,” She muttered, taking on the completely-unnecessary task of reorganizing the cups and straws below her station for the fourth time that day just to avoid eye contact with him. He took another few long sips of his coffee—which was just hot enough to be delicious with a capital D, and just cool enough not to singe his taste buds right off—and leaned his elbow on the counter, watching her with a kind of sly admiration.
“Public enemy number one, sugar.”
“A menace,” She repeated, “to every able-bodied girl in this building.”
“Every hot-bodied girl in this building,” He corrected.
At this, she stood up and began furiously reorganizing things on the coffee-machine counter, her hands trembling a little; her face redder than ever. For a moment, Axl wondered if he’d gone too far, but this was just too good to watch. When she got to the box of flavored syrups and began organizing them by alphabetical order, he’d finished nearly all of his coffee (it really was that damn good, she always made the best) and was thinking about apologizing to her, because she hadn’t spoken in a while and he was wondering if perhaps he’d been mistaken after all. He prayed he was wrong. And he was.
(Y/N) let out a loud sigh and turned to him, having pointed the nozzle of the blueberry syrup container in his direction. Before she could say anything, he raised both hands in the air, still holding his mug. “Whoa, don’t shoot! I’ll give you everything I’ve got! Money, a watch…”
She laughed and set the bottle down, back in its space in the container of flavored syrups. “Oh, ha-ha-ha, very funny. You know, it’s not every day a ‘hot-bodied girl’ meets a candid gentleman like you.”
Axl looked over his shoulder in both directions, scanning the restaurant for a sign of anyone else. Nobody. “Who’re you talking to? I don’t think the words ‘candid’ and ‘gentleman’ have ever been strung together in the same sentence, let alone when describing me.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” She asked playfully. “First time going to a restaurant, millionth time chatting up a waitress; first time trying a girly drink, millionth time coming back for more…” Slowly, she took hold of his hand and before he could register why, she had taken the now-empty mug and was rinsing it in the sink across the kitchen, smiling to herself. Axl snuck a glance at his watch and noticed he had less than fifteen minutes to drag it out of her and then get to his practice session. She sauntered back over to the counter.
“First time the waitress gives you a coffee on the house, ‘cause she thinks your cowboy hat is just-too-cute,” She grinned brightly, leaning across the counter, pretending to pinch his cheek and blow a kiss. Axl swore he felt his insides melt like honey in the sun. He wanted nothing more than to pull her up and over the counter and ravish those perfect lips until her smile grew into one of ecstasy. But, like any respectable man, he held his position, and had but one more thing to say.
“Aw, thanks, sugar. You know, though, I gotta get going.” Here it was. Here it was, game, set, match. Clear as a bell: “Slash and Duff’ll have my head on a silver platter if I show up late again.”
She laughed, sweetly. He nearly broke out into a sweat with anticipation, but he needn’t have worried, for her next words were:
“Okay, Axl, you have a nice day.”
There was a moment where both of them stood, unbelieving, at what had just transpired: him with a look of amazement, her with a look of complete dread and horror at what she’d just revealed.
“I KNEW IT!” Axl roared with laughter. “I knew it! I knew it! Ahaha, you knew!”
“Stop it,” She wailed. “Oh, stop it! Of course I knew! How could I not?”
At this, he paused. “How could you not? Why’d you pretend for so long that you didn’t?”
She took a deep breath, a withering sigh, to try to ease her nervousness and fright, but her face was still ashen. He waited for her to speak. “I just wanted you to feel normal, you know? Like you could still go somewhere without being recognized.” She sniffed a little, and Axl felt something tug on his heartstrings. He took her hands in his as she teared up and tried to explain through her embarrassment.
“And I just—I just wanted you to feel normal, and—I don’t know why I’m crying, I’m sorry, I think it must be—I don’t know, hormones, or something, this is—I’m just so sorry,” She said, not willing to look him in the eye, but holding onto his ruddy hands as if they were a life line. There was a long moment of silence before she spoke again, timidly. “I just wanted you to come back. Maybe that’s selfish. Hell, I know it is. But it’s true. I just wanted you to come back.”
Gentler than he had ever been before, Axl leaned forward, brushed her unruly lock of hair back from her face, and told her,
“Hey. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. I’ll come back.”
At this, she was able to meet his eyes, finally, and had the daring to smile. He smiled back at her, and for the moment, there was only them. The world around seemed to evaporate, and he was left with the light in her (e/c) eyes. For a moment, it wasn’t all that bad. But then he remembered where he had to be. “For the record, (Y/N), you’re dead honest. I like that in a woman.” He winked, and she blushed that beautiful strawberry shade again, just like he loved. “And if I’m being honest, Slash and Duff really are going to have my head on a platter if I don’t get moving. See you next time, alright? Don’t get too weepy on me, now.” He paused, and then decided that as cliche and as stupid as it sounded, he’d better say it. “Don’t cry, (Y/N).”
Laughter bubbled up from her chest at this and she took her hands from his to wipe her eyes, to see him better. “I won’t. Thank you, Bill, you’re the best.” But for a moment, she frowned. “Can I still call you that?”
“Of course. It’ll be our thing. Just like those drinks you make.” He winked one more time and felt better when her smile returned like a sunrise to the dawn of her face. “See you soon, okay?”
“Okay,” She said, shyly, and with that, he was on his merry way.
“Wait ‘til the guys hear about this,” Axl murmured to himself, laughing at the strange debacle that had just taken place, wondering what Slash and Duff would have to say.
-
Almost a month passed before (Y/N) saw him come through the door again. She was on her lunch break, flipping through the newspaper that Andrews insisted be delivered to them so their customers could read during their meals; nibbling at the remains of her favorite menu item. The instant she saw his cowboy hat duck in the front door, she was on her feet, scrubbing her hands clean on her apron, and rushing her dishes back to the front.
“Hey, Bill,” She intoned, gently, cautiously, as she reached the front counter in time to deposit her wares at the side of the sink and take his order. “What can I do for you?”
“Hey, (Y/N),” Axl returned, greeting her with a happy nod and a twinkle in his eye. “Care to join me for a drink? I’m feeling a Bad Apple today.”
Her smile lit up the room.