Part 6

The only reason that Mal noticed the slight hesitation as Jayne stepped into the greasy spoon was that he was watching him. Nobody else would have even been able to pick up on the way Jayne’s eyes went straight to River before scanning the room in his usual “Note all exits in case the shit hits the fan” manner. The captain’s eyes narrowed in suspicion for a moment before a little of Inara’s subtlety training kicked in and he decided to watch and wait and see what was going on.

Jayne sauntered over to the table with a loose limbed grace that had one waitress nudging the other with a naughty grin. He grabbed the chair and flipped it around before straddling it and yelling for a cup of mud.

Zoe and River exchanged a laughing look as the waitress they’d spent five minutes trying to gain the attention of when they walked in had a hot cup of coffee in front of Jayne in less than a minute and was asking if there was anything else she could offer him. The busty waitress put a special emphasis on the word anything, and River noticed that she’d managed to find the time to unbutton the top three buttons of her shirt.

It only took a moment for Zoe, Mal, and Jayne to drop into the easy banter that had run throughout their long association and they managed to ignore the fact that the waitress hadn’t left. It happened occasionally in their travels that a persistent woman managed to catch Jayne’s eye and drag him off for a little tumble.

None of them managed to catch the look that River shot at the waitress or the way she propped her foot possessively on the rung of Jayne’s chair. When the waitress didn’t appear to take the clue, River gained the attention of everyone else at the table when she started growling quietly.

Jayne’s eyes bounced from River to the waitress and he nonchalantly waved her off and put his hand on Rivers shoulder, squeezing it for a moment before grabbing his cup for a hot mouthful. He choked a little bit and looked into the cup. “Damn, I think they’ve been cookin’ this