“Is that turkey ready yet?”
I glance up at the annoyed businessman who ordered the sandwich from me about forty-five seconds earlier.
“Working on it.”
“I’m on a tight timetable,” the man tells me like I care.
I don’t.
He acts like I should be invested in the well-being of his stomach and all of my life’s aspirations have accumulated, bringing me to this moment where I’m here, and he’s here, and I’m making him a sandwich. Jokes on him, because this shit job is only a means to an end. It pays the rent. Mostly. Barely. Some of the time.
I give the guy one less slice of turkey than I’m supposed to because I don’t like him, then I wrap the sandwich up and send him on his way. My coworker is new, and I don’t know his name, or maybe I never asked for it. I can’t remember, but it could have been either one. I’m not here to make friends. I don’t have friends. I don’t want them, either.
Thankfully, it’s the tail end of the lunch rush, and it looks like Mr. One-less-slice-of-turkey is my last customer. I unravel the tie on my apron and toss it onto the counter and head out for a smoke. Leaning against the back wall of the building, I pull my cloves out of my pocket and light one up. I love the crackle when I inhale, and the way the smoke burns my lungs.
Like little firecrackers inside of me.
I am ready to be off work, I am ready for the sun to set, and I’m ready to be back at Coven. Last week, I told Ezra to come back. I don’t know what got into me. I’m not a pushy or demanding person. I’ve always done my best to disappear into the background of things and go unnoticed. That’s what got me through foster care unscathed. Or rather, I made it out unscathedafterI learned how to blend into the furnishings.
I take another drag off my clove and push the memories of my childhood away. Being an orphan is a weird thing. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t relate to people who have families. I’ve never had anyone. I don’t know what it’s like to be wanted or loved. No one has ever worried if I’m home on time or where I’m going.
I have no one to tell that I’m meeting up with a dark haired, broody stranger at a goth club tonight, and I’m hoping to take him home and fuck. Girls don’t do that kind of thing without letting someone know, but I’m a lot more careless than everyone else. There’s a kind of freedom in the lack of accountability.
Closing my eyes, I fight to remember the soft and delicious taste of Ezra’s cum in my mouth, then I laugh at myself so hard I choke on my own spit. What an absurd correlation. Cum is cum, but there’s no denying the euphoria I felt when Ezra came on my tongue last week.
Ridiculous.
I drop the butt of my clove onto the ground and grind it out with the heel of my shoe, then I pick it up and toss it into the trash can. Back inside, I wash my hands and dutifully retie the apron around my waist.
Billy is watching me. I didn’t remember his name, but he’s wearing a name tag that I didn’t see before. I look down at my chest and rub my hand from left to right. There’s not a name tag, though. I don’t even remember losing it. It was probably years ago.
“Any plans for the weekend?” he asks me, taking a drink of milk out of one of our clear plastic to-go cups.
“Are you drinking milk?”
“Yep.” He takes another drink.
“Are you five?”
“I’m nineteen,” he corrects me, like that’s…better?
“I’m going out tonight,” I answer his original question.
“Anywhere good?”
“Hopefully.”
I’m still thinking about Ezra. Jealousy flares through me when I picture another man’s hand down his pants making him come, but I remember the way he watched me as he did, and my cock twitches in my pants. I clear my throat and shake my leg in what I hope is a not noticeable manner.
“Got a date?” Billy waggles his eyebrows at me.
“Not exactly.”
Ezra and I hadn’t talked about going on a date. We hadn’t talked about much of anything, and I’d barely stopped myself from admitting to him that when he touched me, my entire body sang. I still hadn’t figured out how a stranger’s touch could feel so much like coming home, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud and scare him off before I got him into bed.
“I do,” Billy said, even though I hadn’t asked.
I give him a bemused look, and he keeps talking like I’d encouraged it.
