“Yep, and yours will be right out, Mr. John.” I place my hand on his shoulder, giving it a tiny squeeze.
Noah fixates on where my hand meets Old Man John’s shoulder, and I snatch it away, unceremoniously shaking it out.
Is that overstepping boundaries here? It’s not like John hasn’t been in here twice a week for the entirety of my hire here, but regardless of my running around the United States and Canada for the past six years, I’m from Mississippi—habits die hard, I guess.
I leave them alone and make myself useful refilling napkin dispensers since there’s a lull in diner traffic while mulling over my next hike. Colder weather is festering in this part of the state, and I don’t have the gear to do some of these longer, higher hikes.
Checking for Mitch’s watchful eye, I pull my phone from my pocket and open the album of screenshots. All the hiking gear I’ve researched, maps, future towns and locations I’d like to hide myself in—I screenshot everything, to the detriment of my phone storage.
I scroll through, adding up the cost of the equipment. It’s not that Mitch doesn’t pay well, he does, but … it’s a diner. Not exactly a salaried job, and I’m only part-time. Hardly enough hours a week to warrant a two-hundred-dollar coat.
After tucking my phone away, I fist a stack of napkins and shove them into the dispenser with force. When the door to the diner opens, a blonde wrapped in flannel strolls in. Her platinum hair hangs loose with soft windswept curls that blow back in the slight breeze as she floats inside. Put her in a bikini and plop her on the beach with a strawberry daiquiri and she’d be Malibu Barbie. Figures.
Her perky figure gets a little more pep in her step when she notices Noah at the booth to her right. Discreetly, I abandon my restocking duties in favor of the coffeepot and work my way down the counter refilling any near empty mugs.
Noah quirks his lips upward and lifts his hand in a casual wave.
“I saw your truck outside and thought I was hallucinating. Don’t you normally eat with your mom on Saturdays?” she asks, moving to slide into his side with him.
His eyes flick over to me and my heart leaps. I drop my gaze, replacing the coffeepot.
Must be a girlfriend. Though, judging by the way Noah scoots over without a kiss or arm around her shoulder, makes me question if that’s true.
I’m not sure why it matters.
“Lily!” Mitch’s angry bark from behind me makes me jump. My teeth clack together, sending a jarring sensation through my jaw, and several of the customers jerk to look up at me when I let out a string of curse words.
“Damn man is going to give me a heart attack,” I mumble.
Retreating into the kitchen, Mitch stands by the phone, still a cherry-red landline that he shakes in his hand. “Lily. Who the hell’s calling you at work?”
I come up several short paces from him. That’s a great question. Hell, if I know.
As he shakes the receiver in his hand, I squint at the phone. Who is it? Too bad I can’t see through to the end of the line. It could be the hospital, I suppose. With all the paperwork I had to fill out from my stay there and my stitches removal, I had to provide my place of employment’s phone number. Perhaps they need something. They better not have reneged on the financial aid they said I qualified for. I can’t afford for them to decide I’m not who they want to use their grants on.
The kitchen buzzes as I take the phone, offering Mitch a shoulder shrug and bringing it to my ear. “Hello?”
Silence.
Well, sort of.
“Hello?” I say again, louder this time.
At first, there’s nothing, maybe some static. The phone is like one hundred years old. But then—a slow, deliberate inhale. Heavy. Raspy. Wet.
My stomach drops. My hand freezes midtwirl of the spiraled cord. The breathing continues, steady and methodical, like whoever’s on the other end wants me to hear it.
“Who is this?” My voice wavers despite my best effort to sound unbothered.
Still, there’s no answer. If anything, the breathing deepens, like the person is closer, right in my ear. It’s too intimate. Too … familiar.
My pulse quickens as memories sink their claws into my mind, morphing the heavy breaths into the disgusting grunts of demanded pleasure. Everything is too bright, too exposed.I’mtoo exposed.
“Who is this?!” I snap, my voice rising enough to garner the kitchen staff’s inquisitive stares.
The breathing shifts and then there’s something else, the faintest scrape of … movement?
I end the call, slamming the phone down as my hand trembles. The memories are coming—it doesn’t matter what I do.
