I worked at a café at the end of the main street. White awnings billowed over open windows and small tables clustered together on the front patio, filled with tourists and locals alike. They sipped inky espresso out of dainty cream cups during the day and cheap wine once the sun set.
Fleur De Sy, a Belgian national, owned Café Callisto. She retired to my island ten years ago after having some unspecified legal trouble. She never explained exactly what happened, but it was clear she could never go home.
I felt a kinship with her, even if I never confessed my own reasons for running away from home.
Fleur frowned at me when I swept into the café. “You’re late,” she grumbled. She wiped her wrinkled hands on her frilly white apron, and then ran them through her curled, snow-white bob.
I threw a smile her way, “I lost track of time.”
In her thick, French accent, she demanded, “Again?”
“Again,” I confirmed.
She shook her head and let out a puff of air. “The water will always be there, Ivy. You must remember this so that I do not fire you.”
“You won’t fire me.” I patted her shoulder as I squeezed through the tightly spaced tables and chairs inside the stifling restaurant. The windows were opened, but the breeze had died down and there were too many people inside. Sweat dotted my forehead and slid through my hair.
“How can you be so sure?” She raised thinly arched eyebrows at me, never breaking her frown.
“Because I’m the best server here.” I didn’t wait for her to reply. I knew her mood would only get worse.
My theory was confirmed when I heard her grumble, “What does that say for the rest of my employees?”
This time when I smiled, it was mostly genuine. I was a terrible waitress. I couldn’t remember orders, I dropped food and broke glasses regularly and I was never on time.
I had never been forced to work a day in my life before I fled. I had been pampered and spoiled. I had been imprisoned in a gilded cage where I was force fed the finest foods and expected to wear the nicest clothes. Work was beneath my mother unless conning some poor schmuck out of his fortune counted. And Nix would never have allowed it.
I stowed my purse beneath the coffee counter and tied an apron around my waist. Energy started to buzz beneath my skin, igniting something inside of me I couldn’t explain.
I had found early on that I liked to work. It was my only consolation for the life I’d exiled myself to. I liked doing something that yielded tangible results and rubbed callouses into my palms. I liked the achy feeling in my feet and legs at the end of a long shift and the weird mixture of coffee and gravy I came home smelling like.
This job and the ocean were the only reasons I’d been able to hang on this long.
The ocean.
I hadn’t lied earlier when I told Fleur I’d lost track of time. I had been stuck staring at the water.
I’d felt a calling to it lately that I couldn’t explain. Or maybe I could, but I didn’t want to.
Just like my hair continuing to grow, the pull of the ocean strengthened significantly lately. It had become so intense that I often found myself barefoot and knee deep inside of it before I realized what I was doing. The waves would brush against my thighs and the taste of salt lingered on my lips.
And I would be home.
The ocean possessed a power like I had never known. It ignited something ancient in my soul, something infinite. I felt it well up inside me until my heart ached from the force of it and my eyes stung from emotion I held back.
I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t tear myself away from it either.
A soft hand landed on my shoulder, “You’ve got a table.”
I looked up and met the kind eyes of my coworker, “Thanks, Maria.”
I surveyed my section until I found the newlywed-looking couple huddled together over menus. His hand rubbed a sweet pattern over her back and she tilted her head to him, attracted to the newness of their happiness.
This job had the unexpected benefit of making me very good at reading people. I had always been too self-absorbed in my own drama to notice others before or I had gone to the concerted effort of avoiding them. Men always wanted something from me and women were turned off by the aggressive competition they felt in my presence.
Not now though.
Something had broken inside of me when Nix attacked Ryder and me. Or maybe Nix wasn’t to blame.
