9
Gas Station Stick Up
When my shift was over that afternoon, the rain still hadn’t stopped. Apparently, RJ’s hip or whatever bone it was that could sense the weather had lied to him.
I said goodbye to Rosie and Reggie and grabbed my cardigan and purse. I wished I would have brought my rain jacket with me, but when I’d peeked out the bathroom window this morning, I hadn’t noticed the dark clouds collecting overhead because it was still dark outside. It wasn’t until I was scurrying toward the car, and raindrops started pelting my forehead that I realized I’d dressed completely inappropriately for the stormy day.
Standing near the front door of the restaurant, I decided I would run over to the gas station that had a small convenience store attached to grab something for dinner before hightailing it to my car. Maybe they’d also have a cheap umbrella.
I didn’t relish the idea of spending extra money on an umbrella, but today it felt like a necessity. Then I could walk up to the school building to get Max if I had to without both of us getting soaked.
Set on the idea, I burst through the front door to Rosie’s and scurried across the street to the Pump and Pantry, soaking my sneakers. Damn.
The floor inside the gas station was slick from people walking in from the rain all day. I skidded to a halt narrowly missing a pyramid of winter weather wiper fluid.
“Hey, Ruby!” Maria, the long-time daytime cashier at the P&P called out. “Some rain, huh?”
“Hey,” I smiled at her. Our shared dislike of this town’s population had bonded us over the years. “It’s pretty much the worst.”
“Umbrellas are in a bucket near the door,” she told me, reading my mind. “I’ll give it to you for half price.”
My smile widened. “You’re the best.”
She turned to a customer that stepped up to the counter and I walked toward the freezer section. I didn’t make it a habit to shop here for groceries. It was usually too pricey for my budget, for one. But also, their selection wasn’t awesome. I tried to stay away from processed foods as much as possible, but it wasn’t easy when the outer edges of the grocery store were so expensive. Still, I made a concerted effort to give Max food I had never been offered as a child. Fresh fruits and veggies, proteins that didn’t come from a can, and real, non-plastic cheese. It cut into my paychecks a lot and set me back from saving as much as I wanted. But I figured while I was living with my mom and had some financial freedom to feed him healthy options, I would take advantage.
However, I didn’t get paid until the end of the week and I was saving my big grocery shopping trip for Saturday. Which meant today’s supper was courtesy of the good old P&P and would probably come from a box of some sort.
As I perused the meager choices of frozen options, the front door opened and closed, bringing with it a gust of wet wind. I shivered in my damp cardigan and grabbed a box of hot chocolate from an endcap close by.
“It’s not that cold outside.”
I turned, not at all surprised to see Levi Cole standing there. I blinked at him twice and then backstepped into an aisle with pantry items to resume my search for supper options. “Cold enough,” I mumbled at the shelf. “Why are you everywhere all of a sudden?”
“What do you mean?”
“For someone who disappeared for seven years, you’re suddenly everywhere that I am. It’s strange.”
“I saw you run in here,” he admitted without shame. “I was just over—” He gestured outside and I pictured him sitting in a surveillance van watching my every move. “I, uh, I wanted to apologize for this morning. At breakfast.”
Keeping my mouth shut, I reached for a box of cheeseburger macaroni.Thanks, Hamburger Helper.
I wasn’t going to make this easy on him. He needed to suffer a bit. He might have gotten away with murder in high school, but times had changed.
I had changed.
“It’s just weird.” When I still didn’t look at him, he added, “I mean, you have a kid now, Ruby. That’s hard for me to process. I mentioned it to Finch and Mercer and that was a mistake. Mercer shouldn’t have grilled you like that. I’m sorry.”
Lifting a shoulder in a casual shrug, I pretended to read the nutritional facts on the back of the box. “Same old shit, Levi, different decade. It’s not anything you need to worry about.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lift his hand as if he wanted to rest it on my shoulder before dropping it back to his side. “It’s just that… They don’t know who Max’s dad is.”
His tone caught my attention before his words made sense in my head and my entire body snapped around to face him. He wasn’t actually apologizing for his stupidity earlier today. He was making an excuse for it. Unbelievable.
I blinked at him, which apparently prompted him to say, “So who is it? Who’s Max’s dad?”
The way he kept saying Max irritated me. The way he remembered his name at all, after only having met him once, bugged me. He said it like he knew my son, like they’d had a conversation or some kind of memorable interaction. Worry churned in my gut and the urge to flee made my feet itch.
Good lord, he was the very last person that wanted the answer to that question.
