“I’m making chicken and potatoes.”
The last thing on my mind right now was food, but I felt like I owed it to her to come and join them. Guilt was a powerful motivator and there was nothing stronger than the guilt a mother could wield.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I went to my room and grabbed my things before heading into the bathroom. Turning on the taps, I let steam fill the room as I stripped and wiped away what was left of my makeup.
Sitting on the ledge, I lathered up my sponge, poured a glob of my raspberry-scented shower soap into it before starting to rub it up and down my legs, taking extra time to massage my aching feet. Job hunting was hard. It was exhausting and depressing, and I didn’t want to go back again tomorrow. But it wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I had to find something. It was just so hard. Even when I’d managed to make it through the doors and convince someone to talk to me, even if it was just the HR girl who thought she was the bee’s knees, all they wanted to talk about was Cassidy. What was she like? How sad was it? One was even so blatant as to ask, how she was supposed to get a reference check.
Standing up, I washed my hair and finished up before climbing out, wrapping a towel around me before wiping off the condensation from the mirror. Staring at my reflection, I felt like I was old. Older than my birth certificate showed. What made it even sadder was that’s how I was starting to look too. I had wrinkles near my eyes and I’d swear gray hairs were popping up everywhere.
“Skye! Dinner!” Mom’s voice carried up the stairs and under the crack in the bathroom door.
Shaking off the dark cloud of depression hovering over me, I dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of black yoga pants and a tank top before tying my still-wet hair up in a high ponytail and heading downstairs.
Dinner with my parents was exactly what I expected. They both kept telling me life would get better and everything would be okay but I wasn’t so sure. When Dad suggested I go and talk to his friend George who owned the coffee shop a couple of streets over, I wanted to cry. I knew he was trying to be helpful but working in a coffee shop again was the last thing I wanted to do. Been there, done that, wasn’t keen on going back for another go.
Except two weeks later that’s exactly where I ended up.
With life kicking my ass, I’d given in and let Dad take me down to talk to George who, thankfully, hired me on the spot. If he’d rejected me, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Now here I was, back at the bottom of the food chain, wiping tables and serving customers, putting up with their shitty pre-caffeine attitudes.
This couldn’t be my life. There had to be more. The problem was, I was sliding into a black hole and I couldn’t see any sort of lifeline to pull myself back.
I was out the back, sitting on a box taking my break while there was a lull in the traffic when George summoned me. Draining my coffee, I headed back inside to see what George wanted now. I was in a terrible mood. While I was grateful for the job, it wasn’t until I’d started that I realized why he was so quick to add me to the payroll. He was a fat, lazy shit who only got off his chair when the line was out the door or a customer was losing his shit.
Plastering a fake smile on my face, I dusted my hands off on my butt and went to see what was up. “What’s up, boss?”
“Someone’s here to see you,” he grumbled, pointing towards the corner where a guy was staring out the window, his back to me.
His wide shoulders were wrapped in a tight black t-shirt that tapered off to his narrow waist and tight, denim-clad ass. I wish every guy who came looking for me looked like him. Staring at him wasn’t a hardship.
“Hi,” I murmured as I moved closer, stepping around the toddler who was making enough noise to give me a migraine.
When he spun around and his gaze fell on me, my breath hitched.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I managed to splutter as the shock started to wear off.
“I needed to talk to you.”
“How’d you find me?”
When he tilted his head to the side, a sly smile crossed his face. “You thought I couldn't?” Arrogance was rolling off him in waves.
“I don’t know why you’d want to,” I replied, folding my arms across my chest.
“Maybe if you returned any of my hundred messages, you’d know.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
“Don't be smug,” I grumbled, looking over my shoulder to see George watching our every move, no doubt reporting back to my dad.
“We need to talk,” Hayden said pointedly.
“I’m working.”
“When do you finish?”
Part of me wanted to tell him I’d catch up with him tomorrow, but the idea of him hanging around waiting didn’t sit well with me either..
