My heart does something small and hopeful, which is terrifying.
Mae follows my eyes like she already knows. “You looking at my sign?”
I swallow. “Are you… are you actually hiring?”
“I am,” she says easily. “My girl went off to have a baby. Left me in a bind, the traitor.” Her tone is teasing, affectionate. “You want work?”
“Yes,” I say too fast. “I mean. If you need someone. I can start right away.”
Mae studies me, and for one awful second I’m sure she’s going to see through me. See the fear. See the mess. See the fact that I’m one bad moment away from falling apart.
Instead, she nods. “You got somewhere to stay?”
My mouth opens, then closes.
Because that’s the problem, isn’t it.
I have my crappy car. I have a bag. I have eight percent battery and a life behind me that I don’t want to go back to.
“No,” I admit.
Mae’s expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t pity me. She doesn’t ask a million questions. She just makes a decision like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“I got a room upstairs,” she says. “It’s small, but it’s clean. Used to be for staff back when my husband ran this place with me.” Her voice softens for half a second, like a shadow passes, then she clears it. “You can rent it cheap. Week to week, if you want. No lease. No fancy paperwork.”
My pulse stutters. “I… I can’t afford much.”
“You can afford honest,” Mae says. “And you can afford showing up for your shift.”
I grip the edge of the table, because my hands need something to hold onto. “Why would you do that?”
Mae gives me a look like I asked why water is wet. “Because you’re standing in my diner with winter on your shoulders and nowhere to go. Because I’ve been alive long enough to know when a girl needs a safe place to land.” Her eyes narrow slightly, but not unkindly. “And because I need help. So it’s not charity, if that makes you twitchy.”
It does make me twitchy. My pride is bruised and stubborn and exhausted.
I take a shaky breath. “Okay.”
Mae’s smile is quick and pleased. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat, firmer. “Yes. I want the job. And the room.”
Mae pushes out of the booth. “Good. Eat your pancakes. Then we’ll talk details.”
As she walks away, I stare at my coffee mug and feel something unfamiliar bloom in my chest.
Not happiness. Not yet.
Relief.
It’s fragile and terrifying, like holding a lit match in the wind.
I lift the mug to my mouth and take a sip. It’s too hot, and it burns my tongue, but I don’t even care.
Because for the first time in a long time, the air around me feels warm.
And the door behind me jingles again, letting in a sharp gust of cold that makes the hearts in the window flutter like they’re alive.
Chapter Two
