It didn’t matter that the jeans were stained and had been worn four times already. If she didn’t get to work soon, she wouldn’t be able to pay the water bill to wash clothes anyway.
“It has to be this storm,” Ashley swore to herself and then froze at the doorway to her room. That crack of thunder meant the storm was still raging on, meaning that she was still 50 shades of fucked. She’d forgot that her car was still in the shop when she went to bed last night and hadn’t changed the alarms. She hadn’t had the money to pay the bill for the mechanic yet. She was going to have to run to get there on time. There was no way that she could ever ask to use Ned’s truck, it was his baby and she’d never driven anything that big.
Ashley held her breath as she crept through the living room and opened the trailer door, staring out at the massive storm raging outside.
“Another day, another dollar,” Ashley murmured to herself before pulling the hood of her sweatshirt over her hair and started to run, praying that she wouldn’t show up to work too wet and that Cheryl would take pity on her.
The diner was surprisinglyfull the moment that Ashley arrived. She didn’t know what it was about the rain, but it seemed people never wanted to cook when it was storming, especially not in Tennessee.
Ashley supposed that was a good thing, considering she was a waitress, but still, she couldn’t help but feel her stomach sink down to her feet as she realized that she was late and it was that busy.
Cheryl was going to fucking kill her, especially if Craig was the guy on the grill because Craig could barely keep up with the normal crowd.
But surprisingly, the moment Cheryl made eye contact with her, there wasn’t a trace of anger on her features. If anything, Cheryl just looked confused.
“Ashley, thank God,” Cheryl said before Ashley raced halfway to the other woman, ready to beg to keep her job. Cheryl’s eyes widened as she leaned towards Ashley.
“You have a customer, one that requested you by name. One that made it very clear to me that he’d like to be your only table,” Chery said, and before Ashley could open her mouth to argue with the idea of having only one table, which would mean less tips, Cheryl all but shoved her in the direction of a booth.
A single booth that sported no more than a single man, one with jet black hair and an assortment of rings on his fingers as he looked down at the newspaper in his hands. A newspaper thatwas curiously dated a week previous. Ashley almost opened her mouth to offer him the latest paper before she realized that there was a stack of newspapers sitting in front of him. He had been waiting for quite a while.
Immediately, Ashley’s eyebrows furrowed together. She didn’t know what to think of it. She had never had a customer request to be served by her and her alone, other than her dad.
Ashley had never had a boyfriend or even a best friend that might request she be their server. The idea that someone would want her to serve their table was confusing. Almost as confusing as the idea that a man like him, one who was decked out head to toe in black clothing and wore more rings than she had ever seen before in her life, would show up in a place like Walland, Tennessee.
But Ashley supposed that there was a first time for everything, including mysterious strangers sitting down in her section of the diner.
“Hi there, my name’s Ashley and I’ll be your server today,” Ashley said, coming to the conclusion that she had no idea who this man was and that the best way to approach him was to be as friendly as possible, so that whatever trouble he was up to would soon be over.
“Coffee. Black.” The man said, not acknowledging Ashley’s greeting as he continued to read his newspaper, and for a second, Ashley wondered if he had even heard her when she introduced herself.
“Cheryl will tell you that it’s already on my tab,” the man added, not bothering to look at Ashley in the process. Immediately, she pursed her lips together.
Somehow, Ashley managed not to make a single sound as she strode away from the booth, as confused as she had been when Cheryl had told her that she already had a table. It seemed thatwhoever this man was, he wasn’t there for conversation. At least not yet.
But Ashley had a way of softening people up. That was her one strength as a server, and it was the one thing she could rely on in just about any situation.
Grabbing a pot from the coffee machine, Ashley straightened her back and painted a smile across her face, doing her best to look undeterred. Even if the man did bother her, she wasn’t going to let him win. Whatever he was there for, she was going to take care of him.
Ashley walked back to the man’s table with the same painted smile, doing her best to keep her wrist steady as she poured his coffee. The last thing she needed at that moment was to spill something on him.
Ashley allowed her eyes to trace over the man’s features as she looked down at him, noting that he didn’t look like the sort of man who came from Tennessee. Or at least not from her part of Tennessee. Maybe he was from one of the cities or one of the bigger towns. That would explain the thin scars that decorated his features. The same ones that just about mesmerized Ashley.
Ashley allowed her eyes to roam the man’s body, taking in his thick, well-defined forearms and the thick muscles along his shoulders. She couldn’t deny that he was attractive, far more attractive than any man who had wandered through this part of Tennessee before, but she wouldn’t admit that to the man’s face. Not if you paid her.
When her eyes went back up to his face she saw he was staring back at her and she flushed at having been caught checking him out. Ashley was so embarrassed she stumbled backwards just a few steps. The corner of the man’s mouth ticked upwards, but instead of teasing her, as the men in her romance novels would do, he said the strangest thing she had ever heard.
“You live around here, sweetheart?” The man asked, and she could only gawk at him, wondering why the hell he would think to ask that question. Wasn’t it obvious she lived here? Why else would she work in this diner?
Something about her face must have told him he was right because he gave a nod before withdrawing a 100 dollar bill out of his back pocket. He placed the bill down on the table with a large, self-satisfied smile as he finally rose to his feet, shaking his head at her.
“That’s all I needed to know,” the man said as he got out of the booth, sticking out his hand to shake hers in a simple motion that she reacted to automatically.
“Okay.” Ashley drew the word out, staring at him with deep confusion. “But who are you?”
“Jack. Jack Tracey. Remember that name. It will save your life someday,” the man answered before walking out of the diner.
Ashley watched the man walk out into the storm, her eyes narrowing as she noticed he didn’t have a raincoat or an umbrella, walking with a confident swagger. Her jaw dropped at that swagger, wondering if it was enough to keep the rain off him. The whole damn situation was weird, and fuck if she knew how to take what had just happened.
