Hector wasted no time getting the security company here to set up the security system. I told him I’d take care of everything, but he got to it before I could.
A few days later, two people arrived early in the morning, and a couple hours after that, our home had a brand-new alarm system set up.
“You can enter the PIN you want to set now,” the woman from the security company said.
Hector looked at me, but I gestured for him to do it. He owned the home, so he should be the one to make the code.
He nodded and quickly glanced at me before typing a series of numbers into the control panel. I unabashedly watched his finger slide over zero-seven-one-two.
It seemed like a random set of numbers to me.
“Make sure you write your code somewhere, just in case,” the woman suggested.
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget it,” Hector replied, then walked them downstairs.
I worked the numbers in my head, trying to figure out if they meant something. They seemed random, but I knew Hector well enough to know he put thought into every one of his choices.
It was one of the things I liked about him. Most men would have jumped at the chance of at least getting me into bed if I told them I liked them, especially when it was obvious the attraction was there on both sides. Not Hector, though, and if I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought that to be a rejection.
I’d heard rumors from around town saying Hector was a violent person who’d once assaulted a police officer, but I had a hard time believing them. The only thing rough about Hector was his exterior.
He wasn’t the kind of person to hurt anyone. He refrained from accepting my feelings because he didn’t think he was good enough for me, and I didn’t push because I wanted to show him he was more than enough for anyone, especially me.
“Does the PIN mean anything?” I asked Hector once he returned upstairs.
“Oh, it’s just, um, you know, random,” he replied, but pink heated his cheeks. That told me the numbers definitely meant something, but he wasn’t keen to share because he was embarrassed.
I merely smiled. I was patient. I could wait until he was ready to tell me.
“I really wish you’d let me pay for the system. I was the one who insisted on getting it, after all,” I said. Hector seemed relieved by the change in topic.
“Does it really matter who pays for it? Besides, it’s more for me than you. I like knowing nobody can sneak upstairs and steal Shadow.”
As if summoned, Shadow magically appeared from whatever dark corner he’d been hiding in. The pitch-black cat rubbed himself against Hector’s legs while casting me the smuggest expression I’d ever seen on a cat.
For reasons unknown to me, the little felinehatedme. I swore he tore up my shoes just to spite me, or maybe that was his way of telling me to get the hell out of his house. I suspected the cat thought I was trying to steal his favorite person from him. Well, Shadow was just going to have to learn how to share, because I wasn’t going away that easily.
“Who’s my handsome boy?” Hector cooed, and my heart melted into a puddle of goo at my feet.
Talking to his cat was the only time Hector physically softened, and it wasn’t until months of living together had Hector felt comfortable enough to act like this in front of me. I swore I physically swooned the first time I’d witnessed it. Probably would have fainted and ended up in his arms—right where I wanted to be—if he hadn’t caught himself and blushed from embarrassment.
Now, he easily showed affection to his cat infront of me.
If only he showed me the same affection so openly too. I’d purr nicely just for him.
Hector picked up Shadow and held him like a baby, with the cat’s belly up. Shadow would only let Hector treat him that way.If I so much as accidentally brushed up against the cat, Shadow would shoot me a look of disgust like I’d done the mostoffensivething in the world.
I was slowly trying to get Shadow to warm up to me by giving him treats, but the cat was just too skittish. He never let many people get close to him, much like his owner.
I understood.
They’d both been hurt and betrayed by the world. Hector by the people of his town, and Shadow by his old owners, who’d abandoned him in the alleyway behind the diner because he was too aggressive.
I was determined to breakboththeir walls down and show them it would be okay to let me in. Hector was set in his ways, but I’d prove to him that not all change was bad.
Later at the diner, Hector was sweating in the kitchen by himself. Just like when I first forced my way into the job, and he was taking care of the entire diner by himself, he now insisted he could handle the kitchen alone too.
I heard he used to have a sous chef a few years back, who was like a son to him, but he left town to…I believe it was to join a circus? After that, it was just him and his ex-wife working the diner, but that was before the sudden influx of residents and tourists, which also meant the diner was now packed most days.
