Chapter 10
Zoey
“You ready for tomorrow?” Krista grinned at me brightly, her enthusiasm shining through.
I should have been excited, and I wanted to be excited. We had been planning ongoing to this book signing for the better part of six months, but I couldn’t work up my excitement. Instead, I felt on edge.
My head was killing me, and for the last week I felt like I was being watched wherever I went. I saw no one and believe me, I had looked. I changed directions and varied my routine as much as possible, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being studied.
“Yeah.” I covered my mouth and yawned the word. Maybe my subconscious was telling me something because even my sleep was rough and spotty lately. I would catch a few hours here and there and be back to turning random things over in my mind and these feelings that just wouldn’t go away. “Sorry, I am just getting a really nasty headache. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Krista’s smile fell. “Shit, you aren’t getting sick right before the signing, are you?”
“I don’t think so. I think the headache is just from long nights and lack of sleep. You know, I think I’ll duck out early since it’s a slow night.”
“You think Reggie will let you?” she stated skeptically.
“With all the bullshit he lets his nephew get away with, he damn well better let me go for the night,” I grumbled and moved toward the kitchen where Reggie was surely hiding out doing his normal—nothing.
I knocked on the door to his office and waited for him to give me permission to open the door. Reggie didn’t make me wait long. I found him in the small room, hunched over his desk as he went over a set of books. “What do you want?”
Asshole. Just like Jeff.Maybe it was a family characteristic?I said to myself as I stepped into the office. “Hey, Reggie. Sorry to bother you, but I’m really not feeling well. I have a massive headache, and I can barely stay up on my feet. I need to go home.”
“You leave, you don’t come back.”
Stunned, I looked at him with my jaw dropping. “Your nephew is a pig who routinely has sex in this building. Cami shirks shifts and her job at every turn, and you are telling me I am fired if I leave when I am not feeling well—which has never happened before.”
“We are already short staffed, Zoey. If you leave, we will be even more shorthanded. If you leave, don’t come back.” He shrugged like it was the end of the discussion.
I’d worked here well over a year without missing a day on the job, or going home early once. Mainly because I would rather be at work than anywhere near my cousin or my uncle, but the one time I felt like I really needed to get some rest before I burned out because I was at the end of my rope, he pulled this shit. No.
Without saying another word, I took off my apron with the restaurant logo on it. I grabbed what tips I had already collected out of the skirt and laid the rest of it on his desk. Reggie’s eyes widened in shock. “Zoey!” He called my name as I turned to leave the restaurant.
I ignored him and went toward the break room and my locker. There were other restaurants that I could get a job at with no problem. I didn’t need this place. Hell, he needed me a lot more than I needed him, and he was soon going to find that out. Besides Krista, I was the best he had, and I would bet she would be gone soon after me.
Nothing was stopping me from getting out of there. There was no turning back. I’d taken so much shit for so fucking long, and I was done. I was done taking shit from anyone; from Riley, from my uncle, from my dumbass boss and his pissant nephew. Just trying to survive was getting me nowhere but miserable, and I was ready for something more.
