The moment he saw me, a sadistic grin pulled up at the corners of his mouth. On the outside he looked angelic. Blond hair, green eyes, good skin. He looked like a Danish Gap model. Bryce wore skinny jeans with no socks and loafers. He was one of those guys. When I got close enough to speak, I crossed my arms and pinned him with what I hoped was a strong glare.
“What the fuck do you want?” I growled. I never spoke to him like that. I always wanted to but I was afraid he’d poison me.
His grin fell and anger tightened his jaw. “Is this why you left me? You wanted to come slum it with these guys?” He gestured to the table behind him.
I took a deep cleansing breath. I wouldn’t let him get my under skin.
“Why. Are. You. Here?” I breathed, chest heaving. I’ll bet if I did kill him, Angela would help me hide the body. She seemed down for that.
He sighed. “I came to see myhay girlplaying waitress.”
Hay girl.His stupid pet name for me that I never liked.
“Order a drink or leave,” I demanded.
His eyes darkened and his thin upper lip curled into a snarl. I’d never spoken to him this way and I was genuinely terrified of him. I was pretty sure he was a psychopath. One night, after one of his friends had flirted with me at a dinner party, he’d burned my hand with his cigarette. He immediately apologized, said it was an accident and got me ice, but I knew, in my soul, that he’d done it on purpose. That was the day I started to plan my escape.
“Bud Light. Go fetch,” he whispered.
I took another deep, relaxing breath and walked over to the beer tub. Calmly, I grabbed the bottle popper and peeled the cap off. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to ask Mickey if he had any rat poison behind the counter. I was going to “fetch” his beer and then tell him to go back to L.A. and leave me to my new life. He just needed closure, that was all.
When I spun around, I scanned the room for him, but he was no longer at his table. Maybe he went to the bathroom? But as I walked closer to the table my heart dropped when I saw the hundred dollar bill and note.
I’m staying in town a while. See you around.
For some reason the note and the promise of him staying around and stalking my new life didn’t bother me as much as the hundred dollar bill did. He wanted to continue to control me.That bastard. I wanted to chug the beer, grab the hundred, and leave town again. Move until he could no longer find me. But that wasn’t the way to take a stand. I needed to be strong or this would never end. I slipped the beer to the crotch rocket guys and told them it was on the house, and then I gave Angela the hundred.
She looked bewildered. “What? Girl, why?”
I shrugged. “It’s dirty money.”
She placed it in her pocket. “Well, I like my money any way I can get it. Clean, dirty, whatever.”
I had an hour left of my shift. I wasn’t going to do anything to mess up this new job. I’d pay for Bryce’s beer myself.
After a few more tables, nothing too rowdy, Mickey cut my shift at 1AM. I’d made $187 in tips and was grinning ear to ear.
I could do this. I could support myself, live on my own, start a new life.
The only issue was … I was too scared to walk home now that Bryce had shown up. What if he was watching me?
I didn’t even have a damn smart phone to call an Uber, and Angela was still working. After chewing my lip in the back room for a full minute, I rangEthan Landlord.
“Hey, Hailey,” he said casually, but there was an edge to his voice.
“Shit, it’s late. I just realized I might have woken you.” So stupid. He had work tomorrow. He ran a business with normal hours.
“Nah, the Kings meeting just ended. I’m still awake. Everything okay?”
Fuck. I hated this. I hated that I had to be vulnerable to him.
“Yeah. Totally … just, this guy kind of creeped me out tonight, and I wasn’t too keen on walking home if you were going to be in the area—”
“I’ll be there in five.” The line went dead.
Okay … Ethan King was coming to pick me up. No big deal. Except, we had a saying in the hood: once you got on a guy’s bike, you were halfway in his pants.
This wasn’t going to end well. Not well at all.
