“How long have you worked here?” Hardin asks, walking with me. He’s dressed the same way he always was, same black T-shirt, same pair of boots, same tight, black jeans, though this pair has a small tear at the knee. I have to keep reminding myself that it has only been a few months since I left for my mother’s house. It feels like so much more time has passed—years, even.
“Only three weeks,” I say.
“Landon said you’ve been here since noon today?”
I nod. I gesture to a small booth against the back wall, and Hardin slides in on one side and Landon on the other.
“When will you get off?”
Get off? Is he making an innuendo? I can’t tell after all this time. Do I want him to? I can’t tell that, either.
“We close at one, so I usually get home around two when I work a closing shift.”
“Two in the morning?” His mouth drops open dramatically.
I set the menus in front of the two men, and Hardin reaches for my wrist again. I pull back this time, pretending not to notice his intentions.
“Yes, in the morning. She works like this every day almost,” Landon says.
I shoot him a glare, wishing he would have kept that to himself, then wonder why I feel that way. It shouldn’t matter to Hardin how many hours I spend here.
Hardin doesn’t say much after that; he just stares at the menu, points to the lamb ravioli, and orders a water. Landon orders his usual, asking if Sophia is busy in the kitchen, and gives me more “I’m sorry” smiles than necessary.
My next table keeps me busy. The woman is drunk and can’t decide what she wants to eat; her husband is too busy on his phone to pay attention. I’m actually grateful for the drunk wife sending her food back three times; it makes it easier to only stop by Landon and Hardin’s table once to fill their drinks and once to clear their plates.
Sophia being Sophia, she wrote off their tab. Hardin being Hardin, he left me a ridiculous tip. And me being me, I forced Landon to take it and return it to Hardin when they got back to the apartment.
chapter sixty-seven
HARDIN
I curse when I step on something plastic, but not too loudly, since I’m sure you can hear everything in this apartment—an apartment that, having few windows, is entirely too dark to see shit. And here I am, trying to remember the way back to the couch from the minuscule bathroom. This is what I get for drinking all that water at the restaurant in the hopes that Tessa would have to stop by more often. It didn’t work, and another server ended up filling up my glass several times. It did, however, make me have to piss all night long.
Sleeping on the couch while knowing Tessa’s closetlike room is empty drives me fucking crazy. I hate the idea of her walking through the city alone in the middle of the damn night. I scolded Landon for giving her the tiniest of the two “bedrooms,” but he swears that Tessa won’t allow him to change the arrangement.
Go figure. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s still as stubborn as she has always been. Another example of this: she works until two in the morning and walks home alone.
I should have thought about this sooner. I should have been waiting outside that ridiculous establishment to walk her home. Grabbing my phone from the couch, I check the time. It’s only one now. I can take a cab and get there in less than five minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, thanks to the near impossibility of catching a cab on a Friday night, I guess, I’m standing outside Tessa’s workplace, waiting for her. I should text her, but I don’t want to give her the chance to tell me no—especially since I’m already here.
People pass on the streets—mostly men, which only increases my anxiety about her leaving work alone at such a late hour. While analyzing her safety, I hear laughter. Her laughter.
The doors to the restaurant open and she walks out, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand. A man is next to her, holding the door for her. He looks familiar, too familiar . . . Who the hell is this guy? I swear I’ve seen him before but I can’t remember . . .
The server. The server from that place up by the cabin.
How the hell is that possible? What the hell is this guy doing in New York?
Tessa leans into him, still laughing, and as I take a step forward out of the dark, her eyes meet mine immediately.
“Hardin? What are you doing?” she exclaims loudly. “You scared the crap out of me!”
I look at him, then at her. Months of working out to relieve anger, months of talking shit with Dr. Tran to control my emotions, haven’t prepared me, and never could, for this. I have had small thoughts about Tessa’s having a boyfriend, but I wasn’t expecting or prepared to actually have to deal with it.
As nonchalantly as I can manage, I shrug and say, “I came to make sure you got home okay.”
Tessa and the guy share a look before he nods and shrugs his shoulders. “Text me when you get home,” he says, brushing his hand across hers as he departs.
Tessa watches him go, then turns to me with a not-unpleasant smile.
“I’ll hail a cab,” I say, still talking myself down internally. What did I think? That she would still be figuring shit out?
Yeah, I guess I did.
“I usually walk.”
“You walk? Alone?” I regret asking the second part of that question the moment it leaves my fucking mouth. After a beat, I conclude, “He walks you home.”
She winces. “Only the shifts we work together.”
“How long have you been dating him?”
“What?” She stops us before we even make it around the corner. “We aren’t dating.” She creases her brows.
“Seems like it.” I shrug, trying my fucking hardest to not be a sulking asshole about it.
“We aren’t. We spend time together, but I’m not dating at all.”
Looking at her, I try to determine if she’s telling the truth. “He wants to. The way he touched your hand.”
“Well, I don’t. Not yet.” She stares down at her feet while we cross the street. There aren’t nearly as many people out as earlier today, but the streets are still far from empty.
“Not yet? You haven’t dated anyone?” I watch a fruit vendor pack up for the night while praying for the answer that I want to hear.
“No, I don’t intend to date for a while.” I feel her eyes on me when she adds, “Are you? Dating anyone, I mean?”
The relief I feel to find out that she hasn’t been dating is beyond words. I turn and smile at her. “No. I don’t date.” I hope she catches my joke.
And she does smile. “I’ve heard that before.”
“I’m a conservative guy, remember?”
She laughs but doesn’t add any commentary as we stroll block after block. I need to talk to her about walking home this late. I have spent night after night, week after week, trying to imagine how she’s living her life here. Her working long days as a waitress and wandering home in the darkness of New York City was not something that crossed my mind.
“Why are you working in a restaurant?”
“Sophia got me the job. It’s a really nice place, and I make more money than you would think.”
“More money than you would at Vance?” I ask her, knowing the answer.
“I don’t mind it. It keeps me busy.”
“Vance told me you didn’t even ask for a recommendation, and you know he’s planning on opening something here, too.”
She is staring down the street now, mindlessly gazing into traffic. “I know, but I want to do something on my own. I like my job, for now, until I can get into NYU.”
“You haven’t gotten into NYU yet?” I exclaim, unable to hide my surprise. Why hasn’t anyone told me any of this? I force Landon to give me updates on Tessa’s life, but apparently he likes to leave out the important shit.
“No, but I am hoping for the spring semester.” She reaches her hand into her bag and pulls out a set of keys. “The deadlines had all passed.”
“You’re okay with that???
? I’m surprised by the calm in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m only nineteen. It will be fine.” She shrugs, and I think my heart stops. “It’s not ideal, but I have time to make up for it. I could always take double courses and maybe even graduate early like you did.”
I don’t know what to say about this . . . calm and nonpanicked Tessa, Tessa without a rock-solid plan, but I’m more than happy to be around her.
“Yeah, I suppose you could—”
Before I can finish, a man steps out in front of us. His face is covered in dirt and overgrown whiskers. Instinctively, I step in front of Tessa.
“Hey, girly,” the man says.
My stance shifts from paranoid to protective, and I stand up straight, waiting for this asshole to try something.
“Hey, Joe. How are you tonight?” Tessa gently nudges me out of the way and pulls a small bag from her purse.
“I’m good, darling.” The man smiles and reaches his hand out for the bag. “What did you bring this time?”
I force myself to stay back, but not too far.
“Some fries and those sliders that you love.” She smiles, and the man grins back before unfolding the paper bag and lifting it to his face to smell the contents.
“You’re too good to me.” He pushes a dirt-stained hand into the bag and pulls out a handful of fries to shove into his mouth. “Want some?” He looks at each of us with one fry hanging from his mouth.
“No.” Tessa giggles, waving her hand in front of her. “You enjoy your dinner, Joe. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waves for me to follow her around the corner, where she punches in her code to Landon’s apartment building.
“How do you know that guy?”
She stops in front of a row of mailboxes lining the lobby and opens one with her key while I wait for her response.
“He lives there, on that corner. He’s there each night, and so when we have leftovers in the kitchen, I try and bring them to him.”
“Is that safe?” I look behind us as we walk down the empty hall.
“Giving someone food? Yes.” She laughs. “I’m not as fragile as I used to be.” Her smile is genuine, not at all offended, and I don’t know what to say.
Inside the apartment, Tessa steps out of her shoes and pulls the tie from her neck. I haven’t allowed myself too many glances at her body. I have tried to keep my eyes on her face, her hair, hell, even her ears, but now, as she unbuttons the black shirt, revealing only a tank top underneath, I am distracted and I can’t seem to remember why I was avoiding admiring such a beautiful thing. Her fucking body is the most perfect, most fucking mouthwatering body, and the curve of her hips is something I fantasize about daily.
She goes to the kitchen and calls over her shoulder, “I’m going to get to bed. I have an early shift tomorrow.”
I walk toward her and wait until she finishes her glass of water. “You work tomorrow, too?”
“Yeah, I work all day.”
“Why?”
She sighs. “Well, I have bills to pay.”
She’s lying. “And?” I press.
She wipes at the counter with her hand for a minute. “And maybe I was trying to avoid you.”
“You’ve been avoiding me long enough, don’t you think?” I raise a brow at her.
She swallows. “I wasn’t avoiding you. You barely reach out to me anymore.”
“That’s because you avoid me.”
She walks past me, pulling her hair from its ponytail as she does. “I didn’t know what to say. I was pretty hurt by you leaving the graduation and—”
“You left. Not me.”
“What?” She stops and turns around.
“You left the graduation. I only left after looking for you for thirty minutes.”
She looks offended. “I looked for you. I did. I never would have just left your graduation.”
“Okay, well, I seem to remember a different story there, but there’s no real point in arguing over it now.”
Her eyes lower and she seems to agree with me. “You’re right.” She refills her empty glass. And takes a small sip.
“Look at us, not fighting and shit,” I tease her.
She leans her elbow onto the counter and shuts the faucet off. “ ‘And shit,’ ” she repeats with a smile.
“And shit.”
We both laugh and continue to stare at each other.
“This isn’t as awkward as I thought it would be,” Tessa says. Untying her apron, her fingers get stuck on the knot.
“Need help?”
“No.” Her answer comes too quickly and she tugs at the strings again.
“You sure about that?”
After a few more minutes of struggling, she finally scowls and turns around to give me access to her back. Within a few seconds I’ve untangled the strings and she’s counting her tip money on the counter.
“Why won’t you get another internship? You’re more than a waitress.”
“There is nothing wrong with being a server, and this isn’t the end goal for me. I don’t mind it and—”
“And because you don’t want to ask Vance for help.” Her eyes widen. I shake my head, pushing my hair back. “You act like I don’t know you, Tess.”
“It’s not only that; I just like that this job is mine. He would have to pull some serious strings to get me an internship out here—I’m not even actively enrolled in college for a few months.”
“Sophia helped you get your job,” I point out. Not to be cruel, but I just want to hear her say the truth. “What you really wanted was something that wasn’t tied to me. Am I correct?”
She takes a few breaths, looking everywhere in the room except at me. “Yes, that’s true.”
We stand there quietly, too near each other and too far away in the tiny kitchen. After a few seconds, she stands up straight and gathers her apron and water glass. “I need to go to bed. I have to work all day tomorrow and it’s late.”
“Call in,” I casually suggest, even though I want to demand it.
“I can’t just call in,” she lies.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’ve never missed a day.”
“You’ve only been there three weeks. You haven’t had time to miss a day, and really, it’s what people do on a Saturday in New York. They call in to work and spend time with better company.”
A playful smile tugs at the corners of her full lips. “And you are this said better company?”
“Of course.” I wave my hands over my torso to prove my point.
She regards me for a moment, and I can tell she’s actually considering taking the day off. But at last she says, “No, I can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t. I can’t risk the shift not being covered. It will make me look bad, and I need this job.” She frowns, all playfulness gone now, replaced by overthinking.
I almost tell her that she doesn’t actually need the job, that what she needs to do is pack her shit and come back to Seattle with me, but I bite my tongue. Dr. Tran says control is a negative factor in our relationship, and I “need to find the balance between control and guidance.”
Dr. Tran really pisses me off.
“I get it.” I shrug, mentally cursing the good doctor out for a few beats before smiling at Tessa. “I’ll let you go to bed, then.”
With that, she turns on her heel and retreats to her closet-room, leaving me alone in the kitchen, then alone on the sofa, and then alone in the dreams that come.
chapter sixty-eight
TESSA
In my dreams, Hardin’s voice rings through loud and clear, begging me to stop.
Begging me to stop? What is that . . .
My eyes open, and I sit up in bed.
“Stop,” he strains out again.
It takes me a moment to realize this isn’t one of my dreams, it’s Hardin’s actual voice.
I rush out of my room and into the living room, where Hardin is sleeping on the couch. He’s not yelling or thrashing the way he used to, but his voice is
pleading, and when he says, “Please, stop,” my heart sinks.
“Hardin, wake up. Please, wake up,” I calmly say, running my fingers over the clammy skin on his shoulder.
His eyes pop open, and his hands lift to touch my face. He’s disoriented when he sits up and pulls me onto his lap. I don’t fight it. I couldn’t possibly.
Silent seconds pass by before he rests his head against my chest.
“How often?” My heart is twisted and aching for him.
“Only about once a week or so. I take pills for them now, but on nights like tonight, it was too late to take them.”
“I’m sorry.” I force myself to forget that we haven’t seen each other in months. I don’t think about the way we have already slipped back into touching one another. I don’t care, though; I would never turn away from comforting him, no matter the circumstance.
“Don’t be. I’m fine.” He nuzzles further into my neck and wraps both arms around my waist. “I’m sorry that I woke you.”
“Don’t be.” I lean into the back of the couch.
“I’ve missed you.” He yawns, drawing my body into his chest. He lies back, bringing me with him, and I let him.
“Me, too.”
I feel his lips press against my forehead and I shiver, basking in the warmth and familiarity of his lips on my skin. It doesn’t make sense to me how it could be this easy, this natural, to find myself in Hardin’s arms again.
“I love how real this is,” he whispers. “It’s never going to go away, you know that, don’t you?”
Grasping for a sliver of logic, I say, “We have different lives now.”
“I’m still waiting for you to see it, that’s all.”
“See what?” When he doesn’t respond, I look up at him to find his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted in sleep.
I WAKE TO THE SOUND of the coffeepot beeping in the kitchen. Hardin’s face is the first thing I see when my eyes open, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
I detach my body from his, lifting his arms off my waist, and scramble to my feet. Landon walks out from the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee between his hands. An unmistakable smile is painted across his face.