After I spend most of the afternoon reading, I go to work and it isn’t that crowded because it’s raining and for some reason rain keeps the crowd away. Everything is simple. Until everyone suddenly decides they’re going to take their chances out in the rain. Then things get a little chaotic and I’m running around seating everyone and waiting on them the best that I can. The doorbell keeps dinging as more people file in, tracking water and mud in with them. There’s this one guy who comes in by himself, which sometimes happens—random people wander in and eat alone. He’s wearing a red T-shirt, tan pants, and has a creeper mustache, but, hey, to each their own.
“You want to sit at the bar?” I ask, hopeful, otherwise he’s going to take up an entire table.
He shakes his head, closing his umbrella and brushing the water off his arm. “I’ll take a booth.”
I mentally roll my eyes at him, seat him in a corner booth, then leave him to read over the menu while I go behind the counter to get him some water. Then I hurry and tend to the register, before I head over to his table, hoping he’s ready to order and not ready to waste my time.
“You’re Violet Hayes, right?” he says as I press the tip of the pen to the order book and suddenly I recognize his voice. I glance up from the order book as he says, “The Violet Hayes whose parents were murdered in Cheyenne thirteen years ago?”
A suffocating wave rushes through me and I clutch at the pen in my hand. “Are you the asshole who’s been calling me?”
He notices my trembling hands. “I am.” This stupid grin stretches across his face as he reaches for the water.
Fury thunders through me, along with the stifling heat of panic. My hand takes on a life of its own and I throw my pen at him.
It hits him in the face and he flinches, dropping his water on the table and spilling ice everywhere. “What the hell?” He gapes up at me like I was the crazy one, and then raises his hands in front of him. “Okay, calm down. My name’s Stan Walice. I’m a reporter for Chanel 8 News at 8 and I’d liked to ask you a few questions about what you saw that night. I’m doing a piece about it.”
“You can go to hell. Calling me up like some kind of psycho. Seriously. You think I’m going to talk to you?” I toss the order book at him and it lands in the water and ice and the pages are instantly soaked. I spin on my heels and weave around the tables, with people sitting around them, some staring at me. In ten seconds I’ve managed to go from stressed waitress, to about-to-lose-her-shit Violet. I can feel the anger in the center of my chest, a widening hole, being torn open more.
Stan follows me as I storm to the counter. “So you saw them that night?” he asks. “The ones who broke into your house?”
I don’t answer, begging myself to remain calm. That I have to. That there is a restaurant full of people, enjoying their dinners and family time and I’ll be in some serious trouble if I make a scene.
“Did you find them?” he asks. “Your parents? I thought I read somewhere that you did? And that you stayed in the house for twenty-four hours before you called the cops. Why did you do that?”
I slam to a halt at the counter in front of the register where Sherry, a middle-aged waitress with a gray bob is tallying up bills. I turn around. “Go fuck yourself, Stan.”
At the exact moment I say it, my boss and owner of the restaurant, Benny, walks out. “Violet,” Benny hisses, glancing around at the tables and booths. His face reddens as his voice lowers. “Go in the back right now.”
Things kind of escalate from there. Reporter guy takes off out the front door, bailing on what he started. I trudge into the back kitchen area and Benny enters seconds later. He’s also the cook and wears this stained white apron that ties around his round belly. I can’t stop staring at the stains as he stands in front of the oven and chews me out. The stains are red, probably ketchup, but they look like blood. Blood. Death. Blood. I start to visualize things, not just about my parents, but about me. My death. How it’s going to happen. Horrible. Tragic. I picture myself on the floor, dying with my parents. For a second, I feel okay.
“Violet, I think I’m going to have to fire you,” Benny says and all I do is stare at his bald head, shiny in the fluorescent light.
I probably would have just let him fire me but then Greyson walks in. He’s wearing his bartending outfit, a white shirt and black pants, and has a glass in his hand. “Hey, Benny, cut her some slack. She’s having a bad day.”
“I don’t give a damn if she’s having a bad day,” he replies, lifting a lid off a stainless-steel pot. “She dropped the f-bomb in my restaurant. There’s kids out there for crying out loud.”
“Yeah, but the guy grabbed her ass,” Greyson lies, glancing at me quickly. “You have to cut her some slack. That’s sexual harassment.”
Benny peers up from the pot as he reaches over to grab a large spoon from the stainless-steel shelf. “Is that true Violet?”
I shrug, knowing I should put more effort into this, but there is too much heaviness in my chest to care. All I seem to care about is the damn red stains on his apron. “I guess so.”
“You guess so or no?” he questions, stirring the boiling water.
Greyson presses me with a look like What are doing? I just gave you an easy out.
I sigh exhaustedly, forcing myself to put effort into it, because I need my job. “Yeah, he grabbed my ass… Sorry I dropped the f-bomb.”
Benny puffs a frustrated breath and points the dripping spoon at me. “Next time come tell me before you go throwing inappropriate words around. Understand?”
“Okay.”
He frowns, his forehead wrinkling, but he lets me go, telling me to take the next few days off, and get my shit together. I summon deep breaths as I nod and then grab my change of clothes from my shelf and head out back to get some fresh air. I’m going to have to lose a week’s pay. I’m fuming, not at myself, but at reporter guy. I storm out the door and into the back parking lot where employees park. The sky is still gray with storm clouds, but the rain has reduced to a drizzle, and the buildings around the restaurant light up the block.
I clamp my jaw as I stride toward the middle of the muddy parking lot, my clothes clutched in my hands. Suddenly I ball my hands into fist and scream through gritted teeth: “Fuck him! Fuck!” I thought I’d gotten rid of reporters a long time ago. This one has to be here because the police are reopening the case.
Suddenly, I hear the crunch of gravel as someone approaches me. “Are you okay?” Greyson asks with concern.
I remain motionless. “I’m fine. It’s just a week off work. I should be grateful he didn’t fire me.” I want to say thank you because he helped me, but I’m not even sure how or where to start.
“Not about that.” He pauses behind me and I can hear him breathing. “I mean about what that guy said to you.”
I stab my nails deeper into my palms. I should hit him. I should have hit the reporter. I need to hit something. I need to get this shaking, razor-sharp, painful feeling out of me. “I’m. Fine.”
Greyson moves beside me and my muscles tighten. He’s walking into a mess he shouldn’t be walking into because I’m seriously thinking about hitting him, just so I can do something to get this slashing feel inside me to stop.
He hands me a glass filled with a red tinted liquid. “It’ll calm you down.”
I eyeball the glass warily, feeling the anger simmer. “What is it?”
“Vodka and cranberry.”
“I don’t drink.”
“I didn’t put that much vodka in it.” He continues to hold the glass out with a sympathetic smile on his face.
I snatch the glass from him and spill some on my shoe. I take a few gulps, feeling the burn of alcohol mix with the uneasy burn inside me. I’m adding fuel to the fire. I know this. And I should just dump it out on the ground and walk away.
Instead, I chug the rest of the drink down and then give the empty glass back to Greyson. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He takes the glas
s and rotates it between his hands. “I get off work in like thirty minutes… you could wait around… come hang out in the bar and we could catch a bus back to the apartment together.”
“Isn’t Seth coming to pick you up?”
“Nah, Luke and he have a party going on at the apartment and I’m sure they’re both too wasted to drive.”
I turn my head and look at him, wondering just how much he heard. Did he hear that my parents were murdered? That I found them. Is there another person in my life now that knows about my messed up past? “How much did you hear?”
“Some, but I promise my lips are sealed,” he says without missing a beat
Is he for real? I stand there quietly, trying to figure it out, but I can barely understand myself let alone someone else. “Okay, I’ll stick around I guess.”
His smile expands. “Okay, get changed and come sit at the bar. I’ll get you another drink.”
I probably should have argued with him, told him that I’m not a nice person when I’m drunk, that my reckless energy magnifies. But instead I nod and follow him back into the restaurant, knowing exactly what I am walking into and not caring.
Chapter 14
Luke
I’m a lucky son of a bitch. I really am, but only because I own my own luck, create it, cheat it. I’ve been gambling for almost a week and a half straight and I’m up to twelve hundred bucks. I probably should stop, but it’s hard once I get riding a winning streak. When I sit down at the table, I control almost everything and I realize how much I’ve missed it.
Violet hasn’t been talking to me much, spending half her time at work and the rest in her room. I try to let her be because it’s clear that’s what she wants but I’m starting to wonder if what she wants and what she needs are entirely different things I can understand to a certain extent wanting to be by myself, but she’s completely secluded herself from everyone, always alone. I’ve tried a few times to make conversation with her, just to have her back in my life and hear the sound of her voice, but she only gives me one-word responses.
I’m still sleeping on the couch, but it’s getting uncomfortable and I haven’t even unpacked my boxes yet, simply because she always has the door locked. I want to barge in there and claim my territory, but then I picture the look on her face when she opened the door after I found out about her parents and I stop myself, shut down my aggravation, reminding myself that it’s not about me and what I want.
For the last week, I’ve been on the phone with my mother every other day. I was ignoring her calls, but after the thirty-something messages cramming my voicemail, I finally started picking up. She’s in one of her moods, where she thinks someone’s after her—a neighbor, the mailman, the police. She did this a lot when I first went to college, calling me to tell me I needed to come home to protect her. She’d toned it down over the past few months, but I think when I told her I wasn’t going home for the summer, she decided to start up again. I’ve been doing my best not to ram my fist into something, reminding myself that I have a place of my own and I can do whatever I want. But every time I hear her voice it reminds me of the past, then the nightmares start up, and more anger floods me.
Friday night, Seth and I decide to throw a party to celebrate our new home and I’m glad because I really need a break from the stress of my life. Violet and Greyson are still at work, we got a living room full of people, music playing, an endless amount of drinks and week-or-so-old pot brownies Greyson made that Seth and him occasionally munch on. I asked him where he got the weed and he said from a friend, but I think Violet gave it to him, which makes me worry she might be going back to that douche. But I’m not going to ask her about it. If she’s that stupid, then she’s that stupid. Not. My. Problem. At least that’s what I keep trying to tell myself, but as always I can’t help think of my past and what drugs and dealing did to my mother—what it turned her into.
I put beer, chips, and some weird fruit platter Seth picked up out in the living room, but keep the hard stuff in the fridge for my own personal use. Then I get a game of Texas Hold ’Em going at the table, milking my lucky streak for all it’s worth. I’ve got a little too many shots of vodka in my system and the kings are starting to look like queens, but I won’t stop playing or drinking, because I’m too fucking relaxed.
There are five other guys at the table, including Seth, who’s not very good at cards, but has fun playing. One of the guys, Jonah something or other, has a blond with really bright red lips sitting on his lap, wearing this tight leather skirt and white top with no bra. She keeps giving me these looks and I’m debating whether I want to hit on her. Jonah said they weren’t dating, just friends, but it’ll still be kind of be weird if Violet walks in and I’m still not sure if I could fully go through with it and get what I’m seeking—a much-needed fuck, one where I’m in control over the situation. Then again, I shouldn’t even be thinking about Violet. We’re not together. We kissed once. So fucking what. It’s time to move on. Get over a girl that has no interest in me… a girl that’s been controlling every one of my thoughts for weeks, at least this is what I tell myself.
As I win the next hand, my intoxication blurs my thought process, and I start working my magic, flirting with the girl across from me, who tells me her name is Kenzie. After a few smiles and compliments, I get her to leave Jonah’s lap and come over to mine.
“You have gorgeous eyes,” she whispers in my ear, thankfully not giggling as she runs her fingers through my hair.
“You better not hurt her,” Jonah says with a laugh as he takes a sip of his beer and studies his cards.
Hurt her, no. Fuck her, yes. I wind my arm around her back and she wiggles her ass a little, settling into my lap, and it feels nice, but not as good as it usually does.
“Ante up, asshole,” Jonah says to me, tossing a handful of blue chips to the center of the table.
Shooting him a warning look, I reach for my chips, but pause when his eyes dart to the door. “Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite fucking person in the world. What are you doing here, beautiful?”
“And if it isn’t the biggest dipshit in the world. I live here, you moron.” The sound of Violet’s voice over the music makes me tense. I thought she wasn’t going to be home from work for at least another hour.
I wait for what seems like five hours, when really it’s probably only more like five seconds, then Violet comes walking past the table and turns into the kitchen area next to it. She’s wearing a long skirt that sits low on her hips and this black and white top that only covers to the bottom of her ribs. I can see her flat stomach, smooth skin, and a tattoo curling up and over her rib cage and all the way down below her hip in black ink. Curvy patterns form flowers and take up half her side. It’s the sexiest God damn thing I’ve ever seen… I want to rip her clothes off so I can see where the lines stop and begin.
She ambles for the fridge, hardly paying attention to the party going on and then Greyson appears at the table, looking red-eyed and smelling of cigarette smoke.
He flops down in a chair beside Seth, grabs a handful of potato chips and says, “What’d I miss?”
Seth squints his eyes as he leans in toward Greyson. “Are you…” He sniffs the air in front of Greyson’s mouth. “Are you drunk?”
Greyson shrugs, shoving the chips into his mouth. “Does it really matter?”
Seth leans back in his seat with his arm draped on the back. “You hardly ever drink.”
Greyson ignores him and starts munching on chips while my focus drifts back to Violet in the kitchen. She’s hunting in the fridge for something, her head ducked down. She flips some of her hair off her shoulder, and quickly glances in my direction, her eyes flickering from the girl on my lap to me. I expected the detached look she’s always so good at giving and I think she’s aiming for it, but for the slightest second there’s hurt in her eyes.
“So Jonah the Dipshit,” she says, yanking her gaze off me. “What have you been up to for the last few months?”
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Jonah the Dipshit tips back in his chair, checking out her ass. “Not a whole hell of a lot. You still up to your usual?”
Unable to help myself, I pick a chip up and throw it at him. My drunken aim is off and it hits the wall, dinging it, and Jonah doesn’t even notice. Seth does, though, and so does Kenzie, both giving me a puzzled look.
Violet leans back from the fridge and closes the door with her hip, clutching a half-full bottle of tequila in her hand. I immediately sense something’s wrong. She says she doesn’t drink and I’ve never seen her drink before. I wonder if something happened, at work, or maybe with her parents’ case, but how am I supposed to find out what’s wrong when she won’t fucking talk to me.
“Not lately.” She unscrews the cap, her eyes steady on Jonah who looks like he thinks he’s about to get lucky. She sucks in a deep breath, then puts the mouth of the bottle up to her lips, and angles her head back, guzzling a swallow down. Her back arches and her chest angles out as she drinks. I’m pretty sure every dude at the table, besides Seth and Greyson, watches her with their jaw hanging open.
“Vixen,” Seth mutters from the chair beside me with a smirk on his face as he examines his cards.
Violet detaches the bottle from her mouth and her eyes water up as she gags. She quickly twists the cap back on and then licks the remaining tequila off her lips. “God, that burnt the shit out of my throat.”
“Ta-kill-ya will do that to you,” Jonah jokes like he’s the world’s freaking funniest comedian.
Violet tolerantly smiles at him. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Jonah grins as he sets his cards down on the table. “So I know you said you weren’t up to the usual, but could you please, pretty please make an exception for your favorite guy in the whole world. I need it badly, baby.”
Violet holds the bottle in her hand, her green eyes darting to mine before she says to Jonah, “Follow me.”