Chapter Four

The next week passed by in the blink of an eye, even though it seemed that the days themselves moved slowly. In the end, I had managed to duct tape the seat on Cherry Bomb so that I could at least go out riding. It was a good stress reliever if nothing else. In the past week, I had gone on two job interviews, but was still waiting to hear anything back on Friday afternoon.

I was pacing around my dining room table, thinking, when the phone rang. I rushed across the kitchen to answer but stalled out when I saw my mom’s name and picture pop up on the screen. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to her, but then again, maybe she would have some motherly words of advice that could help calm my nerves.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered, sinking down onto one of the dining table chairs.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she chirped back and I could picture her face. “How’s life in the big city?”

It had been a little over a year since I had moved to “the big city” from the small town in Kansas that I grew up in. It was only a few hours by plane and I knew Mom and Dad would pay for the ticket, but I hadn’t managed to make it home in quite some time. I kept meaning to, but when I worked at the coffee shop, I picked up as many shifts as I could—which meant working most every weekend and sometimes really odd hours. But listening to the smile in my mom’s voice was making me feel a little guilty about not making the time. I knew she and my dad missed me and wished that I would settle down and come home again.

“It’s good,” I lied, fighting the urge to unpack all my current problems and cry to her. “How are you and Daddy?””

“Oh, we’re just fine, darling. Your dad is out playing golf with some friends from church. So I’m catching up on some things here around the house and figured I would give you a call and see if I could chat with you, now that you’re not working all the time on the weekends.”

I sighed. I didn’t want to tell her about losing the job. It would open up a whole box of questions that I didn’t have answers to, but I hated lying to my parents. It always felt like living a double life or something. Growing up, it had been hard enough. They never approved of the way I dressed, the people I associated with, or the hours I would keep. When I was younger, they had kept a tight leash on me to keep me from going off the deep end—or at least their version of the deep end. I can still remember telling my parents when I got my first tattoo. I had never seen them look more devastated before and it was a memory that would haunt me forever. I had never set out to hurt them. I was only trying to express myself and be free.

As their only girl, it should have been up to me to live up to all their dreams and expectations for me. I always felt like I had fallen short. My two brothers were a lot older than I was and had made it in this world—by my parent’s standards, anyway. ‘Drew was a firefighter and Jake was a high paid sports attorney working for the Royals or the Chiefs, I could never remember which one. It was part of the reason I’d left home in the first place. The weight of their disappointment had been too much to take on a daily basis. I wanted to be free to live on my own terms, and I knew that would never happen with them constantly looking over my shoulder.

I always figured that eventually, I would get my shit together and make them proud of me.

“So much for that plan,” I whispered.

“What was that honey?”

“Oh nothing, nothing. Listen, Mom, I have to tell you something. The job at the ad agency didn’t work out as well as I had thought. I actually was let go, last Friday.” There, I had said it, I pinched my eyes closed and waited.

“Well, that’s a shame. What happened?”

“I wasn’t the right fit,” I answered, hoping that would be vague enough that she would sense I didn’t want to talk about it further.

“Hmmm. So what’s next?”

“I had a couple interviews earlier this week, so I’m waiting for a call back. Something will work out,” I assured her, infusing a confidence to my tone that I wasn’t sure came out as genuine.

My mother didn’t seem to pick up on it. “Well, you know, honey, you always have a home here. I could talk to Greg, down at the grocery store. I just saw a hiring sign up in his window last week.”

I shuddered at the suggestion. There was no doubt Greg would give me a job if I asked, He was a full-fledged creeper. I had never personally had an issue with him, but several of my high school girlfriends had told me plenty about his habit of inappropriate touching of both them, and himself, when they worked at the store after school or in the summertime. I was surprised my mom hadn’t heard the rumors firsthand. Then again, she tended to live in her own little world, blocking out most of the world around her, especially the darker sides.

A shiver crept up my spine, the edge of a memory of my own encounters in the small town.

“Thanks, Mom, but I’m okay. I think one of these jobs will work out. Don’t worry about me,” I said, forcing the memories from my mind.

I could tell she wanted to push me harder, to plead her case further, but thankfully, she dropped it and changed the subject to a safer topic and we chatted away for about half an hour before saying our goodbyes.

Once we hung up, I sat down on my couch and flicked on the TV, desperately needing the noise to drown out my brewing anxiety attack. It was Friday night but nothing worth watching was on. I realized that I probably needed to call the cable company and have them shut it off anyways. One less bill to worry about. I looked at the clock and debated going down to Steelrods. At least I knew I could drink for free, since Tank was always working the bar on Friday nights. But after last Friday’s fiasco I was a little hesitant to go out and do that whole thing again. I wondered if Hannah and Jett were going to be there, if that still even a thing. Judging by how quickly he had moved on from dry humping my ass to making out with Hannah in a bathroom, it didn’t exactly scream long term commitment.

Personally, I had never been a fan of the one-night deal. Sure, there were boys in high school that I messed around with, but Marx had actually been my first real boyfriend and first a lot of other things.

I closed my eyes, doing my best to keep those thoughts far, far in the back of my mind where they belonged.

My current policy was that if a guy wasn’t willing to woo me in some way, I wasn’t going to get it on with him, no matter how hard up I might be feeling. So far, I had been doing just fine. Granted, I hadn’t really even given anyone the time of day since the whole Marx implosion.

Well, except for Cooper.

“Ugh!” I flopped over, face down into the plushy couch cushions.

I lay there for a few minutes, slowly suffocating in cat fur, before I decided that I was truly in danger of becoming Mrs. Havisham if I didn’t get up and out of this apartment immediately.

I called Hannah, and sure enough, she was out with Jett. I listened to her gush about him for a few minutes before wrapping up the call, mentally swishing around some brain bleach to rid myself of her play-by-play report of how good he was in bed.

“Sam, just be glad you’re a cat and you don’t have friends who don’t know the meaning of TMI. Ugh,” I said to Sam. He meowed in agreement and I refilled his food dish. “What do you think? Should we go back to Kansas? My mom would probably try to fatten you up with chicken scraps. You’d like it.”

He meowed again and rubbed against my leg before digging into his dish and munching the kibble.

I thought about Kansas for a few minutes longer, wondering what had changed in the last few years. Wondering if certain people still lived there. Lord knew there were people in that town I never wanted to see again. One in particular. I shuddered at the thought.

“No, Sam, we are never going back to Kansas.”

I patted his head and then started to dial the next person on my mental list. Now that the Pandora’s Box of bad memories had been opened, it became even more essential for me to get out.

“Hello?” Bryce answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Bryce!”

“Who is this?”

“Uh—it’s Allie,” I answered, my brow wrinkled. I was confused by his confusion.

“Oh! Hey! Sorry about that, I had to get a new phone and for whatever reason, all my contacts were lost.”

“Oh, what happened?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel bad, but I got demoted at Spotlight and Rita now owns my ass. As you can imagine, my life has been a waking nightmare, and a couple days ago I threw my phone out the window…of my car…when I was on the freeway.”

I winced. “Yikes. I’m so sorry, Bryce!”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll figure something out. So what about you? Any leads?”

“Not yet. I had a couple interviews this week, but still waiting for a call back. It’s all beginning to feel a little hopeless.”

“Now, don’t be like that. Something will work out.”

“Thanks,” I replied, remaining unconvinced.

“Allie, listen to me. Do you know why I hired you?”

It wasn’t something we had formally discussed, but I had always figured it was because he knew I was looking for a new job, someplace I could make more money, and he had an opening.

“I bet you’re wishing you hadn’t now,” I tried to joke.

“Allie,” he scolded. “One day, I was in there drinking my coffee and your boss was sitting at the table next to me, working on his laptop. I don’t know exactly what happened, but he was cussing and pitching a fit. You raced over and within two seconds you had his back up and running. And he told you to mind your own business and get back to the counter. I knew you were never going to be able to grow in a place like that, and you obviously had the skills, you just needed someone who would give you a shot. So, I decided to be that someone.”

I was actually a little choked up listening to him tell me the story. It wasn’t a day I could distinctly remember, but the fact that he not only noticed me, but saw that potential and took a gamble on me, was overwhelming. All my life, people had been trying to get me to stay in the box, color inside the lines. Bryce was probably the first person to see my potential and actually want to let me loose, to learn and grow as a person.

And how did I repay him? I got him demoted…

I suck.

“What are you doing home anyways? It’s Friday night! What happened to being a wildcat on the weekends?”

I laughed. “Well, my bank account is telling me to slow down and have a peanut butter and jelly kind of night in, instead.”

Bryce clucked his tongue. “Well, that’s just unacceptable. Come on out, Clay and I are going out and you just officially became our guest of honor for the evening!”

“Are you sure?” I asked, another sting of guilt at the idea of him buying me dinner.

“Yes, come on! Clay is always nagging me to introduce my friends to him anyways. Trust me, you’ll be doing me a favor.”

I finally caved, and he rattled off his address and I agreed to meet him in half an hour. I went about getting ready, and just as I was about to walk out the door, I had a moment of clarity and knew exactly what I needed to do.