Chapter Nine
When I played dumb on the elementary school playground, I didn’t fully understand what I was turning down. Mrs. Keller made it sound wonderful, a school with all the math problems I could ever dream about, a place with teachers who paid attention to me. I felt the dark undercurrent, the same way I did on that river. Every muscle in my body clenched tight, my breath coming fast.
As I got older there were other men. Other offers.
I learned to put a name on what I wanted. Freedom. The freedom to decide where I go and when. The freedom to say who can touch me. The freedom to say no.
Some days I wondered if it was pointless to fight the currents. This is what the dark streets did to a girl. This is how they pushed us along, eddies swirling around us, sharp rocks at the bottom.
And like that day in the tube I fought the pull.
I pumped my legs as hard as I could, even if I knew I’d go under.
I put on my uniform and go to the diner, because that’s the way I swim here. My only source of money. And the whole time my mind whirs, working on other options, some loophole. Worrying at the problem until the edges are raw. My brain has done things, improbable things, almost impossible things. And now it fails me?
When the bell over the door rings at midnight I barely register the sound.
The air changes in the diner. Even the drunks and the exhausted truck drivers from out of town straighten in their seats. Ruth Mae ducks back into the kitchen. I know who it is before I turn around.
Jonathan Scott.
He’s sitting in the corner booth, soft as velvet, his edges undefined. I know he’s a man, flesh and blood, bone and ill-intent, but he seems somehow unreal. As if he’s made of smoke.
I grab the pot of coffee and cross the diner. He won’t see me cower. He won’t see me beg. I give him my bland waitress smile as I pour. “What can I get you?”
He glances at the counter, where I can feel four men resolutely not looking at him. He exudes a menace that’s unmistakable, enough to make men his size stiffen in fear.
“What kind of pie?” he asks, his voice mild.
“Peach.” Ruth Mae’s one concession to decent food. She makes them herself.
“I’ll have that.” Of course he will.
I give him a tight smile before returning to the counter. Only there do I exhale. Being around him is like being underwater. He steals all the air, all the space. Until I’m drowning.
There are other customers that want refills and plates cleared. That’s my excuse for not returning right away. But really it’s because I need to be away from him the same way I need oxygen.
When I cut a slice of pie, quick, sloppy, I take a deep breath.
All I want to do is slide the plate onto his table and leave.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
Trapped. “Penny.”
“How long have you been working here, Penny?”
The way he says my name, it sounds perverse. Like something dirty.
I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to talk to him at all, but ignoring him feels like turning my back on a rabid animal—he would go in for the kill. “Two years.”
That’s not exactly true. I worked here longer in the back, scrubbing dishes so no one would know they had a kid working here. When I turned fifteen I got upgraded to waitress. Most people know I’m underage. No one cares.
He nods towards his coffee, still black in the mug. “I prefer two creams. Three sugars.”
This isn’t Starbucks. He has a mug and a little plastic tray with non-dairy creamer and sugar, like everyone else. Except we both know he isn’t like everyone else.
My muscles are pulled taut, like the strings holding up a tent. About to snap. I reach for the tray, pulling out the creams, the sugars. He looks at me like it’s something obscene, pulling open the creams, tearing the corners of the sugars. It feels obscene, watching the white enter the black.
He’s unnaturally still, yet completely relaxed. Not quite human. Definitely not sane.
I find myself filling the silence of his body, my movement jerky and too fast in the face of this statue. I grab a spoon and stir, disturbed by the way I’m obeying silent commands. I don’t mean to do that. There’s something about him that compels me. An innate power. Or maybe plain old survival.
“Is that—” My throat gets tight. It’s hard to stand in front of him, feeling naked. Exposed. “Is that everything?”
His eyes are a clear grey, giving the impression I can see deep inside them. “What time do you get off?”
Men ask me that question all the time. Every night. Every hour. It’s just a habit, I think, for some men to proposition a girl of a certain age that they come near. Others think that a few bucks in tip means I’ll meet them behind the dumpster.
Most of the time I tell them I have a boyfriend. It’s the truth and it shuts them up, usually. Maybe it’s shitty that I need to resort to that excuse, that a simple no, thank you doesn’t suffice. Living in the west side you learn how to work within the system, because God knows you can’t change it.
Only, I don’t want to tell this man about Brennan.
That feels like a challenge he would be too glad to accept.
“That’s not really—”
“Appropriate? I’m rarely appropriate.”
I was going to say that it wasn’t any of his business. Except that’s also a challenge he would be glad to accept. There’s nothing I can say, no way that I can fight him that won’t make him hit harder. “I’ll come back and check on you in a little bit.”
“I’d rather you sit down with me.”
I take a step back, moving on pure instinct. A flinch away from fire. “Please stop.”
Strangely enough, he listens. He lets me run into the kitchen, where I huddle in a corner until Ruth Mae bodily shoves me back onto the floor. The corner booth is empty.
Beside the mug of coffee and the slice of pie, there’s a hundred-dollar bill.
Because this isn’t about money. That’s what he’s saying with that tip. That he has more money than God. That he doesn’t need whatever pennies I can put together.
It was never really about money, was it?
It’s always been about ownership.
He’s the king of this godforsaken land. He can have anything he wants. Me.