Eve
I cruise into work just on time, a spring in my step and belly full of food after grocery shopping. That overage from last night not only set me up with a stocked kitchen, but I was also able to make a small payment on my past-due electric bill.
Happier than I’ve been in a long time, I called Raven on my way to work, and she agreed to meet me for coffee at the end of my shift. I can’t wait to tell her about Cameron and me. Hell, I still can’t believe we’re officially um . . . dating? Or . . . doesn’t matter what it’s called. Fact is we’re letting people know that we’re together, which is more than I could’ve hoped for.
Throwing smiles to anyone who’ll look my way, I head to the back office to lock up my purse. Life is good. So, so good. And it’s been so long since I’ve had good I’m going to rub everyone’s face it in for as long as it lasts.
I push through the office door and freeze. “Oh, Seth, you’re here.” Fuck. I was hoping the GM’s lackey would work the night shift. Oh well, not even he can bring me down. Not today.
“Ms. Dawson.” He knows my first name, I’ve asked him to use it repeatedly, but he continues to speak to me like the creepy bad guy from “The Matrix.” I roll my eyes and move to the filing cabinet to stash my purse.
“Before you do that, have a seat.” He motions to the chair on the other side of his—or rather my—desk.
I huff out a long breath that I make sure is loud enough for him to hear. He’s going to lecture me and waste my time about something like making sure the silverware is double polished instead of single.
“What’s up?” I take a seat, my purse in my lap, and wait.
He stands up, moves around the desk, and sits on it at an angle with one foot still on the ground. “Is there something you’d like to share with me, Ms. Dawson?”
I clutch my purse tighter. “Um . . . no?”
He nods, crosses hairy forearms over his wimpy chest, and tilts his head. “You sure?”
My mouth goes dry, and I force a casual shrug. “Pretty sure, yeah.”
He narrows his eyes. “Anything eventful go on here last night after I left?”
“Not really. Eduardo stayed late because you let all the kitchen guys take off early, so he was stuck with dish duty.”
“So you don’t have anything you’d like to share? About last night?”
He can’t possibly know, can he? “Can we cut the twenty questions, and you just get to the point?”
“The deposit from last night.”
I suck in a breath. Holy fuck. How does he know about that? He left at least an hour before I did. Unless . . . “What about it?”
A quick smile of pity appears before he wipes it away. “Honesty will avoid formal charges, Ms. Dawson. Think about that, and let me ask you again. Do you have anything you’d like to tell me about the deposit last night?”
My mind races and my face heats. He set me up. That’s the only way he’d know about the overage and the only reason I wasn’t able to figure out where the extra money came from. Asshole.
“I was short on money this month. We got slammed last night, so I never got a break to eat dinner.” I shrug.
He nods for me to continue.
I swallow hard and bite the inside of my mouth. Last night, I was so hungry and so desperate it didn’t feel as wrong as speaking the words feels now. “I took the money.”
“Hm.” He studies his khaki pant leg. “So you admit to stealing?”
“Yeah, although I wouldn’t call it stealing. I’ve been working here since I was sixteen. There’ve been nights where we get slammed, and I have to work through my break. If it’s that big of a deal, you can take it out of my next paycheck.”
“Ms. Dawson, there’s nothing that justifies stealing. That money didn’t belong to you. No matter how you twist it in your head, stealing is stealing.”
“Okay, fine. I apologize. When I get my next check, I’ll reimburse you. Now, can I get to work so I can earn a paycheck that’ll keep me fed so I’ll no longer have to steal?”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.”
Everything goes still: my breath, heart, every muscle in my body. Even my eyes refuse to blink.
“You can go ahead and collect your things, and we’ll have your final paycheck, minus the amount you took, ready for you in two days.”
Is this a joke?
I blink as blood returns to my brain. “Hold on. You’re firing me?”
“Yes. You’re being let go, but because of your honesty, we won’t press charges.”
“But I’ve given my life to this restaurant. I’ve worked here since I was a kid.”
“Don’t think of it as a bad thing; think of it as a chance for new opportunities.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” My voice booms and echoes off the walls. “I have no work experience outside of Nori. I’ll never get hired after being fired for something like this.”
“I’m sorry. If you needed money for food, you should’ve come to me. I could’ve requested an advance on your paycheck. Stealing is never the answer.”
“So write me up, slap me on the hand, but don’t fire me.”
“This is something we can’t overlook.”
“I can’t fucking believe you’re doing this to me.” I can’t afford to lose this job. My house, car, utilities, if I don’t get them paid soon, I’ll lose everything.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not!” Dammit, I need to calm down. I drop my gaze to my lap and take a deep breath. “Mr. Gamboni, please, I need this job. I’ll do whatever you ask. Just give me another chance. Please.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, orders are from Cavat. I’m just doing my job, Eve.”
Oh, now he knows my damn name. Fuck this.
I grab my purse and stomp around the desk. Inside the top drawer are a few of my personal items—nail file, lip gloss, bottle of aspirin—that I shove in my purse. I snag the pen he has tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt. “This is mine too.” After dropping it in my purse, I storm out of there and slam the door behind me.
“Sayonara, assholes.” I head out to my car and point it toward the Slade’s house.
My coffee date with Raven at four-thirty just got upgraded to a tequila date at ten a.m.
##
“Fuckin’ dicks!” I throw back another shot of tequila and cringe against the flame that slides down my throat.
“I’m so sorry, Eve.” Raven’s sitting next to me on the top step of her pool. She’s wrapped in a cool fifties-style black halter maternity swimsuit, her hair piled on top of her head and black oversized sunglasses shading her eyes.
I called her after leaving Nori, and she got out of work to hang out with me. I guess Guy has been trying to get her to back off on her workload anyway since she’s getting closer to her due date. The second I stormed in her house, she tossed me a bikini and handed me a bottle of tequila. Best friends don’t get best-er than that.
I put the shot glass down by the bottle on the pool deck. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I can’t put Nori down as a reference. What if they ask why I was let go?”
Raven’s eyebrows drop below her frames. “Why didn’t you come to me? I had no clue you were hurting for money.”
“I can’t ask you for money, Rave. It feels so wrong. I mean we came from nothing, ya know? I know you have like zillions now, but I need to find my own.” I flick the water a few times. “Although, looking back, I guess coming to you would’ve been a better option. Hindsight’s a dirty whore.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for that. I can’t believe I did something so stupid. What was I thinking?
“Maybe you should try to fight it. I’ve heard of companies getting sued for not making sure employees get breaks.” Raven munches on a plate of grapes.
“Even if I had the money to hire a lawyer, which I don’t, they’ll never give me my job back.” I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe that little troll Seth was right. I could use something new.”
“Too bad you don’t know crap about cars. I know Guy would love a mechanic to take over for me. Then I can just lock myself up at home and become the perfect little princess, safe in the tower while I await the birth of my baby.” She chucks a grape to the far end of the pool.
“Oh boy . . .”
She turns her shades toward me, and even behind the dark lenses, I can feel her scowl. “More like oh men. I tried to get him to let me take the Nova to work the other day so I could change the oil on it, and you would’ve thought I was asking him if I could shove razor blades up my nose.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. If he’d give just a little, you wouldn’t be pulling so hard in the opposite direction.”
She grunts and inhales another cheekful of grapes.
“Um . . . speaking of men. There’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about, you know, before I got fired.”
“Oh, yeah.” She finishes chewing and swallows. “That’s right. What is it?”
I push off the step and wade into the shallow end of the pool. “Turns out you were right, and I, uh . . . I don’t think I’m gay.”
She tilts her head, and this time shoves her sunglasses up to her head to shoot daggers in my direction. “No kidding.”
“Ha-ha.” I take a deep breath. “I’ve been kinda seeing someone.”
Her eyes go wide, and a big grin pulls at her mouth. “That’s awesome. Where did you meet him?”
“That’s the funny part. You introduced us.”
She blinks, and her eyebrows pinch together. “Huh Oh!” She snaps and grins. “Mason. I mean, technically I think Jonah or Blake introduced you, but it is Mason, right? You were at the party with him the other—”
“No, it’s not Mason.”
“Oh.” Her expression turns sour. “Who is it?”
“It’s, uh . . . Cameron.”
Her entire expression goes slack.
“Unexpected, I know. We just . . . We slept together, and I thought that’s all it would end up being, like a seriously amazing one-night stand, but . . .”
“Eve—”
“He showed up, and we slept together again, and holy shit, it was like . . .” I make an explosion sound and slap my palms on the water. “He kinda blew me off after that, but then when I went to his party, we hooked up again, started talking, and here we are.”
“Eve, but he’s kind of—”
“Don’t freak out, okay? I really like him, and at first I thought he was just using me, but he’s taken me out a couple times, and I don’t want to hide this from you or anyone anymore.”
“Old.”
“What?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Cameron Kyle is about as handsome as they come, but isn’t he forty or something?”
“No, he’s not forty!” I flick water at her. “He’s thirty-eight.”
“Big difference.”
“Jonah’s older than you.”
“Yeah, but not by”—she counts on her fingers—“seventeen years.”
“Age doesn’t mean anything, Rave. And you know I’ve always had a thing for older guys.”
“True.”
“Please, just be happy for me. It’s been a horrible day, and I could use a little good right now.” I tilt my head to the tequila bottle. “I mean good outside of Señor Patron.”
“Of course I’m happy for you.” She waddles across the shallow end and hugs me as much as she can with her pregnant belly between us. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.” There’s pain in her voice.
My chest cramps. I hate that she feels responsible for what went down between Vince and me. “Rave, I’m fine. I’ll never get hurt like that again. I’m walking with my eyes open from here on out, okay?”
She pulls back and smiles. “Okay. So let’s celebrate. You get a shot. I’ll go grab a carton of ice cream.” She claps her hands and exits the pool to the outdoor kitchen freezer.
God, I love her. A wave of sadness hits me. We’ve been everything to each other for so long, but once that baby comes, things will never be the same between us. She’s the only family I’ve ever had. Jonah’s taken a piece of her, and whatever’s left needs to go to her baby. I breathe deeply through the cramping in my chest. This is life; people change and they move on. Everyone does it, and soon it’ll be Raven’s turn to walk away.
It’ll be okay.
I’ll be okay.
I have to be.
~*~
Cameron
“’Li, you have to turn on the TV here and the cable box here. If you want to watch a DVD, you have to hit input until it says HDMI.” I’m pointing to all the different buttons on the new remote I got. I thought it would be easier for her since each button clearly says “TV On” and “TV Off,” but I was wrong. She’s still not getting it.
I don’t remember her being so dense when we were younger. Then again I was more about her image than I was about her as a woman. Being married to a model gave me some exceptional bragging rights, but I never really searched to know her well beyond her gorgeous looks and public personality. If I had, I doubt we ever would’ve gotten married.
“Oh, so here.” She presses “TV On.” The television flickers to life.
“Yeah.”
After a few more lessons with the remote, I’m ready to get home and call Eve. I never got the chance to tell her about my conversation with Slade this morning. I’d hoped to call her on my way to ’Li’s, but ended up on the phone with Ryder.
“Any plans for the big day?” She picks at the ends of her hair.
Ryder’s eighteenth birthday is coming up, and the poor kid always has to share it with Rosie, even though she’s not around to celebrate with us. Except for the couple times D’lilah was in rehab, she’s a mess when the twins’ birthday rolls around. It starts about a week before and escalates until the day of, something I’m really not fucking looking forward to for my kid.
“Ry wants to hang with his buddies this year. I’ll take him out to dinner the weekend after.”
“Oh, that would be great. Can, uh . . .? Can I go with you guys?”
Since we’ll be celebrating the week after, she should be in decent condition to be out in public. I’d hoped to bring Eve along, depending on how things go between us until then. She gets along well with Ryder, and now that I think about it, she hit it off well with ’Li too. Eve’s like a catalyst for all things happy. She can talk music with Ry and fashion with D’lilah.
“Yeah, I’ll talk to Ryder and see where he wants to go. We’ll work out the details.”
“Thanks, Cam.” She turns and flips through channels.
“You good?” I push up from the couch and fish my keys from my pocket.
“You’re leaving?” It’s obvious from the look on her face that she doesn’t want me to go. The woman has lost every friend she’s ever had because of her drinking, and it’s got to be lonely living in this big house alone, haunted by memories.
“Need to get home; have shit to do.” Just the thought of spending a lot of time in this house with her gives me the sweats.
As if on cue, my eyes slide to the backdoor that leads to the pool. The sound of Rosie’s laughter rings through my head, and I pinch the bridge of my nose to push it back. Stay on your feet.
“I’ll be in touch.”
She smiles and sinks into the couch with her glass of wine and the remote. Her idea of quitting ended up being a switch from hard liquor to wine.
I quick walk my ass to the car, feeling like I’m being chased by ghosts from the past. Once in the car, I hit Eve’s contact info on my phone while backing out of the driveway. It goes straight to voicemail. Huh.
No text messages, but I have one missed call from Slade. I hit his contact info and wait for the ring.
“Cam,” Jonah answers sounding pissed, but that’s not unusual.
“You call?”
“Just dropped your woman off at your place. Your boy let her in.”
“Eve?” Fuck, stupid question.
“I certainly motherfuckin’ hope so, man.”
“You feel like tellin’ me why?”
“Girl’s drunk as shit.”
What? My dash says it’s only eight o’clock at night. She was working until late afternoon. “What the hell did she get up to?”
“Sat by the pool with my girl all day, hit the tequila girls-gone-wild-style. Fed her, hydrated her, but she’s still drunk as shit.”
This doesn’t sound like Eve. The night we met she was pulling from that Long Island and cringing as if she were drinking battery acid.
“Not all day.” I lay a little heavier on the gas. “She worked until this afternoon.”
“That’s not the story I’m hearin’. She showed up early.”
“Any clue why she’s feelin’ the need to get hammered hanging out with a pregnant woman all day?”
No answer.
Fuck me.
“Slade, what the fuck?”
“Think you need to talk to your woman.”
Shit. “Right.”
“Later.”
I hit End and point the Maserati toward home. Even if her day was filled with girl talk and booze, why would she want to be brought to my house?
This can’t good.