Chapter 2
Zoey
“I’m heading to work, sweetheart,” my father said.
“Didn’t you just get home a couple of hours ago?” I asked.
“Not for the diner. For the school. The on-call janitor called in sick, so I have to go fill in.”
“The on-call janitor is sick. Then what good is putting him on-call?” I asked.
“I know I promised you dinner. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”
My father kissed me on top of my head as I sat on the couch.
“You don’t have anything to makeup, Dad. I promise,” I said.
“Yes, I do. And I will. Your mother won’t be home until late. She picked up a double shift at the restaurant. Which is good for us since your birthday’s coming up.”
“You’re not spending your extra money on me, Dad. You hear me!?”
“You’re our only daughter, and we’ll spoil you however we wish,” he said.
“Put it in an account. Get yourself some new clothes. Take Mom out to dinner. Do something other than spend it on me. Okay? I got myself taken care of.”
“We’ll talk about this later. Love you, princess.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
I sighed as my father slammed the door behind him. For as long as I could remember, my parents had worked multiple jobs just to make ends meet. They were good people. Hard working and dedicated. No job was below them when it came to providing for my brother and I. But the more I grew up, the more I saw how much they struggled. My father was graying at his temples, and my mother’s hair was completely white. Even though they were reaching retirement age, nothing of the sort was in sight. It made me ache for them, watching their weakening bodies running around like they were still thirty.
It was why I had been so intent on paying for my own schooling.
Growing up, we were the kids no one wanted to associate with. My brother, Colt, always kept his guard up in case people started to tease me. We lived out of thrift shops and hand-me-down clothes from others in the neighborhood, and it got us teased a lot. There was no room in our budget for nice toilet paper, much less fashionable clothes. I didn’t indulge in makeup because we couldn’t afford it. Colt never got the chance to try on his first suit because it was too expensive. Even with the money my parents made, we always had some sort of government assistance to help us with food and bills and internet.
Which made us the target for a lot of ridicule.
“Stop living off the government.”
“Make something of yourself.”
“If you’d stop purchasing new phones, maybe you could afford shoes that fit.”
Those were just some of the insults hurled our way all throughout school. We were constantly judged and berated for the few things we did have. Mom and Dad tried their hardest to save up and give us a decent Christmas. Sometimes we could afford a few things, like a new stuffed animal for me or a button-down shirt for Colt. Sometimes Mom could splurge and get Dad some of that good chocolate he adored, and if Dad took a few extra jobs, he could get Mom that perfume she was always sniffing in Macy’s.
But the one year my father fell into some extra cash, he decided to branch out and get us new phones.
Granted, they weren’t new. Someone was selling a family of phones online that we could hook up to our provider. But they were in wonderful condition and worked fabulously. The seller cut my father an awesome deal. Three hundred bucks and lawn care for a month for the four phones.
It was the first Christmas I could remember feeling like we really belonged.
Until we went to school and tried to interact with the kids.
The teasing took a toll on my brother. While I kept my nose in my books and earned a full ride to the University of California in San Diego, Colt started running with this biker gang. The Fallen Reapers. I heard people in Los Angeles talk about them from time to time, but they always talked in hushed tones and fed their souls with rumors. Colt kept me very separate from the life he had cultivated for himself, but I wiggled in when I could. I had been around that lifestyle for years. Ever since middle school, when Colt started running with them in the first place.
He wasn’t aware that I knew it started way back then. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
I knew The Fallen Reapers had the mechanic shop, but I also knew they did things that required those hushed tones I heard whenever I came home. I didn’t know what they had gotten themselves into, but I figured it was bad. Colt tried to keep my nose clean of it all, even as I fraternized with the guys. But throughout the years, I was able to piece together a few things.
Like what ‘guns for hire’ meant.
When I went off to college, I missed the guys. Sometimes I would stop by the shop just to hang out and talk with everyone. Mainly the older guys. Colt never really let me near his core group of friends in the club. Usually, it was when things with Mom and Dad got tense. They were good parents, but with the two of them working two and three jobs, tensions were bound to explode. The mechanic shop was my escape, and the guys welcomed me with open arms.
Colt always kept his eye on me, but I knew it was just because he was worried.
College had been different. I felt out of place again. Like I didn’t belong. Whenever I hung out with the guys, it felt like a family. I could see why Colt had gravitated to them so quickly, and I think it worried him that I was doing the same. He tried to put as much distance between them and I as he possibly could, and it fueled many fights between us. I went off to college mad at him and punished him by not seeing him whenever I did come home to see Mom and Dad.
As I typed away on my laptop, applying to jobs and hoping something stuck, I wondered where Colt was. We had repaired things between the two of us over the past couple of years, but things were still tense whenever we were together. He came to my graduation when I accepted my Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, but he didn’t stay long. He came to congratulate me, hug me close, then he hopped on his bike and rode off.
It warmed my chest that he came, but it hurt that he hadn’t stayed.
I never told Colt about it, but I got teased a lot in college as well. I was one of the very few girls in the computer engineering program, and because of my looks, I always had guys trying to dumb down concepts for me. It was annoying, listening to them talk down to me. Like a child trying to figure out how to work a toothbrush. I’d have to step up and run them over, showing them my intelligence on the topic before they talked to me like a regular fucking human.
It was exhausting, and I was so glad when I graduated.
I loved proving everyone wrong. I loved showing them that I was more than just a set of green eyes and wild red hair. I loved showing them that beyond the striking looks that turned more heads than I cared to admit, there was an intelligent mind who could bury the finest computer engineers in their own graves. The stunned look on their faces was something I gained my energy from. My confidence flowed from the confusion that percolated behind their eyes when they found out I was more than a pair of nice tits they couldn’t stop staring at.
I sat on the couch for an hour applying to jobs before there were no more in the immediate area to be found. I had taken a job right out of college at a large consulting firm, but it wasn’t where I wanted to stay. I moved back in with my parents to save money and help them with some things, hoping I could shoulder some of the financial responsibility they were still trying to upkeep. I paid off the rest of their home and got their mortgage off their back and told them I would take over the electric bill since it fluctuated so badly. My parents were insistent that I didn’t have to do anything, but I told them I wasn’t moving back in unless I could help.
So, they caved.
I stretched my arms and legs as my stomach growled. An hour’s worth of applying to other jobs left me hungry and wanting food. I closed my laptop and slid off the couch, steadying myself onto my feet. Since no one was going to be here for dinner I didn’t feel like cooking, I decided to head to the Milo’s.
Some good seafood and a drink or two would do me some good before I got back to applying for more jobs.
I was looking for anything from Los Angeles to Long Beach. I loved the area I grew up in, but I sometimes wished I was closer to the ocean. And being a computer engineer would give me the ability to afford that kind of lifestyle.
And if I played my cards right, I could fund my parents’ retirement so they could enjoy the rest of their years instead of working themselves to the bone.
I grabbed my things and headed out the door, locking it behind me. I drew in the stale Los Angeles air as a grin crossed my cheeks. The consulting firm was a decent gig with a decent paycheck until I could find something I really enjoyed. Or better yet, it gave me the time I needed to start a freelance business of my own. Ideas were swirling around in my mind as I made my way to my car, my stomach screaming at me for food.
I wondered what Colt was doing, considering he hadn’t lived at home in years.
Cranking my car up, I pulled out of the driveway. The drive to Milo’s was therapeutic, and it gave me time to think. Time to figure out where I wanted my life to go and what I wanted to do with it. I was one of the few young adults that came out of college with no debt to her name, scholarships helped me with that, and I was hellbent on keeping it that way. I paid for my old ass car with the money I saved while working at a bar during my college years, but now I had the paycheck to do anything I wanted.
At least, that was what it felt like.
I did miss those days. I missed the smoky bar I used to work in. I missed the guys whistling at me and tipping me far more than they needed to because my ass looked great in a pair of jeans. Most women found that sort of thing degrading, but I loved the attention. It helped build my confidence after years of being relentlessly teased for the way my parents made ends meet. I built relationships with those customers and flooded the bar with regular customers. My boss loved that shit so much he promoted me over the other waitresses, putting even more money in my pocket before I graduated.
It was why I enjoyed Milo’s so much.
That bar had been home to me during college. And now? Milo’s reminded me of that bar back at college. Where I was confident, beautiful, and at the top of the food chain.
Now, all I had to do was find a way to replicate that in the real world. Even if that meant starting at the bottom of the totem pole with this ridiculous consulting firm.