Chapter Three
I took a nap after Paige left then headed to work for the early evening shift. Waiting tables at the local steakhouse helped pay the rent until Dad cut a deal with the landlord and covered the rest of the school year for me. He didn’t know I kept the job at Steak Stockade. I worked almost every weekend along with some weekdays. The extra cash was nice. Mostly I put it in savings.
My boss was in a mood. Logan stuck me near my least favorite coworker. Amber wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. More often than not, I ended up taking care of her customers while she reaped the benefits of the tips. It didn’t help that my hangover lingered, making everything twice as loud and twice as annoying. About a third of the way through my shift, I pulled Logan into the office and closed the door. He sat down, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in the creaky office chair.
“Look, I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but if you stick me by Amber again, I’ll quit.” I jammed my finger into his chest to make my point.
“Jesus, Liv, assault anybody else today?” He grabbed my hand when I went in for another poke.
“I’m tired of bussing her tables, getting her customers refills, and taking back the orders she screws up.” I collapsed against the closed door and rubbed my temples. “And I have a massive hangover.”
“You have a hangover?” Logan laughed and stood from his chair. “Look, I’ll talk to her again. But relax, okay?”
A knock vibrated along my back.
“Hey, Liv?” Amber’s high-pitched voice sent chills down my spine. “You’ve got a couple of customers asking for refills and stuff.”
I reached for the doorknob, but Logan put his hand over mine. “Don’t. I’ll take care of it. Just go get your tables.”
He held my hand over the doorknob for a count of ten, giving Amber time to get away. “I can’t deal with this anymore tonight. Please?”
Logan let go, raising his hands in surrender. It wasn’t really his fault. Okay, it was. He should’ve fired Amber after her first day. She didn’t get it—waiting tables wasn’t easy. A lot of people thought it was a cake walk. They never had to deal with different people bitching at them that their food wasn’t right or their tea wasn’t sweet enough or the plate was too hot or too cold or whatever the complaint of the night was. Amber was too busy staring at her nails or sneaking her phone out of her apron to pay attention to her customers. But she loved the money.
I opened the door hard enough it almost hit me on my way out. Our grill cook Kit quickly got out of my way along with every other person in my warpath. Before I stepped out into the dining room, I plastered a fake smile on my face and prayed I wouldn’t see Amber until I calmed down. And I needed to calm down desperately. Last night’s mistake wormed its way into every thought.
The hostess seated a couple in my section just as a toddler chucked a handful of fries at my chest. The adults at the table stayed blissfully unaware that the kid even existed. I smiled at the boy, because he was just being a kid. He smiled back, throwing more food on the floor. I laughed. He was in Amber’s section.
I stopped beside my new table, letting the anger dissipate. “Hello, my name is Liv and I’ll be your server this evening. Would you like to start off with our world-famous mozzarella sticks and secret marinara?”
“This is awkward,” a girl’s voice said. I finally focused on the people sitting in front of me. She’d been at the party last night. I glanced at her date. Barry Acklin stared at the menu. They would’ve seen me leave with Devon.
I widened my fake smile and mentally demanded my heart slow down. “How’re you doing?” I asked as if this girl was my long-lost best friend. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Fine,” she responded, dragging the word out far longer than necessary. “You?”
“Peachy. Now how about those mozzarella sticks?”
“Um, I’m not sure. Can I just get an iced tea?” She looked toward her date. “Barry?”
“Oh…” He pulled his face away from the menu. “Bud Light?”
“Coming right up.” I spun away from them to get their drinks. It was only halfway through my shift and this night just kept getting better. I hurried to refill drinks at a few other tables before returning to Devon’s friends with their drinks.
“Have you talked to Devon today?” the girl asked. I wished I knew her name. All I could remember was that it started with a C or a K. It was something sweet. Candy. That was it.
“No, why would I?” I asked as I put the tea in front of her.
“Oh, after last night…” Her gaze drifted back to her date before shifting back to me. “Barry…”
“Huh?” Barry wrapped his hands around the ice-cold mug, glancing between his girlfriend and me. “What?”
She shook her head and looked over at me. “Didn’t Devon…” She waved her hand. “Never mind, I’m probably wrong and it’s none of my business.”
“Um…okay?” I gave her a minute to elaborate, but she didn’t. This wasn’t the place to interrogate her, either. No matter how much I wanted to. And didn’t want to. “Are you ready to order?”
I threw myself into making each customer happy, and my apron filled with the cash they left on the tables. Logan took over Amber’s section, literally put out a fire in the kitchen, and kept Amber out of my way. But Candy’s question bothered me. Why would I talk to Devon? It was just sex. No need for conversation or to rehash my regrets over coffee the next day.
It was almost midnight when I finally got home, crankier than usual. The hangover finally disappeared after Kit made me one of his special burgers. Logan didn’t say a word about not paying for it, either. That was an added bonus.
My phone dinged with a text from Paige.
Campus news finally wrote a story about the baseball team. Betts used ’roids. Fisher sold them to him. Entire athletic department getting looked at. Jayce is pissed. Going after all the athletes.
Wow. No wonder the players needed to blow off steam.
After a long shower to wash the smell of meat and grease off my skin, not to mention the beer that a drunk at the bar spilled down my pants, I settled into my bed with my laptop. The article was the first thing I found. Aaron Betts tested positive for steroids. He named Seth Fisher, another player, as his dealer. Then Betts ended up hospitalized. That was insane. Dr. Ross was spearheading an internal investigation to see how far the drugs spread. I wondered how Devon and the rest of the guys were handling it. No doubt just as well as Jayce and the basketball team. Shaking them out of my head, I switched gears.
I hadn’t heard from my family much lately, nor had I had a chance to check in on them. My younger brothers posted photos of their courtwarming dance with their dates. Jacob had apparently been crowned king during halftime of a basketball game. His grin lit up the camera but it was nothing compared to his date’s smile.
Bradley stood next to his date, who was several inches taller and didn’t look all that thrilled in her pink dress. Whether it was the hideous dress or my brother as her date, I couldn’t tell. Probably a bit of both. Bradley might’ve been a freshman in high school but he still acted like a fifth grader at times. Maturity was slow with that boy.
I thought back to my own senior courtwarming. Henry and I had been together for a while at that point. He’d been a complete gentleman as always. We made sure our outfits matched, went to the boring dance, and left early to make out in his car. That was the first night we’d had sex. Were my little brothers being as irresponsible as I had been? God I hoped not.
My father refused to join in the social media craze, so I had to check in with him via my older brother Trevor. Had Dad been cloned, it would have produced Trevor. All they talked about were cars, classic cars, and motorcycles. And that was all Trevor posted, too. So it might as well have been Dad’s page.
One picture caught my attention. Trevor on the left, Henry on the right, and a pretty blond girl in the middle. Amanda was still early in her pregnancy and hadn’t even started showing. Henry’s fiancée was not what I’d expected. From what my father had told me, she was everything I wasn’t. She wanted a big family right away. I wanted to wait to have kids. She wanted to live near her parents. I wanted to move to San Diego or Chicago or Seattle. She wanted to be a wife first. Even when it came down to our looks—she was blond to my brunette. She was petite and thin to my curves.
I clicked off the photo. Henry’s life was none of my business anymore. As much as it angered me, it didn’t hurt as much as it did a few weeks ago. Dad waited until I was home to tell me the news. He thought it would be better said in person. And before Henry and Amanda showed up for Christmas Eve dinner. I’d held out hope that Henry would come back to me once I finished my bachelor’s. That he’d remember how good we were together. While I focused on school with hope he’d realize what a mistake he’d made, Henry had moved on. It was time I did, too.
Adam and Nick didn’t post much. Most of their pages were links other people sent them. And Tony was overseas somewhere. I checked his page anyway. Nothing since before he left. I wasn’t much into prayer but I prayed for him every day when I woke up. Knowing my brother was in some desert in another country and people were shooting at him terrified me. It didn’t help that I hadn’t heard from him. Dad at least got a call at Christmas.
I messaged each of them with updates about my life. Not much to tell when I thought about it. Shaking off the negativity that threatened to take over my exhausted mind, I decided a cheesy movie would be just the thing I needed to relax.
Instead, I found myself clicking on Devon Miller’s page. It wasn’t hard to find. I moved my cursor to close the window when a chat message popped up from him.
Hi.
That was all it said.
I checked my online availability. It was still off so he must be taking it on faith I’d answer. I didn’t even debate as I typed Hi and hit send.
Was hoping to catch you.
I clicked onto his page. It was labeled private, so I couldn’t see anything. Part of me was a little disappointed I hadn’t thought to check it out sooner. But I really didn’t want to see the millions of photos he posted with all his girlfriends. Not that I would’ve been able to anyway. A friend request popped up on my notifications. I immediately accepted and started snooping through his page.
We need to talk about last night, he added.
Do we?
Brilliant response on my end. I continued to click through his photos. There were a lot with his friends, with his team. Several pics of him on the mound in a Westland uniform. Some with a younger girl in her early teens who had long strawberry-blonde hair. Based on the tag, it was a sister or cousin. It wasn’t until I got to the end of his photos that I found a whole bunch of Devon with a beautiful Latina woman. And by beautiful she was model gorgeous. Maria Alvarez. I clicked on her profile out of curiosity.
Yeah, we do, he responded.
Maria Alvarez lived in Los Angeles and had a far crazier life than I did. She had tons of photos from parties and movie premieres. Her occupation listed her as a production assistant. Her hometown was Madison, Iowa. Clearly she’d been Devon’s girlfriend a while back and they were still friends. What surprised me more was the lack of other photos with girlfriends. Maybe he didn’t post them. Devon had always struck me as the type of guy who didn’t take anything seriously. There was more to him, and suddenly I was intrigued.
Liv?
One thing about chatting online was that I could be honest. Then again, he could take what I had to say the wrong way, too. The entire reason was the only way to go.
Still here. Why do we need to talk? It happened. It’s over. It won’t happen again.
So you’ve said before. He added a winking emoji.
Not funny. I added a devil giphy for emphasis.
He responded with a photo of himself holding his thumb and forefinger centimeters apart.
Despite not wanting to, I smiled. He didn’t need to know that.
It’s been a long day.
It’s been a rough week. I watched Betts go down. The team’s under investigation because of him. He almost died, from what I’ve heard. It wasn’t good.
Sorry about your friend.
Me, too. But he made his bed and the rest of us have to lie in it. Before I could respond, he added, You need to understand what happened the other night.
Did I really need to, though? It didn’t take a genius to figure out why I ended up in his room.
I’m not sure that’s a good idea.
Trust me. He followed it up with another quick message. Please.
After everything we’ve been through, trusting you isn’t easy. I hesitated before I hit send.
Everything? Like what? I’m at a loss here.
How could he not know? Besides the unforgettable but totally regrettable one-night stand, we’d been at odds since day one. He’d gotten the Telluride scholarship, which was awarded to an incoming freshman majoring in engineering who had the highest SAT. One measly point separated us. It paid for half his tuition. He’d beaten me out for a summer semester internship at the engineering department at Iowa State. And he’d gotten to introduce Maggie Fielder last fall. All things I had earned, too.
I’m exhausted and don’t feel like rehashing. Later, I typed.
I’m not kidding. We do need to talk. Vid?
No way I was video chatting with him now. My eyes were already half-closed and ending this conversation was a top priority. We both had an eight o’clock class. Together.
Not tonight. I really am tired. Good night, Devon.
I clicked off the chat before he could respond and closed the lid of my laptop.