I smiled and engaged in topical chatter with my customers, but inside, I was worried. Officer Vinnie hadn’t come in after his shift. I hadn’t realized just how much I looked forward to seeing him each night. Tonight, especially, I could have used his familiar, comforting presence.

Running into him at the station earlier after being grilled by those gumshoes had been slightly awkward. I wondered if he would mention it when he came in. If he came in.

Sometimes he was late. Being a cop wasn’t exactly a regular nine-to-fiver, after all. It was rare that he didn’t come in by now, though.

He had a dangerous job, I knew that. Our community didn’t have the kind of jaw-dropping crime stats that the big cities had, but bad things still happened. Several places in the surrounding blocks had been hit over the past few months, and according to local news, there had been some attacks, too. Women were being urged not to walk alone at night and to take extra precautions until the attacker was caught.

I heeded those warnings, especially since I walked to work in the dark every night. Carrying the small, handheld Taser in my pocket provided a sense of security. If someone tried to get the jump on me, he or she would be treated to eight-hundred-thousand, you-picked-the-wrong-girl-this-time-buster volts.

I checked the clock again. The post-second-shifters had come and gone. Half the night was over and Vinnie still hadn’t shown. Was he working a case, burning the midnight oil? Too tired or sick to come in? Who took care of him when he was feeling under the weather?

I admit I worried about Vinnie probably more than I should. We were just friends, and barely even that. More like circumstantial acquaintances, really. Vinnie probably would have been just as charming, just as kind and sweet to anyone who waited on him. That was just the kind of guy he was. I was nothing special. If I felt more strongly about him, well, no one had to know. Except Wanda, of course. That woman had the eyes of a hawk and the hyper-sense of an intuitive.

Or maybe I wasn’t as good at keeping my crush to myself as I thought I was.

“You should call him,” Wanda said when she caught me looking out the window again.

It was nearly dawn. I had to face facts: if he hadn’t shown by now, he wasn’t going to. While I was disappointed, I was more worried. I hoped he was okay.

“Call who?”

“Don’t try to pull that crap with me, girl. Officer Hot Pants. He gave you his number, didn’t he?”

I felt heat rise in my face. “That was only if I needed him.”

“Well, clearly, you need to know he’s all right.”

I sighed. “No, I don’t. He’s a big boy, capable of taking care of himself, and I’m fine.”

“Is that why the coffee pot is overflowing behind you?”

I turned around and gasped. “Crap!” I stabbed the power button and grabbed for towels. Lost in my own thoughts, I must have poured more water into the machine without replacing the full carafe with an empty one. That wasn’t my first mistake of the night. I had also messed up several orders and gave one guy the wrong check.

“Call him.”

I wasn’t going to call him, not over something like this. It crossed the boundary of our sort of friendship and ventured into uncharted territory. Not that I would mind dipping my toes into those waters, but I would do so only if I was certain Vinnie wanted that, too. So far, he hadn’t said or done anything to make me think he did.

Wanda wasn’t going to be satisfied with that, though. I would bet dollars to donuts that if I didn’t call Vinnie by the end of my shift, she’d snatch my phone and do it for me.

While worrying about Vinnie was preoccupying my thoughts, I had other things on my mind, too. I’d lost my day job at the café, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about Joel. I’d hoped getting him out of his crack-addicted mother’s house would get him back on the right path, but it was a constant battle. Seventeen was a tough age, and I was his half-sister, not his mother.

Today’s trip to the police station had been a hard slap of reality. I had to accept that doing everything I could for my brother might not be enough. Joel needed a strong male role model, someone to talk to about “guy stuff.” To go to ball games and car shows with. I tried my best, but what seventeen-year-old boy wanted to confide in or hang out with his big sister?

Working twelve to sixteen hours a day didn’t help. I had put night school on hold and picked first and third shift work so I could spend some time with him after school every day, but that wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, either. Most evenings, I could coax him out of his room to share a meal together, but afterward, he would head right back in, put in his earbuds, and refuse to engage.

Maybe if I shared some of that with Wanda, it would get her off my back about calling Officer Vinnie.

“It’s not just about Vinnie, Wanda.”

Since we were in a lull, and because Wanda was the closest thing I had to a girl friend, I laid everything out to her. Thankfully, she parked her snark and listened to me vent. I felt drained afterward, but sharing had been kind of cathartic, too.

“You need help, Haven,” she said thoughtfully once I had run out of steam. “You shouldn’t have to do all this on your own.”

Before I could respond, the door jingled, heralding the arrival of more customers.

“We are going to talk more about this,” she informed me.

Wanda went to greet them and get their drink orders while I started a fresh pot of coffee, with an empty carafe this time, thinking about what she’d said about me needing help. I didn’t disagree; I just didn’t know who I could turn to.

Vinnie’s image popped into my mind, but I shook it away. Now was not the time for my daydreams.

The rest of my shift passed without incident. I didn’t have to rush to get to the café, so maybe I could get some online job searching in before I roused Joel to hit the books. Just because he was suspended didn’t mean I was going to let him sleep until noon.

Mentally and physically exhausted, I wasn’t sure what the day would bring. I just hoped it was better than yesterday.