Luckily for both of us, today is my day, and Lacey’s the one that falters.
“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes and hauling herself out of her seat. “I need to get to work, anyway.” She’s already a few steps away from the table, having tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder in what I’d been hoping was a sign that our conversation was over, when she stops and whirls back around. “But just so you know,” she says, “when you wake up dead in a Dumpster somewhere, I’ll be expecting an apology. A good one.”
Oh, sweetie, I shake my head as she flounces off toward the back of the diner and disappears through the door marked Employees Only. I don’t think you thought that sentence through.
I wait until I’m certain she’s not going to come back out to make an amendment to her final words before I turn back to what’s left of my breakfast. Shoving the last bites into my mouth, I reach into my purse to check the time on my phone. I’ve got half an hour before I’m supposed to meet Ash at the house, so I make a quick decision and tug the plastic-covered menu from its resting place behind the ketchup bottle. I flip it open. Since I don’t know if we’ll be stopping work for lunch, I figure I might as well get Ash something for breakfast. I don’t want him to die of hunger midway through the job, and honestly, I feel a little bad for how people keep talking about him behind his back. Besides, the breakfast sandwich looks good, and if he doesn’t eat it, I will.
This time, when the blonde waitress walks by, I don’t give her a chance to ignore me. As soon as she steps close enough, I reach out and grab her arm. My grip isn’t hard, but it’s enough to stop her in her tracks. She seems genuinely startled for a second, but then that passes and she shoots me a disgusted look, like how dare you touch me, you peon, which is pretty rich considering it’s coming from a middle-aged waitress at a crappy diner. But I drop my hand, anyway. Sorry, lady, I think. But if you’re rude to me, I’m gonna be rude to you.
“Can I get the breakfast sandwich please? To go?” I ask. “And the bill,” I add quickly, because if I let her go now, she’s never going to come back again. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t hurl both the sandwich and the bill at my head from a distance, judging by the look Leslie—as her name tag reads—is giving me. Yeah, you’re not getting a tip.
“Fine,” she snaps, reaching down and snatching the menu off the table like she’s afraid I’m going to use it for evil and keep adding things to my order just to piss her off. Honestly? I’m tempted. “Will that be all?”
She’s got such a sour look on her face, I can’t help it. I start to grin. I prop my elbows up on the edge of the table and rest my chin on my folded hands and smile at her sweetly. “Yep,” I say. “That’ll about do me.” You’re lucky I don’t report you to your manager, you hateful woman, I want to say. You’re in a service industry. Service means not being a witch to your customers. But I keep my mouth shut, and just keep smiling at her, even though my face is starting to hurt. Because it seems to piss her off even more.
“Fine,” she says, and turns on her heel and stalks away. Just before she gets out of earshot, though, I hear her mutter, “Inked-up little brat,” and I can’t stop the loud snort that escapes me.
Seriously? That’s her problem? My tattoos? I glance down at my arms. Other than the line of Latin that runs down the back of my right forearm and the names on the sides of my fingers, none of my tattoos are even visible. They’re all under my clothes, and even then, there’s nothing offensive about them. And, come on, this is a diner. It’s not like I showed up at church during Easter Mass with full sleeves on display. I don’t even have sleeve tattoos.
Well, I think, letting my grin fade into a smirk and tilting my head forward so I can hide it behind my curtain of dark hair. Why don’t we fix that? I reach into my purse and uncap the black permanent marker I’ve been using to label boxes at the house. Then, holding out my left arm and resting it on the tabletop, I grip the marker as steadily as I can. And then I get to work.
Ash
I’ve only been at the house a few minutes when Star pulls into the driveway. She’s out of the car, dark hair swinging around her shoulders, and as I watch her walk toward where I’m sitting on the front porch, I wonder if I should mention the package right away or if I should wait. Luckily, her eyes zero in on it before I have to decide.
“It has your name on it,” I tell her. “I’m not an expert or anything, but if it matters, I’m pretty sure it’s not a bomb.” I take one last pull from my cigarette before stubbing it out and pulling myself to my feet. She’s halfway up the walkway, a confused look playing across her face, and I don’t blame her. The box was just there when I got here, wrapped in brown paper and twine and absolutely freaking huge. It is the size of two of those Bankers’ Box boxes my Dad used to haul home from work put together. And it has Star’s name on it.
“Jeez,” she says, pulling the strap of her purse off her shoulder and dropping it down on the porch with a thud before kneeling down to get a closer look at the box. I’m kind of impressed. Not by the kneeling, I’m not a total freak, but by the fact she’s just willing to toss her bag around like that. My ex-girlfriend would have killed herself before she let anything happen to her purse. But then, Gina wouldn’t have been caught dead cleaning out a house like this, so I suppose that’s just the way it is. Different folks, and all that shit. “I wonder who . . . ” her voice trails off, and I turn bodily around to look at her, wondering why she stopped talking. As I watch, a grin spreads across her face, and she lights up like fucking sunshine.
“What?” I ask. “You figure out who sent it?”
“Yup,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Instead she just sinks down further until she’s sitting cross-legged on the porch, and tugs the box closer.
She looks like a kid at Christmas.
“So . . . not a bomb, then?” I say, but I can’t help the smile that I know is pulling at the corner of my mouth.
She turns to look at me. “Definitely not,” she says, and then leans over to reach for her bag. But she doesn’t actually move or anything, just starts waving her arms at her just-out-of-reach bag, keeping the box close.
“You’re so weird.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I can actually feel the color drain from my face. Fuck, I think. Already I can feel the panic start to rise up in my stomach. I’m such an ass. She’s definitely going to fire me now. But instead of getting pissed, she just throws back her head and laughs, and, unable to stop myself, my eyes trace down the long column of her neck, down to the neck of her T-shirt, where I can see just the barest edge of the tattoo I’m sure is hiding beneath the fabric.
“Trust me,” she says, still grinning, “you’re not the first one to tell me that. Not even close.” She’s still trying to reach for her purse without letting the box get out of reach, and she hasn’t canned me, so I figure it must be pretty important. I reach out and nudge the bag toward her, and for the first time I notice the tattoo on her left arm, a flock of birds in flight, scaling the distance between her wrist and her elbow. It’s nice. Pretty. She grabs it and gives me a quick “thanks” before dumping the bag into her lap and starting to dig through it with more focus than I’ve ever seen on anybody.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, because this has become way more interesting than watching the well-paid people of the neighborhood walk their foofy-looking dogs, which is what I’d been occupying myself with while I waited for her. Except it was kind of a shit way to kill time, since seeing the dogs made me miss Bruiser, and seeing the people glaring at me like I was a serial killer wasn’t any better. Honestly, I’d been counting down the minutes until Star showed up.