“Being a single mom and all, I’d like to have the chance to spend time with my kid, because I haven’t had much of that lately.”
“Fair enough,” he says, still not looking at me. “Do me a favor when you go out there? Tell Bethany I have to decline her request.”
Hello, guilt trip.
Shaking my head, I walk away, heading through the store to get my work done so I can get out of here on time. I busy myself in the stockroom, figuring out what needs to be ordered, when there’s a quiet knock and the door pops open, Bethany appearing. “Hey, Kennedy.”
“Hey,” I say, cutting right to it. “Marcus couldn’t approve your weekend off.”
She scowls but doesn’t complain, just standing there, leaning against the doorframe, watching me as I shove crates around and finish what I couldn’t last night because of covering for her.
“So, did you need something?” I ask after a few minutes, knowing she’s supposed to be up front, running a register, and not back here.
“No, I, uh… I wanted to say sorry about last night,” she says. “You know, about knocking on your door. Josh—that’s my boyfriend, he delivers pizza, and he swears he delivered pizza to that apartment and the guy there looked like… somebody.”
“Any somebody I might know?”
“Johnny Cunning.”
She laughs awkwardly, and I cast her a look, seeing her cheeks are flushed with embarrassment.
“So your boyfriend told you he delivered pizza to Johnny Cunning at my apartment.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I thought it might not be so crazy, him being in town, since he’s been here before, and nobody has seen him lately, but Josh must’ve been hallucinating or something. It must’ve been that Andrew guy you’re seeing, because there’s no way Johnny Cunning was hanging out at your apartment.”
I stop what I’m doing to look at her. “Why’s that?”
“Huh?”
“Why wouldn’t he be at my apartment?”
She laughs. “Why would he be?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe we go way back, and he wanted to catch up on old times.”
“Yeah, okay,” she says, still laughing. “In that case, say hey to him for me.”
“I will,” I tell her, shaking my head as she walks away.
The afternoon drags just like the morning. Come lunchtime, I take my break locked up in the stockroom, wanting some peace and quiet. Sitting on a crate, I pull out my phone, seeing a message waiting from Drew.
Dinner this weekend?
I stare at it before clearing the notification and sending a message to Jonathan. Bethany (your local fangirl) says hello.
He responds right away. Nice. Tell her I said hey.
Will do. ;)
I hesitate after sending that before typing another one.
Drew asked me out to dinner.
I feel like an idiot the moment I hit send, desperately wishing I could take it back. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter. Why did I just tell him that?
His little reply bubble pops up and then disappears again, over and over, for at least a minute, maybe two, before a call comes through. Jonathan.
Panicked, I almost hit decline, my finger bouncing between the buttons, before I answer it. “Hello?”
“You tell Hastings he can suck my cock,” he says.
I laugh quietly. “Before or after dinner?”
“Either way,” he says. “Though, I prefer the dinner not happen.”
“Good to know,” I say. “I’ll be sure to pass on that message.”
“You do that,” he says, a gritty edge to his voice as there’s a rustling on the line, the sound of springs squeaking.
“Wait, are you still in bed?” I ask. “Seriously?”
“Hey, don’t judge me,” he says. “You could still be in bed, too, but you chose to go to work. You made your choice. Don’t hate on me for mine.”
I glance at the time—nearly one o’clock. “All I know is I get off work in two hours and you better be out of bed by then.”
“Or what?” he asks. “What are you going to do?”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
He laughs and says something, but I don’t hear what it is, because the storage room door pops open again. This time, Marcus appears, holding the week’s schedule. He taps a pen against his lips in contemplation, and I know right away whatever he’s about to say isn’t going to be something pleasant.
“I have to go,” I say quietly. “Work crap.”
I don’t give Jonathan a chance to respond, hanging up as Marcus starts talking. “So I did some finagling, moved some others around to cover the weekend for Bethany…”
“Lucky her,” I say.
“Yeah, so I need you to work a double on Thursday, if you can manage that,” he says, cutting his eyes at me. “Unless that’s too much of a problem.”
I want to tell him it is, but I’m too nice. Besides, you know, money. “Not a problem at all.”
“Good, good,” he mutters, walking out as my phone vibrates with a message. I look at it, seeing a text from Jonathan.
Work? Too bad you can’t just… quit.
Shaking my head, I don't respond to that, instead going back to Drew's message. I need to reply while I have the nerve. I don't think it's a good idea for us to go out with everything else that's going on.
I send a string of frowny-faces, already wrecked with guilt, because hanging out with him is easy and he's been so nice, but I know it'll just cause problems, and the fact that my feelings for him haven't evolved past acquaintances is a sign that added complication isn't worth the trouble. I shove my phone into my pocket so I can get back to work, hoping the next few hours go faster, but no such luck. Every second seems to drag and drag and drag. By the time three o’clock comes, I feel like I’ve been at this place for days.
On my way out of the store, I run into Bethany, lingering by the register, face buried in the latest edition of Hollywood Chronicles. There’s nothing about Jonathan on the cover. “Anything interesting?”
She scowls, closing the tabloid. “Nothing.”
“I told him you said hey, by the way. He said hey back.”
She laughs. “Yeah, right.”
I give her a smile. Poor girl. She’s going to kick herself. “Anyway, heard you got your weekend off. Big plans?”
“Just the usual,” she says, shrugging.
“The usual, as in, knocking on apartment doors at one a.m. looking for Johnny Cunning?”
“Pretty much.” She’s blushing again. “Josh is such an idiot.”
“Well, good luck with that,” I say, leaving before I take pity on the girl and start spilling my secrets.
I get to my father’s house the same time as Maddie’s bus, meeting her in the front yard as my father rocks in his chair on the porch.
“Grandpa!” Maddie says, running right for him, digging through her backpack to pull out a drawing. “I made you a picture!”
“Well, look at that!” he says, grinning. “A dinosaur!”
She laughs. “No, it’s not, silly! It’s a alligator!”
“Ah, and it’s by far the greatest alligator I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Absolutely perfect!”
She runs inside to hang it up somewhere, like usual. I linger outside, waiting for her to resurface, as my father stares me down.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I repeat.
“So how’s it going?”
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” he repeats.