by R. S. Elliot
But things never go the way you plan them, if my life was any indication. I hadn’t planned to drop out of a promising law program when money got too tight, and I hadn’t planned to get myself even further into debt with an ill-advised move to New York to live with a boyfriend who turned out to be both a deadbeat and an obsessive prick. Some girls get all the luck, I guess.
I smothered a groan as I hoisted a fourth heavy plate of waffles and sausage onto my arms and ferried them from counter to table. I pasted on my best service worker smile, ignoring the ache in the arches of my feet, or where my arches used to be before I squashed them out by standing so much. My body was still adjusting to the graveyard shift schedule, and I had been dealing with rude customers and shitty tippers all day, but I wasn’t going to be able to turn anyone’s attitude around unless I at least acted friendly. I was hoping to leave here with my pockets stuffed full of dollar bills and fives to make the sleep deprivation worth it.
"Mia!" My boss, Jared, snapped at me when I rested my hip against the bar for two seconds while I waited for the short-order cook to finish plating up some eggs. "Quit slacking off. There’s a party of five up at the window seat who are waiting for you to go take their order."
I thought about replying with something snippy about how I had already spoken to them and how they had asked for a few more minutes to make their decision, but I clamped my mouth shut before I could get myself into any more hot water. Jared was a neurotic blame-shifter who was easily convinced that the restaurant was going to burn down if everything didn’t go exactly as he wanted it to and that it would somehow be all my fault. Reasoning with him didn’t work, and neither did being nice, which I had stopped doing after my first month. All it did was encourage him to complain to me about other employees, his mother, his sick cat, and whatever else that minorly inconvenienced him. Keeping my head down and doing what I was told was my best option.
Jared moved on to his next task, probably to bother another waitress who didn’t look busy enough, and I took the opportunity to sneak a glance at my phone. Strictly speaking, we weren’t supposed to have our phones out on the floor, but everyone did it anyway. I wondered if we all got a little thrill out of the illicit glances at text messages or Twitter during the day, the ones we had to hide from supervisors and customers. It was just something to pass the time, a game to make the slow shifts less monotonous. It wasn’t exactly playing the slot machine, but it was still a little bit of fun injected into a dragging workday, so I seized it.
Sadly, there wasn’t anything fun waiting for me on my phone. I should have learned not to get my hopes up, and to be wary whenever I opened my text messages or voice mailbox. Even though I had broken up with Jack almost two months ago, he hadn’t gotten the message that I wanted him out of my life and gone for good. Bringing friends with me to support me when I told him to move out hadn’t done it, and neither had my tearful threats to get a restraining order against him when he tried to lock me in the apartment and force me to stay with him by any means necessary. I had never gotten that restraining order, even though my friends insisted that it was the best course of action, and I hadn’t changed my number either, even though it probably would have made my life a lot easier. Somehow, that felt too much like giving in and letting him win. I hadn’t done anything wrong here, so why should I inconvenience myself with a new phone number just because he refused to let things go and give me space?
When I saw his name flash across my screen, my stomach dropped. I hated this feeling, and the fact that he could still make me feel sick and miserable, even though we weren’t seeing each other or living together anymore. No one could do that like Jack. All it took was one of his cutting comments, his insistence that no one but him would ever put up with me, the way he slammed a cupboard so hard it rattled when he was angry with me, and I was upset for the rest of the day. I had tried to ignore it or grow out of it. Nothing worked.
This is really starting to piss me off. I just want to talk to you, Mia.
I scowled at the phone and shut it off. Really off this time, powered down and unreachable. Maybe if I focused on my work, I could forget about Jack and his broken promises and all the unread text messages that were starting to make my skin crawl. They made me feel dirty, like I was doing something wrong or bad by not being kind enough to give in to his demands. My father had always said I was too much of a people pleaser, and that it was going to get me into trouble one day. I don’t think this was exactly what he had in mind, but all the same, I wished I were stronger. He would have wanted me to be stronger.
Jared, fresh from nagging some other poor girl working at the opposite end of the restaurant, started wandering back over in my direction. This was my cue to pull myself together and do as I was told. Which meant servicing my problem table.
I circled the table of men once, then twice, before the nagging feeling that I was making them wait too long set in. Jared would be watching me, and I needed to do my job.
I plastered on my best tip-earning smile as I came to a stop at the table of five men, all rough-edged, large, and wearing matching, battered leather motorcycle jackets. They were covered in intimidating, official-looking patches that didn’t seem to me like part of a tough-guy cosplay. I swallowed dryly, suddenly aware that these guys might actually have the street cred to back up their jackets and the gleaming motorcycles propped against the building outside.
One of them, a huge guy with a thick mustache and beady brown eyes, seemed to be the ringleader. He had kept his eye on me the whole time he and his friend had been there in a way I didn’t like. It made me feel like he was unpeeling me with his eyes, layers at a time.
His eyes followed the outline of my breasts as I bent over the table to refill his coffee. He didn’t move his cup any closer so I could have an easier time reaching, he just watched. And smirked. That knowing smile of men who feel superior to you and want other men to see how good that feels. I decided I hated him. If I didn’t have any interest in keeping my job or keeping out of jail for aggravated assault, I would have poured the scalding coffee right into his crotch.
"Do you have a name?" he asked me. He broke off conversation with one of his boys to do so, and the other man made an irritated sound. Mustache didn’t seem to care. He was too busy eating me up with his eyes.
I smiled at him, pretending I had knives in my mouth to flash at him instead of teeth and then tried to slip away. I had been angling my body away from him the entire time I was at the table and had already started to step away. It was the sort of uninterested body language that would have been obvious to anyone. Anyone who cared what the object of their attention thought about the whole thing, anyway.
"Come on," he urged, a little louder and more insistently. More of the conversation at the table died down, and more hungry eyes turned towards me. I was rooted to the spot, fight or flight instincts kicking into high gear and warring inside me. "What’s the matter? You don’t need to run off just yet."
I swallowed, my smile shrinking by a couple millimeters. I couldn’t keep this up for much longer. I needed to take a lap, to step outside and go around the building where I could swear up a storm or fume in the back eating the meager snack I had brought where Jared couldn’t see me. This was usually how I dealt with awful customers. Crying in the bathroom was also an option, but we weren’t quite there yet. More than humiliated, I was mad.
"Sorry, I’ve got other tables."
But guys like this could never tell the difference between a real smile and a fake one. They either had no idea when they made a woman uncomfortable or, more likely, they didn’t care.
"Can’t we just get your name? I’ll bet it's as pretty as the rest of you."
"Mia," I said through gritted teeth, and it felt like giving over my still-beating heart. Why did I feel so exposed? It wasn’t like he could do anything to hurt me with my first name or use it to find out where I lived. But I didn’t want to give him anything, not one single piece of me.
"What
did I say? Pretty as a peach." The other men murmured their approval, snickering amongst themselves, and a bit of nausea swirled through my gut. Waitresses all harbored their fair share of stories about men who wouldn’t take no for an answer, men who they had to smile at and humor because they were on the clock and getting paid to be nice and reliant on the tips that might come after. But I wasn’t in the mood to add another irritating incident to my running list. I had already had a shitty day, hell, a shitty month. Between my father passing away a few years ago, Jared throwing me under the bus at every turn, and Jack turning out to be a raging, abusive, gaslighting asshole, I didn’t have a ton of faith in men coming through for me or doing right by me, in the end. My fuse for sexual harassment was as short as it had ever been.
"Come on here and sit down for a second," the man said, patting the sweaty vinyl beside him. It looked about as inviting as he did. This close, I could smell his cheap, sharp aftershave, the metallic tang of metal and engine grease, and the fact that he probably hadn’t showered recently.
"Sir, I’m at work."
"And I’m being nice enough to invite you to take a load off for a second. Come on honey, we don’t bite."
I only had two options here. One was to hold up my end of the social contract, even though this guy obviously wasn’t holding up his, and stand still and smile while he hurled lewd looks at me and tried to proposition me while I was on the clock. The other option was to break my end of the happy waitress charade and walk away entirely, leaving him sitting stunned in his own rejection. The second option would probably be construed as bitchy and rude, and would undoubtedly cost me my tips, but I didn’t care. I felt well within my rights to turn and walk off without saying another word, which is what I tried to do.
Immediately, there was a sharp sting in my ass where one of the men pinched me. He really put his back into it, too, like he was trying to teach me a lesson as much as he was trying to cop a feel.
I jumped, all the color draining from my face as I stifled a little shriek. I whirled to face them, anger blooming white hot and poisonous in my chest, but Mustache was looking at me with an expression so smug it turned my stomach. That smile told me that there wasn’t anything I could do about this and that he knew it. It told me that I ought to just shut up and take it and get back in my place as a pretty piece of ass to be fondled and passed around until someone got bored of me. Two of the men at the table were laughing uproariously, like someone had just told the funniest joke of their lives. And all the while, Mustache’s ugly, beady eyes gleamed at me, daring me to say a single word about what he had just done.
I should have just kept my head down and walked away. But I was tired. Tired of dealing with shit like this day in and day out. Tired of being catcalled on the street or rubbed up against on the crowded subway. Tired of having to smile back at men who harassed me like a docile child who should be so lucky to have their disgusting attention. Tired of Jack calling me “baby” and “honey” over text like he had any right to. Tired of him telling me I was stupid for leaving him, that no one else would put up with me or treat me as well as he had. I could lose my job for fighting back, but I didn’t give a damn about that right now. I had put up with enough.
So I didn’t say anything. Instead, I reared back and slapped him across the face. Hard.
The impact reverberated all the way up my arm. I had never hit anyone like that in my life, not even on the playground when I was six and some little girl had yanked me down to the ground by my pigtails. It hurt more than I expected it to, but it also felt good, like I was purging something from my system that had been lying dormant for years. For a second, I felt absolutely triumphant, powerful beyond my wildest dreams. If you had looked up the definition of "vindicated" in the dictionary, you would have found my picture right next to it. Then the expression on Mustache’s face passed from shock to rage, and the panic set in.
Oh God. What had I done? I had assaulted a customer while on the clock, a customer who looked like he made a living from breaking bones and shaking down pawn store owners. Oh my God. I was dead.
Mustache’s lips twisted into a snarl. He lunged for me without warning, quick as a viper, and I almost tripped over myself in my hurry to get away.
I moved through the restaurant so fast I was nearly sprinting, not daring to look behind me for any reason. What had I been thinking, hitting a customer? If the bikers didn’t kill me first, Jared would, but right now he was my only potential salvation. He was the manager, after all, and had the authority to throw anyone he wanted out of Gino’s. I just prayed that when he threw out Mustache and his gang, he didn’t throw me out with them.
"Jared," I said breathlessly, coming to a stop in front of the register. I probably looked like I had just seen a ghost, and I felt like I might pass out and hit the ground at any moment.
Jared barely glanced up from the money he was counting at the register.
"What is it, Mia? I’m busy over here."
"I had a disagreement with a customer; he—"
"You what?" Jared’s eyes snapped up to fix me to the spot like twin knives sticking through my ribs. "You had better not have. What do we always say? The customer is always right."
"Jared, he grabbed me, I didn’t know what—"
"Well then tell him not to grab you, and for God’s sake, smile. I don’t have time for this right now. Fix it, Mia. I don’t want to hear any complaints from customers. Do you understand?"
I felt like I was going to cry, which made the whole experience that much more frightening and humiliating. Jared and I weren't exactly friends, but I had thought he would come through for me when I was in actual danger. He probably thought I was exaggerating or didn't want to listen to anything anyone had to say that might make his day even more complicated.
I threw a quick glance over my shoulder to find that Mustache was pulling himself up out of the booth, egged on by his jeering friends. He was moving my way, weaving through the crowded restaurant. He looked like he had a mind to teach me a lesson, and I really didn't want to figure out what that entailed.
Jared had already turned back to his accounting, doing his best to shut me out. I was totally left to my own devices; there was no one in my corner. I had to think of something, and fast, before the hulking man I had just slapped caught up with me.
I cast my eyes desperately around the restaurant, looking for an out. My gaze landed on a secluded booth wedged in the back corner of the restaurant where a man sat by himself, dressed from a long day of work. I couldn't remember seeing him in here before, but from my partially-obscured vantage point, he looked relaxed, not like he might mind being bothered. It wasn't my table, and I didn't know him from Adam, but sometimes what it took to get a harasser to back off was another man telling him to do it.
I pushed myself off the front counter and started walking at a brisk clip towards the back of the restaurant and the man in the suit. Hopefully, he wouldn't mind a little company.
Chapter Seven
Aiden
The day had turned out to be hellishly busy, but that was a surprise to no one, least of all to me. When you insisted on being as involved in the running of a company as I did, you didn't get a lot of down days, or a lot of full nights of sleep. I had hit the ground running as soon as I arrived at the Carrier office and had been immediately swamped with memos and papers that needed my signatures and people on the phone who absolutely had to speak with me that instant. I navigated the tasks vying for my time with my usual efficient reasoning skills and intuition, trusting my gut on what needed my immediate attention. Bryan, as always, was my personal Godsend, shuffling around my appointments like a deck of cards and never once losing his composure over the phone. Bryan got cussed out or cried on by people desperate to change my mind about something on a daily basis, and he always handled them with perfect composure. Working as my personal assistant, you got used to that kind of thing fairly quickly.
But even I had started to feel the stress by the en
d of the day. I had welcomed so many people into my office for private meetings that their names and faces blurred together, and I had answered an ungodly amount of emails and sat in on a marketing meeting before taking a conference call with one of the larger teams we worked with. Everyone needed a little piece of me, and I wanted to give them the sort of personalized attention that had helped make Carrier's name great, even in a cutthroat competitive industry. Even as the company grew exponentially, Carrier still had the unique ability to make people feel like they were working with a tiny boutique that existed to meet their every need and whim. I wasn't sure how long we could keep that up, but for now, I was willing to put in 110% to make my clients happy and keep them coming back for more. It didn’t matter if I ran myself down in the process, that wasn’t the point. So long as my work served to build up Carrier and strengthen our reputation as one of the best in the business, I was willing to work until I dropped.
When I was 19 and running Carrier out of an unfinished basement in my uncle's home, desperate for my first client who would take me seriously and trust me with their assets, I assumed that things would get easier as the company grew. I assumed that with more staff, more funding, more computers, and more business contacts, I would be able to ease back and rest on the laurels of my success. But nothing could be further from the truth. As Carrier grew, so did its needs and its crises, and I spent a lot of my time personally handling client acquisitions or putting out fires in various departments. We were in a weird spot, caught between being small enough that I could personally handle everything, and large enough that I could delegate everything and only manage the highest tiers of business concerns. So I found myself with my fingers in every pie from every department, working overtime to keep the Carrier brand performing at optimum capacity.