by Parker, Ali
“I’m terribly sorry.” Rayce’s voice was as sarcastic as I’d ever heard it, even as he flashed her a fake smile. “Please, show us this reasonably priced home. My friend here is dying to see it.”
She bristled, then swung her gaze back to mine. It didn’t look like she was convinced by Rayce’s apology, but she glanced down at her watch and obviously decided to just get her shit done. “Let’s go inside.”
The house was set right on the beach, only a few miles away from Heidi’s. It was a double story with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and an entertainment room. Having recently been redone, it was a modern marvel with fancy appliances and Caesarstone countertops. I wasn’t even sure what Caesarstone was, but it looked good. Fancy as fuck.
The realtor finished our tour, still looking at us as if we were bugs that had gotten stuck to the bottom of her shoe. It rubbed me the wrong way, made me want to rub it in her face that I really could afford this place.
“I’ll pay for this house in cash.”
She was taken aback, blinking rapidly before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Just how do you have enough cash to be able to afford this place?”
“It’s an inheritance,” Rayce barked from my side. “Stop asking questions and just show us the outside, yeah?”
When Rayce and I climbed back into my truck after the viewing, I blew out a frustrated breath and shook my head. “Maybe it’s better not to get a house with all these stuck-up pricks around here. I mean, if even the realtor is like that, can you imagine the neighbors?”
“Fuck them, bro,” Rayce agreed. “You don’t need this place or their shit.”
Chapter 20
Heidi
“Did you see that guy who just walked past?” Valerie pretended to fan herself. “I hope he’s still around by the time we get off work.”
“Why would he stick around?” Olive asked, but even she was staring intently at the fine ass of the man they had spotted. In my opinion, it wasn’t nearly as nice as Will’s, but it was a good ass.
We’d been at work for a couple of hours, but we hadn’t done much. Mostly we people watched and gossiped in a little corner behind a fake plant near the window. In our defense, the restaurant wasn’t that busy.
Olive hustled away to service her tables from time to time, dragging Val and me along to do the same. As soon as we’d done what we had to do, though, we were back in our corner.
“What do you guys want to do tonight?” Val asked. “I vote for drinks at a bar near here. My feet are killing me, but I want to see if we can catch that hottie somewhere.”
“How about drinks at home instead?” Olive suggested. “We haven’t really made enough money yet to be able to spend too much at a bar.”
Val’s hazel eyes suddenly sparkled in the sunlight filtering in through the window. “Are you saying we should have a party, because that’s what I’m hear—”
“What are you girls doing all the way over here?” The firm voice of the manager asked, the woman herself appearing from the other side of the plant. “The customers are over there. Let’s break up this little gossip session, ladies. There’s work to be done.”
“Sure thing.” Olive smiled brightly and rushed to her nearest table. Val and I exchanged glances, but the manager was giving us a pointed look over the rim of her glasses.
There were new customers seated in my section, a family with a small child. The girl was young, probably around two or three years old. Dutifully grabbing two regular menus and one kiddie menu, I made my way over to them and handed the menus out with a forced smile. “Welcome to—”
“We’ve been waiting forever.” The man leveled a glare at me, irritation simmering in his eyes. “We’ll have one orange soda, one martini, and one strawberry daiquiri.”
“I’ll bring those right over.” I didn’t apologize for the wait. The guy was a jerk, he deserved to get a bit of what was coming to him.
While I waited for their cocktails to be mixed, I watched the family out of the corner of my eye. The parents weren’t paying any attention to the poor girl, who kept glancing longingly out the window. Every time she bounced or so much as moved a muscle, which was often for a toddler, the mother’s hand would shoot out to still her. She didn’t look at her daughter, though, just kept her from moving.
God, the poor child. Looking around, I remembered we had a stack of pictures for kids to color and some crayons. I collected the supplies and once the drinks were ready, loaded it all on my tray and carried it over.
“Here you go.” I placed the drinks down, then handed over the picture and the crayons. Bending over next to the little girl, I pointed at my chest. “I’m Heidi, and you are?”
“Ally.” The little girl beamed at me, looking down at the picture and the crayons with big eyes. “Are these for me?”
“They sure are, sweetheart. Want me to show you how to color the picture?”
She nodded, but my next sentence was cut off by the mother’s snide voice. “You’re here to take our order, not to nanny the child.”
The child. She didn’t even call the girl by her name. Red-hot anger swirled in my belly, clawing its way to my chest. I knew I wasn’t the best person in the world. I had my faults and had made mistakes, but if there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was a child being treated badly.
Parents were only people, I knew that. Surely, though, once you became a parent you had to set your own shit aside and do the best you could for your kid? These people couldn’t look at her, call her by her name, or even allow a waitress to try and entertain her so at least she wouldn’t be bored to tears. Assholes.
Unfortunately, the woman was also right. It was, in fact, my job to take their order. I would’ve colored with the kid for free, though. “Sure, what would you like to order?”
They placed their order but seemed to have forgotten about ordering anything for Ally until I took her menu and smiled down at her. “What would you like, sweetheart?”
She glanced between me and her parents. Her mother snapped the kiddie menu out of my hand and cast a quick eye over it. “She’ll have fish and chips. You can bring us some more drinks as well, since it took you so long to get here with the first ones.”
The girl’s lips turned down, telling me that wasn’t actually what she had wanted. Her parents didn’t seem to notice. Once again, they turned back to each other and carried on with their conversation as if they were the only two people in the world.
“Those people over there are such jerks,” I said to Valerie once I’d placed their order.
She lifted an eyebrow, quickly giving me her full attention when she saw how pissed off I was. “What happened?”
I quickly filled her in, watching as that familiar evil gleam crept into her eyes. “Leave it to me. There’s not much we can do for Ally, but we can do something to get back at them just a little.”
As soon as their fresh drinks were ready, Val pulled them closer and checked that the coast was clear before spitting in them. My eyes widened as my hands found my hips. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Just call me karma. They were being bitches to you, and I’m only making sure they get their just desserts.”
My lip curled in disgust, but I picked up the tainted drinks and carried them over. It was gross as hell, but Valerie was right. We couldn’t do anything for that little girl, though, I would’ve taken her home with me right then if I’d thought her parents would let me, but at least we could get in this one little stab.
Another table in my section filled, and after delivering the spittails and taking my new table’s order, I was still thinking about Ally. That poor child was innocent. She hadn’t asked to be conceived, and she hadn’t asked to have those monsters as her parents.
My own parents had never been anything near as rich as Ally’s judging by their clothing, watches, and the brand on their car keys sitting on the table, but at least they’d never ignored me.
I really would have taken that poor girl home with me i
f I could. I might not have known the first thing about being a parent, but I was pretty sure even I would do a better job than they were doing. Val came up to the counter again, placing another order for one of her tables before following my line of sight to Ally.
“She’ll be okay, Heidi. Her parents are assholes, but I doubt she’s in any danger. Maybe they’re just having an off day or did something naughty on the way here and that’s their version of a naughty corner.”
“Maybe.” I doubted it, but I couldn’t honestly tell her that it wasn’t true. “Do you ever think about having kids someday?”
“No fucking way.” Her tone was sure and confident, her shoulders raised and tight. “Absolutely not.”
I took in Ally’s dark-brown hair, her cute button nose, and the way she kicked her feet back and forth. “I wouldn’t mind having a daughter, but I’d never have a child with a man like that.”
“You’re not a woman like that, so of course you wouldn’t,” Val whispered and darted away when the manager looked our way again.
The family stayed for another hour or so, the parents having enough cocktails to make me hope that they weren’t driving their expensive car home. Drinking and driving with a child in the car gave me shivers. The bad kind.
The billfold was lying on their table. I collected it, cursing when I saw that after all that, they’d left me only a few cents as a tip. I scowled at the coins, shaking my head and muttering under my breath. “Fucking rich people.”
Chapter 21
Will
Some ballgame was playing on my TV, but I wasn’t really watching it. It was Friday night and Rayce had invited me out to an exclusive club, but I’d turned him down. Knowing some of the guys he ran with, I wasn’t really in the mood for them.
They were all badass in their regular day-to-day operations, but when they drank too much, they tended to lose ten or fifteen years of maturity. Hours before going out, they could have been doing any manner of illegal deals, and their very names struck fear into the hearts of many.
Fast-forward to when they were all a few drinks in and together at a bar, and they turned into pranksters. I’d woken up once wearing nothing but my underwear, which would have been fine if they hadn’t driven me to a family campground a hundred miles away and dumped me there.
They had a propensity for duct-taping or Saran-Wrapping a person’s entire body, putting hot sauce in your drinks or spray-painting one another’s balls. Hilarious as it could be, I just wasn’t up for it tonight.
Just when I was starting to wonder if I really was an old fart—as Rayce had called me—for not wanting to go out with them, my phone rang. It made me happier than it should have to see Heidi’s name on my screen.
Smiling, I pressed it to my ear after sliding my finger across the green bar. “Hey, you.”
Some godawful noise came through the line before I heard Heidi’s voice, just barely over the terrible rendition of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” in the background. “Hi, Will. What are you doing?”
Her words were slightly slurred, but at least it sounded like she was walking away from whoever was butchering that damn song. “I’m at home. You?”
“Why are you home?” she asked in a singsong kind of voice. She must have stepped into a bathroom or something because the noise was suddenly muted enough for me to hear her properly. “Don’t be at home. You should be here, with us.”
“Where’s here?”
“Uh…” She trailed off, yelled the question loudly, waited for an answer, and then she was back. “Rockin’ Rooster.”
“Rockin’ Rooster?” I racked my brain, but I’d never heard of the place. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a karaoke bar, and it’s fantastic,” she gushed, sounding like she was in that bright-and-shiny, post-tipsy stage when everything in the world was just awesome. Unicorns farting rainbows and all that.
“I don’t really sing, babe. Why don’t we do something together tomorrow?”
“No!” she cried out, and I could imagine her bottom lip sticking out. It was a cute as hell image. “You don’t have to sing. You can just watch us.”
“No, really. I—”
“I made fifty cents in tips today, Will. Drinks are on me. Come on.” Any other person might have been rather disappointed about making only fifty cents in tips for the entire day. Not Heidi, though. She actually sounded a little excited. Definitely the bright-and-shiny stage.
“Okay, sure. I’ll be right there.” I’d have to look up where the hell the place was, but that was why the internet had been created. To give direction to the directionless.
Well, for that and watching porn. Though I didn’t watch it myself all that often, I was pretty sure that directions and porn were the main uses for the internet.
It didn’t disappoint me, directing me to a karaoke bar a couple of miles outside of the girls’ neighborhood. The place looked like a bit of a dump, considering where it was, with blacked-out windows and a flickering neon sign bearing its name, along with the promised rooster.
It surprised me that girls who lived in a house like that in the richest part of town would be caught dead here, but that was what I liked about Heidi and her friends. They were down-to-earth and not the pretentious snobs I might have expected to find in that house.
“Will!” Heidi came barreling toward me as soon as I stepped inside. It looked like she might have been waiting for me near the door. She threw her arms around me, hanging on to me like a sloth to a tree. A very, very cute sloth, though.
My arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close. “Hey. You guys okay?”
“We’re great.” Heidi had to yell the words into my chest to be heard above the racket of another song starting up, then pulled away and looked up at me with big eyes. “Oh, that’s our song. Our table is over there. There’s a pitcher of beer on it. Help yourself. I’ll be back.”
She pointed to a table about halfway between the door and the stage, then ran toward her friends. The opening bars of the song had already started, but they waited for her before traipsing onto the small stage.
The bar was full, but not packed. I slid into a seat at their table and was able to see the stage perfectly. As soon as I heard the song they’d chosen, I groaned and helped myself to that beer Heidi had offered.
Valerie stepped up to the center microphone, trying to sound sultry but sounding croaky instead as she belted out the opening line to “I Will Survive.”
Olive didn’t fare much better, sounding like a cross between someone with a bad cold and a cat being dragged down a highway. She sang the next few bars, batting her eyelashes and swaying slightly.
Even Heidi, as much as I genuinely liked the girl, was not a great singer. If she told me she’d inhaled some helium on the way to the stage, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
As completely and utterly terrible as they sang, I cheered and clapped and whistled for them. The other customers looked at me strangely at first, but then the enthusiasm and obvious personalities of the girls on stage won them over and they started cheering too.
The last notes of the song eventually faded out, but instead of the girls leaving the stage, they exchanged whispers with the DJ and then smiled at the small crowd. They made fools of themselves for two more songs, then Heidi stepped up to the microphone after their rendition of “Firework” ended.
“Okay, guys and gals. We’ve only got one more song for you tonight. Everyone knows that no karaoke night is complete without the ultimate queens, The Spice Girls.”
The crowd burst into applause as the girls struck poses and launched into a very energetic version of “Wannabe.” I had finished my first beer, and even though I wasn’t a little bit tipsy, I was on my feet and shaking my ass along with them.
I felt like an idiot, but the girls seemed perfectly happy making fools of themselves. Cutting loose was looking like fun, and it ended up really being it too. I ordered two more pitchers before they got back to the table, figuring that they wer
e going to be thirsty as all hell after that performance.
The waitress delivered them just as I heard my name being called from the stage. “Will, you’re my hero.”
Valerie had seen the beer being delivered and was practically elbowing people out of the way, trying to get to it. I poured her a glass, holding it up to her as soon as she reached me. “Seriously, if Heidi hadn’t seen you first, I would have jumped you right here and right now.”
With that little tidbit, she chugged the glass of beer and poured another. She was just sitting down when Heidi and Olive reached the table. I’d poured each of them a drink, too, and offered it to them in the same way as I had to Valerie. Both girls followed their friend’s lead before Heidi slid into the seat beside mine.
“Thanks for that. My throat felt like I’d been stuck in the Sahara for three weeks.” She smiled, reached for the pitcher, and refilled her glass.
Another group went up to the stage, men this time, and took it upon themselves to butcher “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” I cringed when the opening notes started, but the girls cheered and clapped, laughing when one of the guys struck a pose.
Turning my attention away from the stage, I smiled at Heidi. “I bet. That was quite the performance you guys put on.”
“It was so much fun. You should definitely do the next song with us.”
I lifted my eyebrows, shaking my head. “Nope. No way. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Oh come on, Will.” Valerie flashed me a grin, pointing her finger at my chest. “Live a little. We won’t record you or anything.”
“Don’t believe her,” Olive warned. “If she’s talking about recording, it’s because she’s already thinking about doing it. Trust me on this one.”
“Lay off him guys.” Heidi moved her chair closer to mine, placing her hand on my thigh. That one gentle touch was all it took to make me supremely aware of the area below my belt. It took everything I had to keep my focus on the conversation going on around me.