He's Back: A Second Chance Romance

by Aria Ford

  “Here’s another tip,” she said conspiratorially, “undo two more buttons. Here, try my eyeliner. Bathroom’s over there. If you look a little sexy, the tips are better. I don’t mean give anyone a lap dance—your eyes just got so big! What did you think I was telling you to do?” She laughs, but I don’t mind.

  I put on eyeliner and scrub my hands. The table is set and two men arrive, obviously brothers, dark haired and expensive looking. These men are obviously wealthier than the clientele I’m used to at Benito’s. We get some finance bros once in a while, but it’s mostly a family place. I grab a clean towel and polish the water glasses out of habit and fill them. I glance at Heather who nods for me to go ahead and take the water out.

  “Good evening,” I say. Suddenly I don’t know if I’m supposed to introduce myself like I do at my day job or if I’m supposed to try to be invisible like those servants in old movies.

  One of the men nods. I place his water glass carefully and notice that his suit is very fine. The lapels are unusually narrow and quite beautiful. I study them, trying to guess the designer, when I notice that I’m staring and he’s looking right down my top. I want to pull my shirt closed but I remind myself I’m working in a different arena tonight. Heather said this was how you got better tips. Judging by the way he’s smiling at me, predatory and a little slimy, I could get a big tip out of this. Or else I’ll wish I’d brought my pepper spray. I didn’t think I’d need it in this part of town, but men are men everywhere you go, I guess.

  In the kitchen, Heather is assembling salads made of so many shades of deep green, purple, and red leaves, arranging them artfully enough to be a flower bouquet instead of just a salad. They’re so pretty I want to take a picture of one, and I tell her so. She laughs and says she’ll show me how to put everything together while the cook is finishing the soup.

  “It’s not a sous chef gig, but you learn a lot about presentation when you work for Marilyn. She’s a total genius, and the way everything’s served on a plain black dish, matte not shiny—it just looks sophisticated. You’ll start to think other people’s food is ugly,” Heather tells me.

  “He’s here,” the wine steward says.

  I wonder who ‘he’ is. The host, I guess. Maybe someone famous. It would be so cool to meet a celebrity on my first banquet job. Not that I could tell anyone because confidentiality was part of the contract I signed as a part timer for EA. I can do this. I’ve waited tables for a while now, and I’ve never dropped a single coffee cup. I have good balance and nice manners. I tell myself I’ll be fine.

  Heather takes the new arrival a glass of water and greets him. I wait with the salads. When she nods to me, I bring them on a tray.

  I am not fine. Not. Fine.

  There are not real people who look like that. There aren’t even actors on TV who look like that. The only people who look like this man exist solely in Photoshopped ads of luscious, muscled godlike men emerging shirtless from the surf in ads for designer cologne. And they’re Photoshopped. They’re not really real. This man—I swear I look up at the lighting to see if there’s something funny about it that might make someone look more attractive than mere mortals. I mean heavenly. Like a perfectly formed archangel, but a dirty one who might have tattoos and a motorcycle.

  My knees are shaking.

  He hasn’t even looked at me yet. I’ve only seen him from the side. But he’s so gorgeous. Dark hair swept back from a high forehead. Perfectly chiseled nose and jaw, a full, sensual mouth. He has beautiful hands, I see, as he gestures when he speaks. I want to fall on my knees. I am pretty sure I would shamelessly do anything he asked me to.

  I can’t drop this tray.

  Am I still holding the tray?

  Did I remember to bring the tray? Or did I just wander over to the table without it like a psychopath because I saw him from a distance and moved toward him like he was a magnet and I was a really stupid scrap of metal?

  I tear my eyes away from him very reluctantly and notice that I do have a tray of salads in my hand. I have also stopped walking so I could stare at him. I guess that’s a little less humiliating than getting right up in his face to see what color his eyes are. They’re blue. I’m betting on blue.

  This place is all red and black, velvet and plush, so lavish and sensual. He seems at home here. Like it’s the perfect frame for him.

  Oh, Christ.

  He turned and looked at me. It knocked the breath right out of me. He is too beautiful to be here, in a room with me and a lot of other regular humans. It crosses my mind that he might be a vampire. Weren’t vampires supernaturally handsome in that one movie? I start to laugh at myself but it comes out as a snort.

  I snorted. In front of this total sex god.

  I consider dumping the tray on the table and running out. It couldn’t be much worse than snorting on the embarrassment scale. I try to pull myself together. I serve the other two men first, just so I can look across the table at him longer. Then when I get to him, I make sure to square the plate perfectly between the utensils. All of a sudden, I tip it too far, and I see Heather’s hand dart out just in time to keep me from giving this man a lap full of salad greens and dressing. My eyes about pop out of my head when he looks at me. I pull my hand back as if I’ve been burned. I almost dropped food on him. Of all the people I’ve waited on who maybe were jerks and deserved to have food spilled on them, this was the one time I got clumsy. Of course. Because the snort wasn’t bad enough. I’m also incompetent now.

  Back in the kitchen, Heather assures me it’s fine. “I know he’s a pretty thing, but you have to keep your cool.”

  “I can’t. I go stupid when I see him.”

  “I noticed.”

  She takes a bathroom break, and I stand at the doorway to the kitchen waiting to see when they’re finished with the salad so I can clear it away and bring soup. Or beg Heather to bring the soup so I don’t give the hot guy third degree burns when I spill it all over him.

  The men are arguing but I’m not eavesdropping. It’s just pretty hard to miss when the shorter guy, Nice Lapels, drops a loud goddammit, Griffin. Heather comes back and crooks an eyebrow at me in question. I shrug, not knowing what they’re arguing about. I ask her to take the soup and she fortunately does. I’m loafing around, polishing wine goblets when I hear a chair overturn. I look out to see what happened, and it looks like Nice Lapels stormed off, maybe to the bathroom or maybe to leave. I go back to my goblets and wait for Heather to return and give me the gossip.

  Nice Lapels peeks into the kitchen, “Excuse me, miss,” he says, nice as can be, “I have a problem, could you…?”

  I set down the glass I’m wiping and go with him into the hallway. I hope there’s not a problem. Long blond hair in the salad is what I’m guessing. I touch my ponytail self-consciously.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask. “I’m sure we can fix it—”

  Then his mouth is on mine, and I’m pinned against a wall. It’s the dim hallway outside the bathroom. I push against him, but he’s really strong. I can’t decide if I should kick him in the nuts. I want to, but I’m for sure losing this job if I do. Maybe he’s drunk or he thinks I was coming onto him with the unbuttoned buttons on my shirt. I struggle and twist and push against him. Nothing works. I can feel his teeth. His tongue is in my mouth and his hands are yanking my shirt open. I turn my head as hard as I can and try to scream. He slams his hand over my mouth, pinning my head to the wall. I feel hot panic in me and start to cry. He’s going to rape me. I know it. This is going to hurt. It’s going to go on forever and there’s nothing I can do. He may kill me if I fight. He may kill me anyway. I should have kneed him in the balls when I had the chance. I cry. His hand is really hurting my jaw. He’s groping around in my bra now, and I just sob. I scratch at him and kick, but it’s no use. He’s going to do this right here in the hall, with people in the other room talking like nothing’s wrong.

  Maybe Heather will come looking for me. Probably not. She’ll think I went
to pee just like she did five minutes ago. God, that seems like it was hours ago, a different life. A life where some creep didn’t just rip the button off the nice slacks my mom got me when she was alive and I was in college and I was safe. This is my worst nightmare right here.

  My brain stops the loop of what might happen, seizes up and just lasers in on the word no. No. No. He’s jerking my pants down. He has his dick out. How did he do that and still hold on to me? If I throw up will he let me go? Or will he hurt me worse? I’m so scared that I’m shaking, my legs and arms jerking involuntarily like my body is just shutting down, and I can’t even control it anymore. I’m crying so hard I can’t see. He’s got his hand around my throat. I could try to scream, but he’d just choke me, and I’m more afraid of not being able to breathe than I am of not getting help. I’m gasping already.

  He slams my head on the wall. I don’t know why. It hurts and everything seems to tilt and sway. I kind of wish he’d knock me out—his hand is on my throat again and then—he’s gone. Gone? His weight is off me, the punishing rough hands, the cruel rictus smile that showed his perfect teeth. He’s gone.

  Without him pinning me to the wall, I sink to the floor. My legs can’t hold me. I choke out a sob, surprised I can make any sound at all. I clutch my shirt around me. I see where he is now. Someone’s slamming him into the wall. Someone’s holding him by the throat. Nice Lapels/Rapist is getting his ass kicked. I want to cheer, but mainly I want to crawl far away from here and hide. I’m still shaking, still scared. I can’t look away. It’s the handsome man, Griffin. He’s saving me.

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t beat your ass like the nasty little punk you are, Simpson?” He punctuates his words by bashing the man against the wall again.

  Simpson, which is apparently Nice Lapels/Rapist’s name, can’t give a reason since he’s gagging and coughing and can’t probably talk with Griffin’s hand around his neck like that. I rub my neck in memory of the way he was cutting off my air just a minute ago. Swiftly, Griffin has turned him around, shoved him back against the wall and managed to punch him in the kidney. That seems to hurt like hell if the sound Simpson makes is any indication. I wince a little.

  “You will never, ever lay your hands on a woman like that again, do you hear me? You will apologize to the server you just molested in the bathroom hallway. You will apologize to your brother for being a filthy piece of shit. Come on,” Griffin yanks him from the wall and turns him to face me.

  I scrabble away, still on the ground, not wanting him near me. Griffin doesn’t seem to notice me.

  “I said apologize,” Griffin says through gritted teeth and seems to do something to Simpson’s arm that makes him want to cooperate.

  “I—I—I—I—I’m sorry,” he babbles, looking at me with just as much contempt as he had when he was ripping my shirt open. I am a thing to him, not a human. He only says sorry because Griffin was hurting him. I just want to be far away from there.

  “You, up,” Griffin says to me, “You okay? Get up.”

  I nod, but I don’t quite make it. He shoves Simpson away and reaches down. I shy away from him and pull myself up by leaning on the wall. I hold my ruined shirt together, wonder if I should go back and look for the buttons. He takes my arm, leads me to the table. Oh God. I have to face these people who hired the caterers. The brother who wasn’t in on any of this. I shut my eyes and just let Griffin propel me forward.

  “Randy, I think your brother would like to tell you something. But first, I want to. He was attempting to rape a member of the catering waitstaff. Isn’t that right, Simpson? When I heard the whimper and went to see what was going on, he had this young woman pinned against the wall, ripping her clothes off. Before you say it wasn’t what it looked like, he had his dick out.”

  “Christ, Simpson!” Randy said, getting to his feet, “Is she okay? Are you okay, young lady? I’m sure you’re terrified. I’m so sorry for what my brother did to you. Do you need medical attention? We can have an ambulance here in minutes.”

  I shook my head mutely. The last thing I wanted was to be examined.

  “Please,” I said, backing away. Griffin held my arm.

  “Simpson, empty your wallet. You’re going to give whatever you have to this young woman to replace the clothing you shredded in your disgusting display of violence. Randy, you’re going to leave a very big tip after you sign this contract. You will also swear to me on your brother’s worthless life that you will make sure he never goes near this girl again. If he does, I will kill him. Do I make myself clear?”

  Randy nods, scrawls his name on a legal document, and passes the pen to his brother, who has dumped a lot of folded money on the table and is cowering in a chair. I don’t even want to look at him. He’s disgusting to me. If Griffin would let go of my arm, I could leave, damn him. He saved me, and I’m damning him internally right now because I want to hide. I want to be by myself somewhere away from all these people looking at me. Heather has come out to see what the commotion is, but I wave her away. She goes back to the kitchen. I don’t want her seeing me like this. Every person who knows just makes this worse.

  “I know that this in no way makes up for the pain and indignity you’ve suffered at my brother’s hands,” Randy says to me, taking money from his own wallet. I shake my head, stumble backward.

  “I don’t want it!” I say, and run.

  I’m out the back door in the quiet of the alley when I realize I’ve left my purse in the kitchen. I can’t even get a bus home without it. I slink back to the kitchen and snag my purse, swatting Heather’s hands away as she tries to detain me and ask questions.

  “I’m sick,” I say because it’s all I can think of.

  I’m crying again, if I ever stopped.

  In the alley I dig blindly through my purse for a safety pin. I have to get my blouse fastened together. It’s ruined, but I can’t go home on the bus like this, like the walk of shame or worse. I keep dragging air into my lungs in big icy gulps. It’s not even that cold outside, but my insides feel hollowed out, and I’m still weak and shaky. If I had a safety pin, if I had some strong coffee with lots of sugar I think I’d be okay. As for now, I just lean back against the brick wall and let myself sag for a minute. I don’t have a safety pin, but I have privacy, room to breathe before I pull myself together.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Griffin

  She’s gone out the back. The blond waitress, the one Simpson was hurting in the hallway.

  The truth is, I wanted to kill him. My instinct when I saw him set upon her like that, his hand on her throat, his other hand digging at her clothes like a crazed animal—my instinct was to drag him off her and kill him. Just to keep hitting him, pounding him until he was nothing but a spatter across a crime scene.

  I can’t believe I held it together and managed to leave him standing. Not that he deserved it, but I don’t need a homicide on my already blotted conscience. I could so easily have killed him, and I wanted to. It shakes me to the bone to admit that.

  But for now I’m going to find her, put her in a car, and get her home safely. It’s the least I can do. I don’t say a word to anyone. I just stalk out the back way to the alley. She’s there. I feel the breath I’d been holding release. Was I worried? I think I was.

  The girl is drooping against the wall, phone in her hand, head tipped back like she’s trying to catch her breath.

  “There you are,” I say.

  “No. I don’t—I don’t want money. I don’t want to be paraded around as exhibit A. Here’s the poor waitress that Nice Lapels roughed up in the hall.” She sort of chokes it out, and I wonder for a second what she’s talking about and whose lapels. She must mean Simpson.

  “Did it—you’re hurt, aren’t you?” I can feel the rage that’s been seething in me start to course to the surface.

  She shakes her head. Then she starts pulling on her shirt trying to hold it closed. It makes my chest hurt. I go to her without even thinking. I can’t help myself
. I take her arm. She looks at me, but she’s not scared. She lets me hold her. She just folds into my arms, fits up against my chest and lays her head there. I feel her relax against me, and she’s shaking a little. I can’t believe she’s letting me do this, letting me hold her, envelope her. She’s small. I have to lean down a little so I can put my chin right on top of her head. When I feel how little she is, I see red again, because Simpson went after her and didn’t have any trouble holding her down so he could hurt her.

  I never want to let anyone hurt her again.

  I don’t actually know this person. I try and tell myself it’s because I have a little sister, because I don’t want anybody treating Gina that way so I’m comforting this stranger and making sure she’s safe. But I’m just lying to myself. This feels nothing like my baby sister. I feel kind of shitty that I’m turned on right now. That holding this frightened woman against my chest feels so right that the heat of desire rolls through me. I want to protect her just as much as I want to make her mine.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, “no one’s going to hurt you.”

  I need her to know that, to know I’m not like him, like that sewer rat who put his hands all over her. It makes me sick. I’m also glad it’s not my brother who did such a thing. I swear I’d stick him in some kind of rehab until he was seventy. Lock him up where he couldn’t hurt anyone. Then I’d tell everyone he was dead, because I was ashamed of what a piece of shit he was. I’m getting angry again just thinking about him. Just feeling how vulnerable she is, how vulnerable it must be to be a woman walking around knowing that anytime you’re working or eating or shopping, this could just happen. Some man may decide to grab you and use you like an object. You’d think since I have a sister I would’ve thought of this, but it’s not the kind of thing I think about, I guess until I saw the live show right up close. This is probably not even the first time someone’s done this to her, I think with a cold wash of horror.