by J. D. Light
Copyright © 2018 J.D. Light
Cover Art by www.coversbyjess.com
Chapter One
Purdy. Something about this place felt safe. Like an aura of protection surrounded it. After almost six months of running, I just wanted to find a place I didn't have to pack up and leave in the middle of the night.
Not that there was a lot to pack up.
I looked around the interior of my super old, beat up car. My belongings literally amounted to the neatly sorted clothing I'd bought at thrift stores along the way, taking up two small boxes in the backseat, a couple thin blankets I thankfully wasn't in need of now that summer was in full swing, and a bag of grooming and hygiene tools.
And of course, this barely running car.
I'd worked three weeks in the same place, terrified every day that I was going to be found while living in a homeless shelter, and barely eating enough to keep me alive so I could buy the five hundred dollar hunk of junk.
But I was used to starving. They'd barely fed me at all. And it sure made getting up and running a lot easier when you didn't have to wait on a bus.
And now I had a place to curl up and sleep.
So far, Purdy had been very surprising. I didn't usually hide out in small towns. Too few people to remain inconspicuous. Especially for someone like me. But Purdy was different.
Maybe it was the numerous gay couples I'd seen strolling down the road, holding hands. The fact that not only did nobody seem to hassle them, but that people like my boss Bunny, seemed to take care of them all like they were family.
I unfolded myself from my car, groaning a little when I straightened. I was only eighteen and a half. My body shouldn't be hurting so much. But I guess that's what happened when you'd had multiple broken bones in a span of twelve years, and were sleeping in the driver's seat of your car every night.
Walking into the back, I stopped to clock into the digital system Bunny said took its dear, sweet, fucking time getting here, and smiled shyly at the cute redhead who was in the middle of tying his apron and yawning.
"Hi, Rory," Ridley said, rubbing his eye. "Bunny told me to tell you to eat a fucking pastry, and if you don't I'm supposed to shove it down your throat. I'm not the violent type, so would you please just eat the fucking pastry?"
He was grinning, and I couldn't help but giggle and roll my eyes. "She doesn't have to make me breakfast every morning."
"Bennett won't let her fuss at him anymore since he's all growed up and mawwied," Ridley said, clearly mocking his best friend while rubbing a hand over his strangely, slightly swollen belly.
I'd noticed it before. How his belly was oddly bubbled out for such a slim guy. Almost like a pregnant woman. But it wasn't like it took away from the guy's adorableness at all.
Strangely added to it.
Smiling at the idea of Ridley all round with child, and just how amazingly precious that sight would be, I spun, grabbing the pastry Bunny had set aside on a plate especially for me, and biting into it, making Ridley nod before turning back to his station.
Once chewed and swallowed, I grabbed my own apron and headed out to the front to start pulling chairs down from tables.
By the time I'd managed to get all the condiments and napkin dispensers back on the tables, Ridley was unlocking the front door, smiling as his boyfriend, Bennett and Ronny came in.
Bennett and Ronny came in almost every morning. Flynn always joined them on the days Ridley opened, and usually, Bennett and Ronny's boyfriends would show up about fifteen minutes behind them.
Thompsyn would be grumpy and scowling, which I learned was his natural state. Sutton would breeze in like a cloud of flower smelling energy, smiling and greeting everyone, before plopping right in the middle of Ronny's lap.
They always took the large table in the center of everything, leaving seats for the occasional additions.
I headed over, pulling out my order pad, even though after a week of working here, I knew their orders by heart.
The door opened again, and I expected it to be Thompsyn or Sutton, or even Burke and Foster. The latter two, I had learned, were actually really nice men. Even if the blonde with the glasses had initially made me feel a bit uncomfortable with how he had looked openly horrified at the scarring on my face.
Or maybe that had been because he was sitting with the most gorgeous, chocolate skinned hottie, I had ever seen in my life. And that the beautiful man had been looking at me like I was the source of all that was wrong with the world.
Burke and Foster did enter the diner…followed by the big, bald, black man I'd been having super naughty dreams about since the first time I'd seen his angry face.
They made it to the table to sit down, just as I reached Flynn and raised my pen to the pad, trying desperately to ignore how tingly my body felt and how self-conscious I was, knowing that my hair was pulled back and therefore wouldn't sweep forward to hide my ugly face.
Bunny had told me the day she hired me on, that I'd have to keep my hair tied back if I was going to wait tables. That had been hard at first, since I tended to hide behind the long fall of dark brown hair, but one I'd grown used to over this last week, strangely not feeling like I needed to hide in this town.
Until now.
I tried to keep the disgusting, puckered side of my face from pointing in the direction of the big man, but when I rounded the table, working toward where he sat, it was impossible without having to spin my head around completely on my shoulders.
When I made it to him, I refused to look up and see the disgust on his face. I had to fight not to run and hide. "And what can I get you?" My voice was nothing more than a choked whisper, and I swallowed, hoping that would help with the tightness in my throat.
"Hello, Pretty Angel." His deep voice sent a warm shudder through my body, making my heart stumble.
I let my eyes slide in his direction, needing to know whom he was talking to. Deep, melt-your-panties brown eyes were staring up at me, clearly waiting on me to acknowledge him.
"Uh. Me?" I squeaked. He couldn't be talking to me. One, I wasn't pretty in the least. And two, just a week ago, this man had glared me down like I personally insulted his mother.
He smiled, making my breath catch at his perfectly straight, white teeth contrasting so beautifully against his lusciously dark skin. "Of course."
Of course? Was he making fun of me? I'd dealt with a lot since breaking free of my would-be parents. Hell, I'd dealt with even more while under their care. But most people who saw me avoided the subject of my scars. They definitely didn't mock my appearance like that.
Swallowing again, I choked down the lump in my throat and blinked back the prick of tears in the corner of my eyes. "What can I get you?"
I couldn't afford to be rude. Even if the man wasn't about five times my size and capable of snapping my spine with his pinky. Even if I did suddenly grow a set of balls the size of that pastry Ridley had been forced to force on me. I was the outsider here. I couldn't draw negative attention to myself in a place where I had nobody at my back.
Not that there was ever anyone at my back.
Bennett reached over and laughingly punched the man in the shoulder. "Suddenly not as charming as you thought you were, huh? He'll take a coffee, Rory."
"And an orange juice," the guy said, bringing my attention back around to him. He was watching me, confusion and possibly irritation written there in the line between his pulled together eyebrows.
Nodding, I wrote it down and put the pad and pen back in my front pocket. I scrambled away from the table, trying not to take it personally when someone said something and the entire table laughed.
Ducking into the hallway, I shakily started getting the drink orders ready an
d on a tray, occasionally sloshing the liquid as I moved along.
Poking his head out of the side kitchen door, Ridley looked at me with concern. "You okay, Ror?"
Keeping my head down, I nodded. Like I was going to tell him that his boyfriend's friends were making fun of me. Ridley was always nice to me, and I'd started to relax tremendously around him and Bunny, but nobody liked it when you talked bad about their partners.
"Rory?" There was an undercurrent of warning in his voice. "Tell me what's wrong."
I don't know why, but his tone had my eyes snapping to his pretty whiskey colored ones. "I just…I think they were making fun of me. It's fine though. I can handle it."
Ridley blinked at me in shock for a moment. "Them?!" He pointed toward the dining area, knowing as well as I did, that there was still only one occupied table at the moment. "What did they say?"
Flynn came around the corner, quickly, grabbing Ridley's shoulders as he looked like he was about to march out there, cutting knife still in hand. "Whoa, my little gingerbread boy. What have I told you about the knives? If you can't walk across the kitchen without causing a plate avalanche, then you can't walk with knives."
"Who was making fun of him, Flynn?" Ridley demanded, balling his fist and jamming it down on his hip when his man pried the knife from him. "I'll fucking stab them."
"You remember when you were against violence?" Flynn's voice was calm, and his mouth was smiling softly at the man he clearly loved. "Nobody was making fun of Rory. Just the opposite. Green failed hilariously trying to talk to Rory, and we were making fun of him." He turned to me with an apologetic smile on his face. "I'm sorry if you thought we were making fun of you, Rory. We would never do that."
Suddenly, the air left the hallway, as a wide-eyed black man came to stand behind Flynn. He was watching me with such intensity, I couldn't help but shake a little.
Flynn pushed Ridley back into the kitchen, still not giving him the knife until he was safely behind the cutting board.
Being left alone with a man I'd fantasized about all week, but still didn't have the name of, I spun back to the drinks, cringing when I realized I'd already finished the orders and so had nothing to do with my hands.
"Pretty Angel?" His deep voice so close, made me gasp. "Can I talk to you?"
Taking a deep breath, I turned, again finding those intense brown eyes watching me. "Do you need something else, sir?"
"Green."
Uh. What? "I'm sorry? Do you need something green?"
"I'm Green. My name!" He yelled the last part, making me jump a little. Sighing, he reached up and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "My name is Green. Green Wilkes."
"Oh. Okay. Can I get you something else, Mr. Wilkes?" I picked up the tray, needing to get the coffees out before they cooled too much.
He moved aside to let me pass. "You can call me Green."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just kept moving.
He followed me. Why was he following me?
Keeping my head tilted down, so to not make eye contact with any of the people who may, or may not have been laughing at me, I made my way around the table, dropping off drinks. Moving the tray under my arm, I again fished out my pad.
"Is everyone ready to order?" Keeping my eyes mostly on my pad, only glancing up to make sure I knew who was talking to me, I jotted down everyone's order, including Sutton and Thompsyn's when they showed up halfway through.
I had been aware the whole time of Green making his way back around the table and finally sitting down. He watched me the entire time I took orders, and when it was time to take his, I didn't even glance up, not sure what I'd find in those beautiful eyes.
"What about you, sir?"
"I'll tell you if you call me Green." That voice. It had the power to completely melt my insides. I almost looked up.
"Uh, Green. What would you like this morning?"
The man made the oddest sound. Something between a groan and a cough, and just for a second, I thought he might have choked on something. Snapping my head up, I was in motion, ready to do the Heimlich maneuver on his big ass, but when I took in his expression, it was something I didn’t recognize.
His mouth was dropped open and his face relaxed. The dark pools of his eyes seemed impossibly darker, and as he watched me stutter step and finally draw up short, his tongue flicked out over his plump bottom lip.
I swallowed, hoping like hell my light complexion wasn't giving away that my entire body just lit up like a match to gasoline.
Clearing my throat, I tried again. "Green? Your order?"
"Fuck!" Green barked, rubbing a hand down his face.
"That's not on the menu," Bennett said, making the entire table laugh. "I thought you were a genius. You kinda look like you've had a lobotomy, right now."
Frowning, I shot a look at the blonde, whose mouth always seemed to be running. For some inexplicable reason, I was feeling a tad protective of the big guy. Which made absolutely no sense, considering less than five minutes ago, he'd been making fun of me.
Green's lovely, milk chocolate skin darkened, but a cocky grin split his handsome face. "That's strange. I was sure your mom put that on the menu for me yesterday."
"I'm so tellin' Bunny you said that," Burke said, wagging a finger at Green. "She's gonna break a plate over that big, bald head of yours."
Green opened his mouth to say something else, but Foster held up a hand, shaking his head. "The one on your shoulders."
I felt a giggle bubble out of me, and suddenly, I was the center of attention.
Green was looking at me with that face again. The one Bennett called his lobotomy face. Only this time, there was a dancing light in his eyes and a small smile on his dropped open mouth.
Clearing my throat, I blinked, and then looked back down at my pad. "Your order?"
"I'll take two waffles and the Leaping Leopard special––"
The Leaping Leopard was ordered by the giant members of this group more often than not. I had no idea where the name came from, especially since it was literally the only thing on the menu that was animal themed, and basically consisted of large amounts of bacon, sausage, ham, eggs and toast. Basically, it was a heart attack waiting to happen, and all these men who seemed to be in amazing shape lived off of it.
"Eggs over medium," Green continued. "And I think I want one of those strawberry pastries."
Nodding, I finished jotting down his order, and then I collected the menus.
As I was walking past Green to go put the order in, he reached out and caught my forearm. I gasped, not from fear like I normally would if somebody touched me, but from the heat that instantaneously swept through my body.
"Thank you, Pretty Angel," he said, smiling up at me with a grin I didn't understand.
I flinched, turning my head away, and jerking my arm out of his grasp, before speed walking back to the hallway to put up the tray and menus, and put the order in the system.
I'd almost felt normal for a few minutes. I knew I was just an outsider looking in on the close-knit group, but I honestly couldn't remember the last time I'd actually giggled. Or felt anything but fear and pain, really.
It would have been over twelve years ago. Before I watched my mother be brutally murdered by monsters and then abducted by them. Back before I knew the horror of what being a prisoner of crazed beings, who were both man and beast, and enjoyed torture and pain, was like.
This time when Ridley poked his head out the side door after I finished entering all the orders, I faked a smile. "I'm going to run to the restroom, okay Rid? I'll be right back."
"Sure," the redhead said, clearly concerned. "I've already started most of the orders because I knew what I was probably going to be dealing with." He grinned a little. "It shouldn't be much longer."
Nodding, I strode a little further down the hallway and slipped into the bathroom, basically running to the sink and turning on the cold water. I splashed my face a couple times, hoping I didn't throw
up the pastry Bunny had forced Ridley to force on me.
Drying my face, I stopped to slowly run the tips of my fingers along the four deep scars running vertically down my face. They were uglier than they had to be. But Brian refused to have them stitched for fear he'd get in trouble.
They'd given me dog antibiotics that had been left over from when the dog had gotten caught on a barbwire fence. But only when the infection in my face had made me so sick I was on the verge of dying.
They couldn't let me die, even when I begged them to.
I was going to give them special babies.
The scars could have been worse, I guess. At least he'd missed my eye.
The door behind me opened, and I jerked my hand away from my face, catching Green's gaze in the mirror. Averting my eyes, I dropped the paper towels in the trash and tried to rush around him.
He stopped me, by standing in front of me, bringing his giant hand up to run the tip of his index finger along the worst of the scars. The one that curved slightly around my nose and slashed through both my top and bottom lips.
I stood there in shock as he followed his finger with his eyes, staring at my mouth when he was done.
"Pretty Angel," he whispered.
Jerking back, I stepped out of his reach, moving around him toward the door. "Please stop making fun of me," I said, looking down at my hand on the doorknob, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice. "I haven't done anything to you."
Green gasped. "I'm not––"
I hurried out, not wanting to hear what he had to say. I'd had enough for the day.
Chapter Two
"––Making fun of you." I finished, even though I knew he couldn't hear me anymore.
Rory thought I was making fun of him. That broke my heart like I hadn't realized something could.
Finally getting my shit together, I left the bathroom, not surprised to see that Rory wasn't standing in the hall.
When I passed the counter, up front, Rory was busy pulling the syrups from the warmer, and placing them on the tray with the jellies, butter and more creamer for coffees. He glanced up, but looked away quickly, making my heart seize all over again.