Eyes wide, Harper shook her head.
“Those hours felt like a decade because I had no way of knowing if I’d be released or if that was going to be my life from that point on. I try very hard not to think about it because I never want to feel that helpless, that hopeless, again. I understand now that Dieg—Luc wasn’t responsible for what happened to me that night. But it doesn’t make him any less a trigger for those emotions. And in truth? Even if he wasn’t, I can’t see being friends with him—at least not ‘just’ friends, you know? Much as I wish it wasn’t true, we’ve got a chemistry that’s off the grid, and I only have to be around him to find him really, really hard to resist.”
“So why do it?” Harper asked. “I’m not trying to be argumentative, Tasha—I’m merely attempting to understand. If you could get beyond the linked-to-your-imprisonment part, if you could accept that he truly has no connection to what happened to you after he left that night, could you see yourself going for it?”
She shook her head. “No. Even if I did want more with him, what would be the point? I’m not sure I could be casual about a relationship with him. It was incredibly intense just during the two days we spent together in the Bahamas, and God knows I don’t want to be my mother, convinced I’m getting true love when in truth what I’m getting is only short shelf-life sex. Luc is in a dangerous business that takes him to foreign countries for months—maybe even years—at a time. I’m certainly not signing up for something like that. Plus, the last time he and I got together, it took me two years before I even dated again—and three before I had sex with another guy. You think I’m anxious to ever reopen the door for that crap?” Not bloody likely—not when, much to her disgust, he was already the damn gold standard against which she measured other men.
She squared her shoulders. “No,” she repeated firmly. “I know, between renting my studio and his relationship with Jake and Max, that I’ll be running into him a lot while he’s here. And I promise you right now that I won’t do anything to make you all uncomfortable—I’ll play nice when I’m thrown in his company. But the best thing for everyone concerned is for me to keep as much distance between the two of us as I can.”
She picked up her purse. Slinging it across her torso by its long strap, she looked solemnly at Jenny and Harper. “And that, my most excellent friends, is precisely what I intend to do.
“I’m going to stay as far the hell away from Luc Bradshaw as I possibly can.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUC KNEW HE should leave Tasha the hell alone. It was what she obviously desired, and he’d never been one to push himself where he wasn’t wanted. Clearly, while she might want him physically, he sure as hell wasn’t wanted wanted. Not in the whole-package way she once had. She’d all but ripped the welcome mat out from under his feet making that clear.
But even knowing it, he’d managed to hold out for only a few stinkin’ days. He didn’t know what it was about her. In any other situation, with any other chick, he was the damn king of control. Yet when it came to this particular ginger-haired woman...
Friday night he found himself back at Bella T’s ordering a slice—and not to-go this time. Instead he scored the last available table, and luck was clearly on his side, because when he took his seat, he had a direct line of sight into the kitchen.
After the charmingly friendly waitress, Tiffany, walked away, Luc sat back to watch Tasha as she supervised the boy who used to buss—the same teenager she’d stood up for when that other, full-of-himself teen had tripped him up. Jeremy, she’d called him. Apparently she’d promoted him, because the kid was concentrating for all he was worth as he tried to assemble a full-sized pizza and several slices at the same time.
After the first glance, Luc barely spared him another. When it came to commanding his attention, Tasha had more pull than the moon on the tide. And not just this evening, either; she tugged at his awareness anytime she was within sight.
As usual when she worked, she had her hair pulled back, this time in a loose braid. Nothing, however, could quite control that incredible strawberry-blond mass; several of the shorter tendrils had worked their way free to curl around her face and spiral down her neck, and the ones that stayed secured lent wave, texture and size to her plait. Moving around the kitchen like a dancer, she spun from one chore to the next.
Damn. Luc blew out a soft breath, because the woman was just always so...herself. It didn’t matter what she wore, whether it was a T-shirt and jeans, with her narrow hips wrapped in one of her ubiquitous white work aprons like today, or a skimpy little summer dress and killer heels. It didn’t matter what she was doing, either. At the moment, for instance, even as she multitasked her way through her own chores, she talked Jeremy through his training. And a guy didn’t have to actually hear what she was saying to tell she was all easy and low-key and smiling. The teen giving her his earnest attention looked half dazzled.
Luc could sympathize; even after all this time, he remembered how it had felt to be the recipient of all her attention, remembered the way he’d basked in her conversation and her friendly, warm laughter. He, a guy about as far removed from a poetry lover as a man could get, had thought the latter sounded as if it were saturated in sunshine.
Okay, that was beyond embarrassing. Luckily, no one but himself would ever know of it.
Luc’s focus on Tasha abruptly fractured as he became aware of a soft hum of irritability filling the air around him. It reverberated like a beehive that had been disturbed, and he realized the sound had been tugging at his subconscious for a couple of minutes now—even if it was only at this moment, as the buzz grew louder, that it truly sank in. He twisted in his chair to see what was up.
People were stacked up waiting for a table. It wasn’t, he saw as he glanced around, because there weren’t any available. The problem was that there weren’t any clean ones. Spotting Tiffany, who looked a lot less amiable and more frazzled than he’d ever seen her as she delivered an order to someone in the take-out line, he rose from his table and strode over to the short stack of tubs that sat on a small stainless-steel cart at the end of the counter. He picked one up and headed for the nearest table to start clearing up.
From the corner of his eye he saw the girl who’d refused to leave with the little shit who’d tripped up Jeremy when he’d stormed out after Tasha’s set down. She, too, got up from her table and grabbed a tub and began clearing some of the other tables. It surprised him, because she looked like everyone else in that group of affluent kids who came in here. They all had in common soft-skinned hands that looked as if they’d never attended to a chore in their lives.
Then he shrugged, because it just went to show that appearances really could be deceiving.
Tiffany raced up with a sponge seconds later and went to work wiping down the tables they’d cleared. “Thank you, both of you!” she said fervently, and Luc finally figured out what it was, besides the uncharacteristic dip in her sunny personality, that was so different about her. He had never seen her without flawlessly-made-up eyes and perfectly applied lipstick. But at the moment, the former was smudged and the latter was entirely chewed off, a result no doubt of trying to keep up with everything in the front portion of the restaurant by herself.
“Bella is busier than it was the same time last year,” she said. “And, of course, Friday night.” She hitched a plump shoulder as if that last were a no-brainer. “There’s a big void now that Jeremy’s moved into the kitchen.” From one of the pockets in her apron she pulled out flatware that had been rolled in paper napkins. She efficiently laid one out in front of each chair on the now-clean tabletop.
Then she looked up at them again, her expression devoid of its usual effervescence. “You ask me, the sooner we put an ad in the paper for a new busboy, the better.”
* * *
PEYTON VANDERKAMP BLEW out a breath, shook out her hands, then elevated her chin, because that was the only way she got through the hours these days—by making it look as if she was just too c
ool to care what people thought of her. She poked her head into the kitchen, which was now deserted except for Bella T’s proprietor. “Excuse me, Ms. Riordan?”
Of course, her assumed haughtiness often meant people thought she was a bitch, a belief given teeth by the fleeting annoyance that flashed across Tasha Riordan’s face. Peyton’s chin ratcheted a notch higher. Better the other woman thought her a bitch than looked at her as if she was someone who was perpetually terrified that her life was spiraling out of control.
Even if that was a lot closer to the truth.
Then the redhead’s pale eyes warmed. “Peyton Vanderkamp, right?”
Peyton nodded. She’d lived in Razor Bay just over three years, yet still she was occasionally taken by surprise by the way everyone knew at least the minimum about everyone else.
“Tiffany tells me you stepped in to buss the tables when they started stacking up on her.”
“Me and the new Mr. Bradshaw guy.” She shrugged. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Tasha’s eyes cooled considerably. “You want to talk about Luc Bradshaw?”
“No!” Too vehement. She drew in a silent breath and tried to infuse some sophisticated boredom into her expression. “No, not a man.” She attempted a careless laugh but wasn’t at all certain she pulled it off. “God no. The job.”
“What job?”
“Tiffany said you all need to hire a new busboy to pick up the slack for Jeremy’s promotion. I’d like to apply.”
Auburn eyebrows quirked skyward. “You want to be my busboy?”
“Yes. Well, busgirl, I guess.” She squared her shoulders. Looked the other woman in the eye. “I’d like to be your busser, whatever title you give it.”
Tasha considered her for a nerve-racking moment, before she said with soft-voiced finality, “I try to hire kids who need the money.”
She almost walked away then. Almost. But the truth was... “I need the money.”
She’d said it as quietly as she dared, hoping that the few people still in the pizzeria wouldn’t hear. Tasha must have heard her just fine, however, because she said in an equally low voice, “Word around town is the Vanderkamps are— How can I put this delicately?” One shoulder hitched, and her mouth quirked as if to say, Who am I kidding? “Richer than God.”
“And my stepfather is,” she admitted. “But he and my mom are divorcing, and I guess he’s divorcing me, too, because he says I can figure out how to pay for my own college tuition.” She had practice willing back tears, and if she had to swallow the lump in her throat that rose every time she remembered him telling her that—well, that was her secret.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.” Suddenly the woman every teen in Razor Bay thought was so hip and too cool for school went all soft-eyed. “That stinks.”
She had no idea just how much, and Peyton tilted her chin so far up she hoped to hell the fire sprinklers in the ceiling didn’t go off, because she’d drown in seconds flat. “I don’t need your pity!”
“Oh, trust me,” Tasha said flatly, all softness erased. “With your attitude, nobody’s going to pity you.”
And just like that, any possibility of getting the job disappeared. Peyton knew she should have dialed back on her pigheaded pride, but these days it was the only thing she had going for her. “Well, thanks for your time,” she said with stiff politeness. Then, before turning away, she met Tasha’s gaze. “For now, my mom and da—” The word stuck in her throat and she coughed. Cleared her throat. “For now, they’re keeping their problems on the down-low.” She detested the very idea of begging, but God— “I’d appreciate it if word of them didn’t get around.”
“No one will hear about it from me.”
“Okay, then. Thank you.” She turned to go.
“I pay minimum wage, but you get a small cut of Tiff’s tips on top of that, which, trust me, given that she’s probably the best waitress in the known universe, is not small spuds.”
Peyton froze in shock, then slowly twisted around to stare at Tasha over her shoulder. “What?”
The other woman’s brows lifted. “You have a hearing problem to go with that attitude?”
“No. No!” Turning the rest of the way, she smiled—heck, maybe even grinned—for what felt like the first time in months. “Minimum wage, small percentage of the tips. Oh, man.” Remembering the persona she’d built so no one would know how messed up her life had become and dare to feel sorry for her, she reined herself in. Gave the other woman a cool look. “When would you like me to start?”
Tasha just shook her head as if Peyton couldn’t fool a toddler. But all she said was, “You started tonight—figure out how much time you put in and fill it in on your time card tomorrow. We need you more on the dinner shift then, but if you want more hours, you can fill in the lunch shift, as well.”
Two shifts would give her more money and more time to avoid home. Lord knew she tried to do that as much as possible. “I’ll take both.”
“Shift starts at noon, but you should get here a little early. You’ll have paperwork to fill out.” Tasha gave her a sober-eyed once-over. “You strike me as a girl who’s put thought into all your contingencies, so have you considered what that crowd you run with will say when they find you working here?”
Oh, yeah. She knew perfectly well what they were going to say, considering most of the kids who made up her clique, especially the girls, could be snobs to the nth degree. Well, not Marni; Marni was sweet and thought the best of everyone. But peer pressure was tough, so who knew whether her friend would follow the herd? “Yes. Maybe not my working here so much because everyone thinks you’re pretty hot stuff, so that could go either way. They might think bussing is beneath me or they might find it too kitschy for words and start hounding you to give them jobs they can play at.”
She shoveled her fingers through her hair and blew out a breath. “It’s the minute they find out I’m no longer a part of their income bracket that’s gonna kill me with that crowd. I don’t have real high hopes in that regard.” Or any, truly. She shrugged, as if pretending she didn’t give a great big rip would actually make it true. “Not much I can do about it, either way.”
“True,” Tasha agreed. “And if you don’t listen to any other advice I ever give you, listen to this.” The exotic-looking woman stared her in the eye. “Screw ’em if they don’t support you. When times are tough, you find out very quickly who your real friends are. I know this probably doesn’t help, because you no doubt think I don’t remember the way it was in school—but I promise you, I can summon up those days like that!” She snapped long fingers. “I only had a few friends then and only one real honest-to-God through-thick-and-thin-type friend. If you have your one bestie, then, girl, nurture that friendship. Don’t lie to her and don’t do that pretending-everything-is-cool thing you do, if in fact it’s not. Because if you’re real with your friend, she’ll likely be the same with you. And real friends do make the assholes not matter so much.”
Peyton stared at her. How could Tasha read her so easily? Looking at the tall strawberry blonde, she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that there was a time when this woman, so assured, so together and easy in her own skin, had to struggle through shit in school. “I find it hard to believe you didn’t have many friends.”
“Please. This town is peanut-sized—you can’t tell me you haven’t heard stories of my mother.”
She had, of course, but wanted desperately to say, “No, ma’am. Can’t say that I have.” But thinking of her instructions not to pretend, she nodded. “It’s true—I have. So I guess if high school when you went was anything like it is now, there were probably a lotta people who reminded you of her reputation every day.”
“Yeah, there were—and the hierarchy was the same, so a lot of them were from a group like yours that thought status was the be-all and end-all. And I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy being made fun of or reviled for something I had no control over. But when Jenny Salazar came to town i
n our sophomore year, we just clicked, and it changed everything. It was amazing how much easier it made putting up with crap like that. Do you have anybody you can lean on?”
“Maybe. I won’t know for sure until I see what she does when the other girls in the clique I hang with turn their backs on me.” Marni was already on the fringes of the group, so Peyton supposed she couldn’t really blame her friend if she turned away with the rest of them. She’d hate it, but she’d try not to blame her for it.
Because truth was, she couldn’t say with 100 percent certainty what she would have done before her own life crumbled around her. She’d like to think she’d have had empathy if their positions were reversed.
But maybe she was just fooling herself. Maybe she would have been the biggest bitch of all.
Leaving Bella T’s minutes later, she decided to do the rip-the-Band-Aid-off thing and find out where she stood sooner rather than later. She’d tell Marni the truth and see where it led her.
She knew she was taking a chance, because if Marni spread her parents’ troubles around, Peyton would lose her standing even sooner than she anticipated. But she was going to take a page out of the Tasha Riordan playbook and go with the truth. It was probably better to know one way or the other anyway instead of waiting around for the other shoe to drop.
As she climbed into her car, a sudden awful thought hit her. What if her dad—?
Pain shot through her. Matt, she meant—she had to get it through her head once and for all that he didn’t want to be her dad anymore. But as she drove over to Marni’s, she wondered if Matt would take her car back. It had been her sixteenth-birthday present, but the way everything else was upside down these days, who knew? She sure hoped not, though, because now more than ever she was going to need it to get to work.
To her surprise, those two simple words were like an analgesic balm to the open wound that was the past several months. To work. She had a job. She doubted it would turn out to be her life’s work, but she was excited about it. Bella T’s was a popular place staffed with interesting people.
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