“Here you go.” He hands me a personal check covered in chicken scratch.
“What’s this?”
“I’m giving you a bonus. You’ve been here a year. You’ve busted your ass. Picked up overtime when no one else wants to. You do good work. Probably one of my best. Shit, Royal, you are my best.” He folds his arms, tucking his tatted, meaty knuckles beneath his armpits and shrugging. “I know you’ve been saving up to paint that Challenger. This ought to cover the paint. You can use my shop and my tools after hours.”
I fold the check and stick it in my back pocket.
“Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.”
Rod waves me off. “All right. Now get to work.”
“Where you hurrying off to, Royal?” Pandora tries to stop me on my way out the door at seven. “Got a hot date?”
“Something like that.”
“Aw.” She pouts and saunters around the front desk. “Can’t blame your work wife for wanting to keep tabs on you.”
“You’re not my work wife. I don’t even think that’s a thing.”
“It’s definitely a thing.” She sticks a pointed finger in the corner of her mouth. The nail’s painted black. I think she’s trying to be sexy, but it’s gross. This shop is fucking filthy, and half the men here don’t wash their hands after they piss. Pandora stands before me, her hands draped on my shoulders. “We’re the only ones here. What do you say we take five and lock ourselves in the back room? I’m wearing my favorite hot pink thong with the princess crown on it. Just for you . . .”
I take her by the wrist and guide her off of me. “Not tonight.”
And not ever again.
“Fine. Guess I’ll go back to fucking Daryl.” Pandora holds up a pinky finger and wiggles it, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. “You’d think a big guy like him would be packing. It’s a shame, really. I think that whole big hands, big feet thing is an old wives’ tale.”
“I don’t want to hear about Daryl’s cock.”
“Why? You jealous? You don’t want to think about him laying on top of me, all sweaty, his hard dick going in and out of this sweet pussy you love so much.”
“Stop. Don’t do this. You’re making yourself look pathetic.”
“You are jealous.”
I’m officially convinced that Pandora’s social intelligence lies somewhere at the bottom of the spectrum.
“I gotta go.” I push the front door. The chime fills the empty waiting area. “See you Monday.”
She crosses her arms and stomps her foot. Literally stomps her foot. Like a fucking toddler.
“You and Calvin have a great night.” I give her my blessing in the form of a wink and a smile.
“You’re making a mistake, Royal.”
My smile fades. “What are you talking about?”
“I know what you are. I know all about you.”
I walk out before I say something I’ll regret. I need this job more than I need to put Pandora in her place, and I refuse to explain a damn thing to that fucking bimbo and whatever the hell it is she thinks she knows.
Sixteen
Royal
* * *
“You didn’t text me what you wanted.” I stand at Demi’s door at nine o’clock at night with a bag of takeout from a local diner in my hand.
She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t seem excited to see me. Tousled, dark hair hangs in her face, and she seems out of it. The Demi standing before me isn’t the same Demi that brought me coffee when I shoveled her drive this morning and stared at me with forgiving eyes.
“Sorry. Yeah. Come in.” She moves aside.
“Everything okay?”
I’m sure she’s getting tired of people asking.
She shuffles toward the kitchen island, where a stack of opened mail covers the pristine marble countertop. Demi buries her head in her hands and groans. Upon closer examination, these appear to be a bunch of credit card statements.
“Fucking prick,” she mutters under a blanket of dark hair. “That goddamn asshole.”
“What?” I scan the credit card statements again. They all appear to be in her name. All of them carrying balances in the tens of thousands.
“This is six figures worth of credit card balances right here.” She pops up, brushing her hair from her face and hooking her hands on her hips. “I don’t even fucking know what to think right now.”
“I’m confused.”
“Brooks,” she spits. “Brooks apparently opened one, two, three . . . eight, nine credit cards in my name. Without me knowing. They’re all maxed out.”
“Shit, Demi.”
“What the fuck do I do, Royal? I’m a kindergarten teacher. I can’t pay these off. Can’t take him to court, either, because he’s in a goddamn coma in a hospital, hibernating while I’m left here to clean up his messes. Alone.”
I move closer, placing a hand on her shoulder and massaging. She doesn’t notice, she’s so worked up. Her muscles are tense as she rattles on, and her hands make the kind of gestures you might see during rush hour on a freeway.
“You’re not alone,” I say. “You’ve got me. I’ll help any way I can.”
“What, you have a hundred and seventy thousand dollars lying around?”
I laugh. “Hardly.”
“Guess I’ll be filing for bankruptcy.” With one sweeping gesture, all the statements go flying, soaring through the kitchen and landing gracefully on the floor. “That was meant to be more dramatic.”
Demi buries her face again, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms.
“What did I do to deserve all this?” she asks.
I don’t have an answer for her, so I stand in silent solidarity, quietly demanding that the universe ease up on this beautiful girl. She deserves a break.
Placing the bag of food on the island, I pull out two sandwiches and a carton of greasy diner fries.
“I have no idea what you eat nowadays,” I say. “It’s not seared ahi tuna or the kind of weird shit rich people eat, but . . .”
Demi rolls her eyes, biting a smirk. “I’m not rich. I told you that. I drive a Subaru, and I teach public school.”
Seeing her like this makes my chest heavy. I want to fix it. I want to see her laugh and smile.
I want to see her look at me like she did this morning.
“Hey, remember that time we had a picnic by Meyer’s pond? It was late October, and it started snowing out of nowhere. We tried to stick it out, but I couldn’t stand watching you shiver like that, so we took it home and had a picnic by the fireplace at your parents’ place,” I say.
“Yeah? What about it?”
“You have a fireplace. Let’s have a picnic.”
“Seriously, Royal?”
“Fine. Forget I said anything. It was a lame attempt to get your mind off all this other shit.” I stare at the scattered statements around our feet.
“You’re trying to be romantic.”
Was I?
Maybe.
“For the record, I still haven’t forgiven you,” she says. “Just because you’re here, bringing me food, doing nice things for me . . . it doesn’t change anything.”