“Ivy! Vi! Seriously?” the fourth one hisses, entering the fray for the first time. “I’m so sorry,” she says to me, meeting my gaze. Her eyes search mine, broadcasting the rest of the message she can’t say in front of her friends. They’re being horrible. It’s not you.
“Oh my god, relax, Iris. We’re just teasing him. You can take a joke, right Ashton?”
My nails press into my palm as I force another smile. “I’ll grab your drinks.”
I turn and start my escape.
“Oh, hey, we were joking about the drinks too,” someone calls out. I can’t tell which one with my back turned, but what does it matter at this point?
I clench my eyes shut to pull myself together. I’d talk to Leah about switching tables, but I can’t live with the guilt of forcing these people on someone else. I command my body to face them again.
“We’re all just going to have waters,” the woman says with a coy look. Her gaze digs into me, as if daring me to react as she snaps the drink menu closed and flips it toward me.
I stare hard at them, straining against the urge to tell them to go fuck themselves. But I need this job. My entire family needs this job.
Drawing in a breath, I lean forward and take the menu from her. This time I can’t muster a comment as I back away from the table. The brunette in the front is staring me down again, and I let my gaze stall on her. Another message waits for me, but I don’t like this one as much. Pity. No fucking way any of them get to pity me.
I feel her stare in my back as I stalk away.
Nothing improves after the drink orders are delivered. They insist their appetizer is wrong, even though I know for a fact it’s what they ordered. The entrée is too cold, even as the steam wafts from the plate into the toxic air around them.
I know they’re messing with me. Some sadistic game to flirt maybe. I’ve seen enough friends’ nights transform into teens’ nights to know adults can regress several years when they’re out having “fun.”
Most of the time it’s easy to brush off, but when each of tonight’s complaints is followed by more laughs and innuendo, it gets harder and harder to keep my cool. One of them even asks point-blank if I’m single. I pretend not to hear it, and if I didn’t have a brother and mother at home relying on me to keep them off the street, I’d be throwing my apron on the table with their check.
But every time I get struck with another burn, deep blue eyes wait to soothe it. Iris they called her. It’s a good name for her. Iris with the vibrant blue eyes that almost look violet in this light. She’s the prettiest of the group, then again, I might be biased since she’s also the only one I don’t want to punt through the neighboring wall of glass right now.
There’s zero surprise when they leave me with more suggestive looks than tip money. Ten percent? Ten fucking percent? I’m about to toss it across the room when I spot a piece of paper folded under Iris’ plate. Surprised, I pull it out, my heart stopping when I open it.
Two crisp one hundred dollar bills rest inside. Their entire check was only one-fifty. After the shock wears off, I let my gaze drop to the handwritten note.
I’m so sorry you had to endure that. No one deserves to be treated that way. I’m sorry for not speaking up more. You were a saint tonight. x Iris
There’s a phone number printed neatly beneath her name.
I’m mentally and physically exhausted by the time my shift ends at eleven. When I let myself into the apartment around midnight, everyone’s already in bed as usual. I sigh when I remember tomorrow is Saturday, which means the longest day at my landscaping job. Lane lets us off at four on the weekdays, but Saturdays are seven to dark. In mid-July that’s at least a twelve-hour day.
Still, Lane pays decent and also does snow removal, so he’s got work for us year-round. In addition, he’s a fair boss—one of the few who doesn’t mind if I call off on the rare occasion Mom works and I need to stay with Braydon.
Mom.
She’s never been good at holding jobs. Or working them when she actually has one. We’ve been fighting about that fact non-stop since I dropped out of school to move home and sort through the mess she made. Fifty thousand dollars she owes. Fifty thousand racked up in bad loans and credit card debt. Twenty of it is in my name.
Eight months and two jobs later, I’ve finally managed to get us back on a sustainable trajectory, but it’s been a brutal climb. Still, rent is being paid, the lights and water are on, and food makes it to the table every night. I’ve even started chipping away at the principal of that massive abyss. If she could manage to hold a job for more than a week, maybe we’d actually get somewhere. But that’s not Gianna Morgan’s M.O. At least she hasn’t brought one of those loser boyfriends around in a while. The last one was five years older than I am. Since she was sixteen when she had me, the math isn’t as bad as it sounds.
After a quick shower and cleanup, I collapse onto the pull-out couch, grateful Mom remembered to set it up for once. I’ll be gone tomorrow before they wake up anyway.
Six AM comes way too early, but I roll off the lumpy mattress and shuffle to Braydon’s room for a change of clothes. I try not to wake him as I pull out my Lane’s Landscaping t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Today’s project is some VIP patio job at one of the giant mansions up in The Hills. With my granola bar, lunch, and to-go cup of coffee, I jump in my truck at just after six-thirty.
It’s only a twenty-minute drive to the posh upscale haven of Suncrest Valley’s uber-wealthy, but it might as well be another planet. My entire apartment building could fit in some of these homes. Of course Lane’s directions dump me in front of the biggest of them all. They can’t be loving the fact that there are a bunch of muddy vehicles lining the quiet drive outside the gate. It’s currently open, probably in light of the work being done today.
I parallel park between Jack’s ratty pickup that was made before I was born and Kurt’s beat-up sedan. Seriously, how did that car even make it up the winding stretch of road?
“Nice shack, huh?” Kurt says, smacking my chest as I approach the gate.
“How is this necessary for one family?” I ask, squinting through some old growth trees at the enormous monument to opulence. I can’t even see the entrance from here. We’d have to walk at least another two hundred yards up a paver stone drive to get close enough to see anything.
“Lane told us to wait by the gate. Doesn’t want us screwing this up for him, I guess. Extra rules this time.”
I shrug, not surprised. If I had scored a client like this, I wouldn’t mess around either.
“Where’s Jack? Saw his truck,” I say.
“Lane took him to scout the site and talk to his contact.”
I stretch and squint up into the clear sky. Seven in the morning and it’s already a sauna.
“Today is going to suck,” I mutter, fanning my shirt.
Kurt huffs a dry laugh. “Maybe they’ll let us use whatever resort pool they’ve got back there.”
I smirk and tuck my hands in the back pockets of my shorts. “Yeah. Pretty sure Lane wouldn’t be on board with that even if hell froze over and they offered.”