“Maybe we need a small break? Have any snacks?”
“Sure.” I shoved off the couch and went to my kitchen and pulled out cracker boxes and bags of chips I bought at Aldi on my way to Judith’s during the week. They were used to me stuffing a few overflowing reusable grocery bags in the office and the freezer. “What would you like?”
“I’ll take the chips.” She grabbed a bag of salt and vinegar chips, some of my favorites and I filled up a couple glasses of water. The cupboards came stocked full with everything and anything possible needed for a kitchen and I kept forgetting where everything was.
“Lived here long?” Angie asked, wearing a wry grin. “Or is your memory really that bad?”
“Moved in last weekend. It’s only temporary, though.”
“It’s a pretty sweet pad.”
“I know.”
“Rumor has it Hudson lives in this building. That his family owns it.”
“Do they?” I asked and shoved a chip into my mouth.
Even before, I didn’t like gossip or rumors. There were too many I tried to sweep away when it came to Josh. I usually figured asking questions and letting people talk themselves in circles worked better and required nothing from me.
If it was rumor Hudson lived here and not common knowledge, I wasn’t going to be the one who confirmed it.
“And I’ve never seen him on our campus before ever, so you have to give me something.”
Trust didn’t come easy to me, yet I found myself handing out crumbs of it. And Angie had been nothing but nice to me. It wouldn’t hurt anything to tell her some of how I knew them.
“I met his dad at the diner where I work. He comes in sometimes for pie and we started talking about school. That’s all.”
I chomped on another chip while Angie’s smile never faltered. “David Valentine goes to where you work for pie?”
Geez. She talked about them like they were celebrities. It wasn’t that I didn’t know they had money. Maybe because that’d once been a part of my life. It didn’t seem as awe-inspiring.
“Yup.”
“Where do you work?”
“Why?” I tossed a chip at her. It stuck to her shirt. “You going to come in for pie, too?”
“Maybe.” She plucked the chip off her shirt and tossed it into her mouth. “Where do you work?”
“Judith’s. It’s up by I-80 and—”
“I know where it is!” Her eyes turned to saucers and she busted out a laugh. “By the strip clubs. That place is the best!”
“You know it?”
“Sure, I know it. One of those clubs is only eighteen to enter. It’s like a rite of passage for every boy, and sometimes us girls go too.”
“You go?” I couldn’t help my surprise. She just seemed too sweet.
“Even me,” Angie said with a nod and a smile. “I’ve been there a couple of times. You like it there? At Judith’s, I mean.”
I shrugged. “It’s not like I have the right to be picky, you know?”
She couldn’t possibly know.
“Can I ask…”
“No.” I knew where it was going as soon as her voice slowed and softened. If I had it my way, no one would ever know even if a simple Google search could answer it for them. Let them go through the work. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She shrugged off my denial like it was no big deal. And I think that made me like her even more.
“So can we talk about hot and sexy Hudson is then because damn, for a white boy, he’s got it going on in all the right places.”
“No.” I threw a pillow at her. “And stop making me think about him.”
Lord knew I was doing enough of that already.
“Break time over,” I said. “I have to figure this out before I need to get ready for work.”
“Fine,” she huffed and tossed the pillow back at me. I batted it off to the side. “But if you ever need to discuss the finer points and angles of Hudson, I’m your girl. Okay?”
It would never happen. “I’ll agree to that.”
She wiggled her brows ridiculously and smiled. Strangely enough, I was pretty sure I was now wearing a grin, too.
And it didn’t feel all that wonky or broken.
“Can I get you anything else tonight, Johnny?”
“No thanks, darlin’.” He reached for his full cup of coffee and turned back to the Des Moines Register spread out on the table.
I grinned as I walked away. His southern drawl was thick and heavy. He once told me he’d been coming to Judith’s for thirty years, found it one night on a trip from Dallas to Minneapolis, and liked it so much he stopped in as much as possible.
Said he liked how the scenery always stayed the same but the waitresses kept getting cuter and sweeter.
He was a sweet old man, said he was nicknamed Johnny Walker after the bourbon, but I done kicked that habit years ago and been sober for nearly twenty years. My missus woulda set me out on the street had I not knocked off the liquor back then, but the name still stuck.
He meant me no harm and some nights when it was just the two of us, I’d sit and let him talk about his wife, four kids, and twelve grandchildren he missed like the dickens with all the time he spent on the road.
Tonight it was busy and I didn’t have time to chat. I had seven tables and the kitchen was tossing up orders left and right. At nine, the crowd had come in sooner than usual, but at least very few had been drinking. My guess, they were filling up on greasy, deep-fried food to fill their stomachs before they overfilled them with alcohol later but that just meant all my tables were in good spirits. Fine by me. That meant better tips, as meager as they’d still be.
Plus, I was in a good mood anyway, thanks to the “B” I got on my accounting test earlier. When I told Angie after, she threw her arms around me in a tight hug. She did it so quickly she was gone before I could remember to hug her back. But it left me feeling warm, and smiling, as she walked me to the bus stop, chattering about her weekend plans.
Mine consisted of working and sleeping and studying.
Hers included babysitting her brother and sister because her mom had to work Saturday and then a date with a boy from her history class.
Lucky girl. I imagined the excitement I would have once had about a date, but unfortunately, high schoolers didn’t exactly go on real dates and Josh’s overprotectiveness limited my dates further. While I was happy for her, it only reminded me how much I’d lost. I tried to forget about it by focusing on my grades, the days I had off work, and the list of jobs from Valor Holdings I looked through earlier.
One which still stuck out more than others, possibly because it was the simplest. It gave me a hand up without being a handout.
At least that was what I told myself as I opened my computer and typed David an email, requesting a meeting at his earliest convenience.
To my utter surprise, as soon as I clicked Send, the beep squawked above our door and Hudson strolled in.
“Hey.” I closed my laptop. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Funny, in the days since I lived in the same building as him, I saw him less than in two weeks prior.
He smirked, moving straight to the stool across from me instead of down the bar.