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"What? What the hell is that supposed mean?"
"It means I'm a loser. I don't do anything. I don't contribute. I'm living here, in a mansion, and I've done nothing to earn it."
"That's bullshit. You're a high school student. That's your job right now."
That was laughable. I was a C student on a good day, when I was actually trying.
Most days I didn't even try. My mind tended to wander as soon as a teacher started talking.
"I don't deserve any of this, Dante. I don't deserve to be here."
"Deserve? What does that even mean? And if you don't deserve to be here, I don't either."
It was so outrageous I almost felt slighted by it. Insulted. "Please. Look at you, with your perfect GPA, your scholarships, your college applications, your SAT scores, your popularity, your football, your perfect everything. You belong here, in a house like this, in a life like this. The only thing about you that doesn't fit in here is that, for some reason, you want to be with me."
That got to him. I'd been bringing up a sore spot of mine, but I saw I'd rubbed us both wrong. His voice when he spoke was derisive. Offended. "None of that's for me. You think I enjoy any of it? And do you think I have a choice? Those things are the bare minimum that's expected of me, the Durant heir, and even that is not enough. And you're not a fucking Durant charity case. You might as well be a Durant. You will be someday, because you're never leaving me. Not happening."
That did something to me, played havoc with my heartstrings, made me become more agitated and go soft. It was nothing so much as a hostile, backhanded proposal of marriage, but sucker that I was, it still made me melt.
I was flushing as I tried to get back on topic. "I'm keeping the job."
His lips curled. He looked like he wanted to punch a wall. "Fine," he bit out. "But I'll drive you to and from."
I didn't argue the logistics of it with him. I'd won. It was enough. I didn't need to rub it in his face.
All that fussing aside, talking about having a job and the reality of it were two different things. After four days waiting tables, I wanted to quit. Pure stubbornness was all that kept me from it.
People were rude, men were gross, and the manager was a lech.
It was an old-fashioned diner with a pretty simple menu, but it seemed like I did nothing but screw orders up for at least the first week.
And worse, much worse than any of that, five days into the job Harris found me.
He didn't do anything I could take real exception to at first. He just occupied a booth in the corner, ordered cup after cup of coffee, pretended to work on a laptop, and watched me.
For hours.
I tried my best to serve and then ignore him, but the barest amount of small talk was required for the job, even for him.
"Do you bring your work here often?" I asked him begrudgingly the first day he did this.
He smiled warmly. "Every day."
Oh joy.
I asked my manager, Brett, about that at the end of the shift. He was an overweight, middle-aged man that I was 100% sure had hired me because he thought I was attractive and he liked having eye candy around.
As always when he spoke to me, he addressed my breasts instead of my face. "I think he's been in once or twice. Be nice to him. Don't charge him for coffee. Police discount."
I tried not to roll my eyes, and complied.
"Do you ever eat?" I asked Harris on his third day of stalking me out in the open.
He sat back in his seat, biting his lip. Something new had entered his eyes. Something I did not like. "That an invitation? You want to grab a bite to eat with me after your shift?"
I blushed, blushed like an innocent fool. I could tell he got off on it, and I wanted to kick myself. "I have a boyfriend," I muttered and hurried away.
He never did more than watch me. He never had the opportunity. Dante was true to his word, he dropped me off and picked me up every single shift. I was more thankful for it than I'd been anticipating.
After the first day of Harris eye-fucking me for three hours, he was there when Dante showed up to get me. The two men had a volatile stare down but that was it. Harris made sure to leave before Dante showed up again. He was oily slick.
It put me in a bad position. Harris wasn't doing anything, so there were no actions I could take to stop him.
I told myself that I was bothered by him because I allowed myself to be bothered.
I wanted to tell Dante about him, but how could I? It would prove his point, and besides and above that, there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
There were a few times Harris stepped over the line, but even then it was a tenuous thing, and in a game of his word against mine, mine meant shit to anyone that could've done something about it.
I was a few weeks into this. I was at that point where I hated it, but I wasn't done fighting for it; my cursed stubbornness at its most counterproductive.
Harris was doing his usual routine, inhaling bad coffee and unabashedly watching me.
It was a particularly dead day, and the slowest part at that. There was a half hour window between the after school rush and the late dinner crowd where we rarely had more than three customers sitting at a time. On this day there was only one.
