Merry ran into the staff restroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Fortunately, there was nobody else in there, because the tears were pouring out of her, unstoppable. She wasn’t even sure why — partly the shock of how the man and his wife had spoken to her, partly the way the woman had looked her up and down, partly the sugar hangover from all that hot chocolate.
But it wasn’t just that. It had been the way Christian had ridden to her defence, swinging his mop like a lance. She didn’t understand why he’d done that. The man might have hit him — and she’d seen enough angry customers in her time to know how quickly things could escalate. She had no doubt that the couple would go straight to management and report it. Christian was going to lose his job, and there was a good chance she could as well — right before Christmas, too.
She gripped the sink and sobbed, tears falling down her cheeks like raindrops. Why did men have to be so annoying? Why did they always have to do such senseless and hurtful things?
“Hello?”
Merry almost didn’t hear the voice over her choked sobs, and she smudged away the tears the best she could.
Go away, go away, go away, she prayed, but then somebody knocked again.
“Merry?” said Christian. “Are you in there?”
“No,” she said. “Please leave me alone.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said, his words muffled by the door. “That was stupid. I never should have done it.”
“You shouldn’t have.” She pulled some paper free from the towel dispenser and wiped her face. She looked even more ofa mess than usual, her eyes puffy and her nose as red as her cheeks. Under no circumstances whatsoever could anybody see her like this, especially not Christian. “Please, just go.”
“I will,” he said. “Just as soon as you tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay,” she shot back. “You had no right to do that.”
“I . . . I know,” he said. “I just heard what he said, and it drove me crazy. He shouldn’t have said those things.”
Merry ran the taps and splashed water on her face, recovering a little.
“I know I don’t know you, not really,” Christian went on from the other side of the door. “But last night was . . . I felt good about it, I felt good about being with you. I just heard him being rude and I wanted to do something to help. I know what I did was the wrong thing, I just had to do something. You looked so . . . sad.”
She still looked sad. Merry studied herself in the mirror and sighed. If somebody had told her a few days ago that a handsome, kind stranger would come into her life and scare away mean people with a mop, she would have laughed at them. But that’s exactly what he had done. He’d chased those horrid people away with a stinky mop.
To her surprise, a laugh tumbled out of her now. The image of the man and his wife running from Carroll’s with wet shoes and mop water on their faces would stay with her for the rest of her life.
Something was rattling outside, and she cocked her head to try to work out what the noise was.
“What are you doing?” she asked when she couldn’t figure it out.
“Hanging up an out-of-order sign,” Christian replied. “It’s a perk of the job. Just take your time. I’ll leave you in peace. I really am sorry.”
She heard the squeak of his trolley and before she even knew what she was doing, she ran to the door and yanked it open. Christian looked back, pausing.
“Come here,” she said. “Let me explain.”
He did as she asked, hesitating for a moment at the door.
“This is a ladies’ bathroom,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I shouldn’t . . .”
“You’re not going to burst into flames,” she said. “Besides, you’re the janitor — you have to clean everywhere, right?”
“Fair point.” He ducked past her and gave her a faint smile.
She let the door close, watching him as he made his way to the sinks and perched on them, running a hand through his dark hair. The light was muted, but a shaft of winter sun spilled in through a window, landing right on him. His eyes were such a rich shade of chestnut brown that they didn’t look real, and when he looked at her, waiting patiently for her to speak, a storm of butterflies flew wildly in her stomach.
Merry swallowed hard. “It’s me that should be apologising,” she said, and when he started to argue she held up a hand. He fell respectfully silent. “It’s not just what they were saying, it’s the way they were saying it. Like I was stupid and ugly and they deserved a better server than me. I know it shouldn’t matter and I should let it wash over me, but it hits hard because I’ve heard it all before. I grew up with it. ‘Ginger freak.’ ‘Clown mouth.’ ‘Freckle face.’ Kids are cruel to those who are different, and because my sister has cerebral palsy, that makes our whole family different. They thought it gave them free rein to bully me more than they would have done.”
Christian didn’t interrupt. He just listened, his expression shifting slowly from sympathy to something dangerously protective.
“I’ve spent years trying to convince myself that it doesn’t matter what other people think,” she went on. “But sometimes, out of nowhere, it cracks through. Like today.”
