“What crawled up your ass?” Glitch asked.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I’m on camera duty right now.”
“Show me the kitchen door and loading area.” He pointed to the screen and I sat my ass in the only other chair in the small room. There she was. My Cassidy. She pulled her silky, blonde hair back with something and managed to pull a large tray out without dropping it or tripping on anything. A minute later, Grunt and Grease came around the corner and started to take her commands as she told them how everything needed to come off the truck and where to put it all.
“You have a thing for her?” Glitch asked and I ignored him as I continued to watch.
“You need to talk about it?” I heard Grunt ask her after Grease walked in to take another load of trays.
“Nope,” she grunted and continued with her work.
“I saw that kiss and the slap,” Glitch mentioned.
I turned to see that the smugness I expected wasn’t there. Concern shown in his eyes as he waited for me to say something. Anything. I had nothing to offer as I turned back to the screen to watch them finish.
“Someone else will be by later to pick everything up. Don’t bother washing anything, that’s part of the service Nell paid for. Just make sure that everything gets stacked in an easily accessible spot near this door.” Cassidy must have been used to giving no-nonsense orders to people. Grunt gave her a nod.
“Whoever comes will still have to check in at the front door and then drive around.”
“I will let him know.” She turned to leave but Grunt stopped her. “Cass, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Listen, I don’t want to put you in the middle, but maybe you can stress to your friend that I don’t want anything to do with whatever scheme he has cooked up to get back at me for whatever the fuck Simone claimed I did in the past. The last time I spoke to her was the day I confronted her about only being my friend at school for some reason. We literally never talked after that. She didn’t invite me to be in her wedding, I never knew there was a baby on the way, none of it, until he yelled at me about them after graduation. I only knew that they had been seeing each other because I have ears and couldn’t help overhearing shit in the hallways at school. I never saw either of them after graduation until last year when James humiliated me again at my father’s wake.” She turned and swiped her sleeve over her face. I wasn’t sure if it was to clear the sweat from working hard to unload that truck so fast or if she might have teared up.
“And, for fuck’s sake, I never even went to a college. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree through distance learning while I was working. End of story. If he has some big revenge plan, he’s pulling out all the stops on the wrong fucking person.”
“Pretty sure he knows most of that now, Cass. We had a long chat after he came back to the clubhouse the last time you saw him.” She said nothing in return as she climbed into the truck.
“Is that what the kiss was about? Weird way to get revenge on someone, man,” Glitch said as we both listened to hear if there would be anything else said.
“No. There was no revenge, but I guess I can see why she’d think that. Our last two conversations didn’t exactly leave her tothink that I held her in high enough esteem to stick my tongue down her throat.”
“What the hell would make you do it then? You had to know a conversation was warranted first. I don’t even know the background, but based on what I just heard, that move was idiotic at best.”
“I know. I lost my mind for a minute. It’s hard to think when your dream girl is finally standing in front of you again, and it looks like she’s home for good, considering she’s working as a caterer for a club event.”
“Yeah, I guess. Grunt is on his way. No doubt, he knows exactly where you’re headed. If you’re not ready for a conversation with him, you might want to head out now.
11.THE SECOND TIME
KNUCKLES
I headedGrunt off as he came to look for me. “Is she coming back later?”
“Said ‘her brother’ will be back to gather up the stuff later.”
“She doesn’t have a brother.” I knew that my selfish ass missed a lot of what was going on Cassidy’s life when we were younger, but I knew she didn’t have any fucking siblings to speak of.
“She has a stepbrother and sister. Not sure how old they are.”
“She never had a relationship with them and hated their mom. I doubt very seriously that she’d be working with one of them all these years later.”
Grunt shrugged. “Don’t know anything more than you do on that front, man. Just repeating what she told me before she took off.”
“You going to relay the rest?”
“Why? You were listening in from the security feed,” he announced as he stared at the door behind me. He wasn’t wrong, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, the fact that he was able to talk to her without all the hostility that she threw my way chapped my ass even if it was thanks to my own stupidity.
