I could hear my heartbeat in my eardrums. It was chilly out, but I suddenly felt overheated. I pulled my beanie off and took another long drag of menthol.
“Oh, fuck…”
It took me a while to convince myself to get up and actually go inside. By the time I had, the breakfast rush was in full swing, and I slipped right intopleasant waitermode. I took orders, refilled coffee mugs, and chatted mindlessly with the regulars. It did well to keep me distracted, even in the face of my racing thoughts. Despite how hectic serving could be, the rhythm of it was something almost soothing.
“What’s up with you today? You’ve been floating around here like the walking dead all morning,” my coworker, Nikki, asked as she punched an order into the computer at the far end of the bar. Her forehead was shiny with sweat, and her red hair was pulled back with a flowered kerchief.
“Oh, nothing,” I sighed. “Except the fact that my whole life is collapsing around me.”
Nikki snorted. “That weirdo with the growth on his neck come back?”
“James is getting out of prison.”
Nikki dropped the pen she was holding and finally turned away from the screen. “Oh, my fucking god! When will he get out?”
“Two days ago.”
Her eyes widened even more and her mouth dropped open. “Have you seen him yet?”
“No! Of course not, I just found out. I’m kinda… freaking out.”
“Did he call you?”
“No, he doesn’t have my phone number. He said he would send me a letter once he was settled and had a phone.”
“What are you going to say when you call him?”
“I’m not going to call him.”
"You're kidding!” she gasped.
“No. I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this to happen.”
“He wasn’t locked up for life, Avery. He was always gonna get out at some point. We knew that. I just thought you would have broken it off before then. Let him down easy, or something."
“That’s what I was going to do, but every time I tried I… I just couldn’t. It felt too much like I was losing someone important to me. Fuck, Nik. I’m so screwed.”
“Okay, just relax. We still have time to figure something out.”
“What is there to figure out? Are you insane? This isbad, Nikki. Bad!”
“Okay, okay. I know. God, you just sprung this whole thing on me. Give me some time to chew on it and we’ll figure it out!” Nikki huffed and grabbed her notepad and pen before pushing past me and back out onto the floor to check on her tables.
I keyed in table six’s order before grabbing my coffee from the back counter and taking a long, fortifying swig. I rolled my eyes thinking about my mother sitting at home counting her cups as I set it back down on the counter.
Shit.
Chapter Three
James
Ileft the phone store and immediately walked across the parking lot to FedEx. I asked the clerk behind the counter for a blank sheet of paper, and she handed me one out of the printer.
I jotted down a quick note to Avery with the phone number I’d just been issued not 30 minutes prior, as well as the address to the shop. I still didn’t know Jack’s home address by heart, and I figured there really was no reason for Avery to have it. I didn’t think he was going to come looking for me out of the blue.
Or, maybe he would…
That thought gave me a shiver. Avery searching me out. Him looking for me, and running to me when we saw each other. Not that I really knew what he looked like. Or him me, for that matter.
