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“Want a drive tonight?” Carlos asks through a mouthful of french fries. We both look back towards the storefront windows. The snow has stopped, but it still looks frigid as can be.
“Who’s coming to pick you up?” I ask. Carlos doesn’t have a car—I’m not even sure if he has a licence, but he always seems to be on the in with someone who has no problem coming to get him at all hours of the night. I’m almost envious.
“Just a ‘friend’,” he winks.
“Another friend?” I roll my eyes. “Are you cheating on me, Carlos?”
That garners a laugh from the eccentric cook. He wraps his long arm around my shoulder. “I’d never cheat on you, babe. You’re my best friend. These other candles don’t compare. It’s just... they have something you don’t.”
I raise my eyebrow playfully. I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. Maybe a good meal was all I really needed. “Excuse me!?” I pronounce loudly. “If anything, I’ve got more than you can handle.”
“You’ve got that right, queen,” Carlos chuckles. “I’m the only one allowed to have curves in my relationships.”
I swat at his arm. “You’re bad.”
Carlos absorbs the blow. “So, you want that ride or what?”
“I don’t want to be a burden...”
“Bitch, please. You know me. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want it.”
I can’t help but smile.
I polish off the last bits of food from my plate and accept Carlos’s kind offer, reveling in the little taste of fullness that I’m being afforded. Maybe life isn’t so bad after all... At least I have a job, a roof over my head, and a friend. What else could a woman want? Well, except for—
Carlos’s cell phone suddenly buzzes loudly on the countertop between us, breaking me out of my little haze of self-reflection, mid-thought. I can’t help but flinch. My cellphone’s still in my purse in the backroom office—I don’t need or want it with me at work. The only people who call me nowadays are debt collectors and scam artists, and I’ve started to develop a bit of PTSD towards ringing phones.
I shake my head and pat down my apron, trying to play it cool in front of Carlos, but my pudgy Frank Ocean-looking friend isn’t paying me any mind anymore. His attention has turned to whoever’s given him a ring.
“Heyy,” he answers, jumping up from his stool and heading towards the kitchen. He seems so full of energy for someone who’s just worked a twelve-hour shift that I can’t help but feel ashamed for not being able to keep up. I take a mental note to ask him for his secret. The lively bastard...
Before he can disappear from view, Carlos turns around and gestures for me to get ready. I nod and promptly scarf down the rest of his fries. The thought crosses my mind that Carlos might have so much energy after such a long day because he steals bits of food here and there throughout his shift. It’s not unprecedented, I do the same thing. But he’s all alone back there in the kitchen, with no customers to police him. I have to watch my ass every time I want to dig into someone’s leftovers, and the thought of being caught and shamed by some overzealous customer is enough to keep me from st
uffing my belly too much.
I slip off my stool and slowly rumble past the kitchen, trying not to listen to the muffled lilt of dirty talk emanating from the other side of the door.
Another thought crosses my mind... Maybe it’s not the extra food that Carlos might sneak that makes him so giddy, maybe it’s just the promise of something—or someone—waiting for him on the other side of this job that gives him his spirit.
That thought doesn’t help my mood. A heavy stone starts to form in my gut, replacing the pleasant weight of my meal. My current relationship status is pretty simple: I’m single as fuck. To put it more poetically: I’ve been guarding a dry well for years now, and I haven’t met a single rain cloud that I’d be willing to let fill me up—not that there’s exactly a stable of prized horses waiting to knock down my door. The pickings are slim for a poor waitress working on the rough side of Chinatown, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to settle for someone who doesn’t deserve my true potential... though, I still might be damned if I don’t.
It’s just my luck, to be damned all around.
3
Ronan
“Is this what true love feels like?” Finn’s voice crackles over my Bluetooth ear-piece. I can barely hear him through the sound of my own heavy breaths; I can hardly see either—I’m shrouded in a fog of my own exhaustion. I thought I was in good shape, but bounding through the back streets of Chinatown at two in the morning is telling me I’ve got to hit the gym more in my free time.
“You’re having a good time, huh?” I lash at him. He’s probably as cozy as a bedbug in his patrol car right now. If he was in the shit, like I am, I’m sure he’d be singing a different tune.
“This is why I became a cop, buddy. Thrill of the chase.”
Don’t I know it. I remember the first time we met—Finn had a look in his eyes like he was just hoping I’d try to run from him. But I was too smart for that.
I must be losing my edge, though, because I feel like an idiot as I swing up onto a fire escape to avoid an alleyway filled with trash bags. “Who the hell tipped him off?” I grumble. My hands wrap around the freezing metal as I climb up to the roof.
“Who did you tell before me?” Finn’s patrolling the southeast exit of Baker street—the only way out of China town that’s not through Russian or Italian territory.
