AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The woman and her child walked past me and left, the store was now empty, save for Piper and me. We stared at each for a long time before I managed to find my voice.
“Hey again,” I said.
I scratched my chin, which was already getting a bit scruffy even though I'd shaved last night.
“Hey, Shane,” she said. “What's going on?”
“Not much,” I said, moving toward her slowly, averting my gaze as I asked the next question. “I was just wondering if you guys might be hiring?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You know someone who's looking?”
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. “I am. Nolan's little stunt last night cost me my job, and there doesn't seem to be anywhere else hiring right now.”
I leaned against the counter, my forearms resting upon it. It put me at eye-level with Piper. She leaned onto her side of the counter and our faces were now extremely close. Close enough that I had to fight the urge to lean in a bit and kiss those plump lips of hers, to see if they tasted as good as they had back in high school. “I can give you an application,” she said, bringing us back to the current situation. “But honestly, I think we're fully staffed at the moment.”
“That seems to be the problem everywhere these days,” I said.
Even hearing the bad news though, my smile didn't falter much. There was just something about being in her presence I found settling. Comfortable. Talking to Piper and it almost made me forget about all my problems at home. Almost.
“But since I'm here,” I said. “I was wondering if you'd like to grab dinner sometime?”
Her eyes widened, and she stepped back from the counter, but never took her eyes off me. She had a grin on her face, so I knew my question hadn't upset her. It surprised me though. I had no intention of asking her out when I walked through the door. My life was a mess, I didn't really need to bring anyone else into it right now.
Except, that when I laid eyes on her again, I couldn't stop myself. After all these years, I wanted to catch up with her. We'd had something way back then, and even if we didn't have something now, I'd like to know about her life these days. I'd like the chance to get to know her again. And who knew? Maybe, that chemistry we'd had back in the day, would slowly develop again.
“Sure,” she said softly. “But just as friends, right?”
“Just as friends,” I said.
My heart fell a tiny bit. It felt like a rejection, but the fact that I was going to have the chance to talk was nice. She pulled out a piece of register tape and wrote something down and handed it to me. I looked down and saw it was her phone number. “Would you still like that application?” she asked me.
“You're pretty sure you're not hiring?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty sure,” she said.
“Nah,” I said, putting her number in my pocket. “I'll just keep looking. I need to find something soon.”
I gave her another smile and headed for the door. Her voice calling out to me though, made me stop and turn around.
“Shane? It's really nice seeing you again,” she said.
I turned. “It's really nice seeing you too, Piper. It really is.”
Her smile was huge, spreading across her entire face and even seemed to make her eyes sparkle. That smile lit up her face and made her even more beautiful than she already was. It set my heart thumping in my chest.
Maybe my day hadn't been a complete waste after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
PIPER
“I told you, Trent, you're welcome to see your daughter at any time, but the visits – as outlined by the courts – must be supervised at all times,” I grumbled.
I sat in my car, the phone pressed to my ear, the anger inside of me rising like a dark tide. I didn't want to go inside yet because I didn't want to risk Olivia overhearing the conversation I was having with her father. That would just be a mess.
Trent was a drug addict. He tried to tell me he was off the drugs and was back on the straight and narrow. Yeah, he could sometimes pass a drug test to prove it – but only by using someone else's piss or some method I had yet to figure out. Trent was a master at working all of the loopholes and finding cracks in the system.
Because I knew that about him, I knew there was no way that man was clean. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I knew him well enough to know when he was clean and when he wasn't, and the last few phone calls had made it more tha
