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The moment I stepped into the dressing room and kicked off my shoes, I released a moan right along with half the other waitresses. Before I even started changing into my street clothes, I sat on the bench in front of my locker and started rubbing the arches of my feet on the tennis balls I kept to help with the pain.
While everyone else rushed to get out of their uniforms, I just sat there with my eyes closed as I tried to release as much of the ache from my feet and toes as possible. Eventually, my stomach started to grumble, and I began to yawn. Tossing the yellow balls into the bottom of the locker, I exchanged my work clothes for a thick sweater, jeans, and the coat I’d found for a steal at a thrift store a few blocks from my apartment.
Once my sneakers were tied up, I slipped my hands into the thin gloves I’d bought at the same shop as the coat and then placed earmuffs over my ears. They were childish, with little pink kitten ears on the top, but I’d gotten them for two dollars.
Ready for the cold late-December weather of NYC, I grabbed my cross-body and slung it over my shoulder before using my foot to close the locker door. I didn’t keep my tips in my bag, but in the bottom of my shoes, something Kim had also taught me after I’d gotten my purse snatched the second week I’d lived with her. But that was back when I worked at the diner close to our apartment, so the thief hadn’t gotten nearly as much of my hard-earned cash as he would have if he’d taken it after one of my shifts at Cherry Bomb.
My stomach was starting to growl louder, and my mind was on the cup of instant noodles I planned on making as soon as I got home. Licking my lips at the thought of food, I walked out the back door, giving the bouncer a nod when he called a goodnight. I lifted my hand, ready to flag down a taxi. It would have been cheaper to take a bus, and because it was before five in the morning, I could have asked the driver to drop me off at the corner where my apartment was. But I was exhausted and decided that the cab fare was worth it to get home faster so I could fill my empty stomach sooner.
But instead of one of the yellow cabs stopping for me, a huge black SUV braked right in front of me. Instinctively, I took several steps back, my hand going into my bag to reach for the can of bear mace I’d acquired from Jack Hannigan when I lived at Salvation back in Creswell Springs.
The back window powered down, and Jack’s cousin sat there, watching me. Just as he’d done all night inside the club. I’d felt his gaze on me every minute I was on the floor, dropping off food and drinks to my other customers. The only time I’d gotten a break from the goose-bump-inducing thrill of his eyes on me was when I had to go to the kitchen or took a single bathroom break to pee sometime around midnight.
Garret hadn’t left until about twenty minutes before we closed, much like he’d done every night for the past two weeks. But this was the first time he’d approached me after club hours.
Just because I knew who he was, I didn’t release the hold I had on the spray can. Bear mace was essentially illegal in the state of New York, but the man sitting in the decked-out SUV wasn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen. The Vitucci family could play it up to the media that they were legit these days, but I, of all people, knew better.
After all, they had taken over my stepfather’s cocaine fields after his death and were now the single biggest coke supplier on the East Coast, if not the entire country. I didn’t doubt that made the Mexican cartel unhappy, but not even they had the balls to take on the Vituccis. And Garret not only worked for the crime family, but he was also related to them through Ciro Donati.
In a word, that made Garret Hannigan untouchable.
But if I spray him with mace, would I technically be touching him?
That question flashed through my mind, and I actually had to fight a smile. Amused, I released my death grip on the can, but I didn’t take my hand from the bag—just in case.
“It’s cold. Let me drive you home.” It came out as a command, and I grasped the mace once again, until he said the one word I never thought I would hear from his lips. “Please.”
Unable to hide my surprise, I pulled my hand free of my bag—minus the mace—and took a small step closer to the SUV. As I did, he opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Another wave of surprise hit me at how courteous he was being. I knew he wasn’t drunk since he’d only had the one glass of Macallan all night, but this was leaps and bounds away from the version of Garret I’d come to know—not just over the past two weeks in person, but in the years he’d tormented me on social media.
Taking my hand, he helped me into the back of the SUV and then slid in beside me. I moved as close to the other door as possible, trying to put more distance between us. There was a partition between the back of the vehicle and the front where the driver was. As Garret closed the door, he hit a button, lowering the divider just enough to speak to the man behind the wheel.
Fear hit me hard and fast when he gave the driver my address.
“How the fuck do you know where I live?” I demanded, already reaching for the door handle.
Garret pressed his lips into a hard line before shrugging. “I may have followed you a time or two.”
“Followed me,” I repeated in a squeaky voice before my anger returned. “You mean you’ve been stalking me!”
“Ensuring you got home safely,” he amended.
“Following me like a creeper without my permission,” I gritted out. “That is basically the definition of stalking.”
“The definition of stalking is to pursue or approach something in a stealthy manner,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Or did you mean stalker? That is defined as a person who harasses or persecutes someone with unwanted and obsessive attention. I have to admit that I do find myself becoming more and more obsessed where you are concerned, but I don’t believe I’ve harassed or persecuted you.”
“Are you a walking dictionary?” I muttered, shocked at how he’d just defined the two words verbatim.
He grinned. “Something like that. I was able to graduate at the age of seventeen, despite skipping more classes than I actually attended because I have an eidetic memory. I read something once, and it gets stuck in my head forever.”
“Just words?” I asked cautiously, wondering if he did remember me and had just been bullshitting me by pretending not to recognize me, or if he really did not have a clue who I actually was. “What about people? I know it’s a leap in the opposite direction, but I ask because I watched a Korean drama where the main character had prosopagnosia, which is basically face blindness.”
“I don’t just have to read something to get it in my brain, but yeah, it’s mainly restricted to words. I’ve never even heard of prosopagnosia, but I do sometimes have trouble placing where I’ve seen people before. My sister, she can place any celebrity in every movie she’s ever seen. But unless they are people I have a vested interest in, they’re just blank faces to me.”
“Sounds more like a narcissism problem to me,” I muttered.
Garret threw back his head and laughed. “Fuck, blue eyes. I think you and my sister would get along really well.”
I rolled my eyes to hide what I was feeling. Nova and I did get along. I loved that girl. She’d been my hero, the person who had saved me from what would have surely been a fate worse than death. Nova was my guardian angel and best friend.
