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Gary scratches his cheek. "I have to admit, I definitely didn't expect to hear all this."
I shrug. "I told you that if you’d meet me, I would tell you everything."
"Yeah, but Jesus Christ, Lara. This is like… another level."
He doesn't agree with my plan. I have to admit that most times I struggle with it myself, but if I don’t go through with it, how will Jamie learn his lesson?
I was hoping Gary would be more supporting, though. First, he gets angry at me for not telling him about Jamie, and when I tell him about my plan, he thinks I’m making a mistake. “I thought you’d be happy I’m teaching him the lesson he deserves.”
Gary leans across the table to me. “Lara, I was angry because you lied to me. And yeah, Jamie was a prick in high school. But that was almost a decade ago. And I totally understand your need for revenge, trust me, but you're talking about destroying him.”
I groan. This is so unlike me. I haven’t even been sleeping well, guilt weighing on me.
Life has been nowhere near kind for me. I’m always the butt of a joke. The runt of the litter. Never seen, never heard. Always the odd one out, bullied and humiliated.
I have suffered enough at the hands of people like Jamie. And every time I remember seeing Maddie sitting on his lap, I feel this red rage consuming me, and all I can think about is how I never want to be hurt again. How no one shouldeverbe hurt anymore. And I have the power to do something about it, so I should, right?
"He’s hiding something important in that safe, Gary, and I'm going to find out what it is."
Gary shakes his head. "It's clear that you’re not going to let me talk you out of this, and I appreciate you being honest with me, Lara, but I just think you're in over your head."
He doesn't know. He doesn't get it. I'm not over my head, not drowning, far from it—I'm right where I need to be.
"I’ll be fine, Gary. I promise. Better than fine." Iwill be. And maybe I’ll believe it if I keep telling myself that.
Gary reaches out and squeezes my hand. "Just be careful, okay?"
Lara
The shift at Eden's drags on forever. Not because it's slow… quite the opposite. Jamie and I have been working the bar together since before we opened, and it’s been non-stop. Neither of us has even had a chance to even go pee. Because it's so busy, I haven't gotten a moment to breathe… or a chance to escape and snoop around his office. When Jamie leaves the bar to take a bathroom break, it’s my chance to check the car keys he left in the pencil jar behind the bar.
I pick up the jar and tip it to spill the pens and pencils, along with his keys, onto the back bar. Shit. Just his car fob and the house key he used to open the door last night when he took me home. I’ll need to look for the key in his desk. If I get a chance to get into his office alone.
I’m dropping the last pen back into the jar when Shelly slips in behind the bar to take an order from a waiting customer. The scowl on her face warns me I’m not going to like what she has to say.
"That was really fucked up, you know?" Shelly says as she picks up a vodka bottle and pours it into the cocktail mixer.
"What are you talking about?"
"You. Making out with Jamie right in front of Maddie yesterday in the back hall. After what she went through. She likes him, you know?"
At the far side of the lounge, Maddie is serving a customer. She spots me looking at her and puckers her lips, lifting her chin into the air as if she's better than me. I knew she wasn’t all that nice inside. Just like every other pretty girl. I’m quite sure Shelly told her I slept with Jamie, and Maddie went after him, anyway. Why would she care about my feelings? What if I wanted to be with him? Not that I do, but she sure didn’t care. So fair is fair, right? I’m not in the wrong here. I was with him first. She’d just met him the day before she settled herself on his lap as if she was a conquistador taking claim of newfound land, natives be damned.
I look back at Shelly, raising my eyebrows. "Too bad for her. It isn't mutual."
Shelly scoffs. "I knew you were naïve, but I didn't realize how much of a real bitch you are."
It stings, but I don’t let it show. I give her a seemingly easy smile. "You don't know me at all, Shelly," I say, and turn away to the guest waiting at the other end of the bar. But then another thought occurs to me, so I turn back to tell her. Before I can say anything, I stop as her customer hands her a fifty to pay for the drink she had just made. She takes his money and opens the register, putting the fifty under the drawer, which is normal. She makes change, and she takes three bills from the twenties slot. She turns to the customer and, with her right hand puts several bills on the bar in front of him at the same time shoving the extra twenty into her pocket with her left. Her motion is subtle. Smooth. Practiced.
I decide not to tell her what I was thinking about Maddie, and quickly turn around before she notices that I’ve seen her. Several thoughts go through my mind. But the one that lands hard is that now I’m pretty sure I know why Eden’s didn’t even break five thousand dollars last Saturday. The night I wasn’t here.
Lucky for Shelly, I don't give a fuck. In fact–an idea hits me. This can be a good thing. I can screw over Jamie even more than I’d planned. I just need to manipulate the books so Jamie thinks we’re making more money than we actually are. Good thing he hired me as a bookkeeper.
And the way I'll do it… he'll never know the difference.
Jamie turns around the corner of the bar, smiling widely the moment he sees me. He slides in behind me, gripping my waist. "Holding down the fort?"
"Yep." I squeeze his hands and turn around, giving him a wink. "Hey, can I take a quick break? I haven't sat down all night."
