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Table five, to be exact.
And his gray gaze still brimmed with that nonchalant judgment as if he didn’t care one way or the other, but he’d already written me off as a complete failure.
He’d probably heard the entire conversation between Erwin and me and already formed his conclusions. Indignation built within me. He thought he knew me. He’d made this snap judgment based on what he’d seen and likely thought I was a loser with no sense of responsibility.
And I knew that no matter what, there was nothing I could do to change that assumption.
Why do you care what this stranger thinks of you anyway?
I don’t,I told myself, but I couldn’t deny that some part of me wanted to cry a little bit. But that was probably the lack of sleep talking. Maybe I was having delusions—after I masturbated over him—that there was more going on here than there was. However, I was going to set myself straight. We were virtual strangers who just happened to share a neighborhood.
I gripped the notebook tightly in my hand, pasted a fake smile on my face, and approached him.
“Hi, welcome to Sewells. My name is Tillie, and I’ll be your waitress today. Have you thought about what you want to order?”
To his credit, he didn’t make it any harder for me than it needed to be. “Steak. Medium rare.”
I nodded and wrote it down. “Do you want potatoes with that?”
“No.”
“Anything to drink?”
“No.”
“Not even water?”
He gestured to me with his full cup of coffee and then took out his cell phone, effectively ending the conversation.
“Alright then.” I snapped my book shut. “Your order will be out in just a few minutes.” I scurried over to the back to place the order and then visited a few more tables before I started feeling slightly woozy. Probably the lack of sleep. I told myself to tough it out and then kept working, freezing only when I saw an unwanted face at the entrance.
“Oh no,” I muttered to myself. As if my morning couldn’t get any worse.
Brick Mane stood at the entrance, his hulking frame pretty much blocking the doors. That smashed nose of his that leaned a little to the left twitched as his beady eyes scanned the room, probably searching for me.
Brick was a man that my father had dealings with in the past, and the less I knew about those “dealings,” the better. I knew from some documents on my dad’s ledger that he owed Brick some money before he died, around a few thousand dollars. I’d been paying it off per our agreement, and I wasn’t late on payments yet, which meant Brick had no right to come to my workplace to harass me.
I glanced around to make sure Erwin was busy with another customer before I headed straight for Brick, grabbing his hand on the way out.
“Easy, pretty lady,” he quipped. “No need to get handsy.” But I didn’t stop walking until we were behind the restaurant.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him. “We agreed we wouldn’t meet in public.”
“I know,” he replied with a smirk. “Just thought I would stop by and see if you’d make good on our deal.”
“Don’t I always? You didn’t have to come here to make sure.”
“What, are you ashamed of me?” he mocked.
“Yes,” I said in reply. “Now, what do you want?”
“I want what you owe me, little girl.”
“Brick, I already told you I can’t pay you all at once. I just don’t have the money. But as I said, I’ll pay you every week until it’s all paid off.”
“No, it’s not the money.” His eyes ran down my body, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable. “This is about something else.”
Something else? Just what else could there be between my father and Brick?
