AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ah, hell. The pit bull thing only got worse if he argued with her, and if Adrian stuck around—or worse, put up a fight—she might rethink letting go of the topic at hand. Probably better for him to take the hit for a couple hours now and come back for the dinner shift, when they’d have so many plates flying around, the topic would be forgotten. Until next time, anyway.
“You’re the boss. I’ll see you at two.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and forced a crooked smile as he made his way back out of the kitchen, his belly so full of unease, he’d swear he ate a bowl of it for breakfast.
Which was stupid, really. Carly was back, they had a full house on the books every night for the next month, and in a handful of hours, he was going to dive headfirst into a dinner service that would keep him too busy to breathe, let alone think.
Okay, maybe hecoulduse a little shut-eye.
Adrian swung one leg into place over his Harley-Davidson Fatboy, finding familiar comfort on the bike as he skinned into his riding gloves and buckled his helmet with a snug pull. The bike rumbled to life with all the subtlety of a twenty-pound sledgehammer, and as he put it into gear and started to drive, the weariness of the last few weeks invaded him down to his marrow. He’d always thought sleep was pretty overrated—plenty of time for shit like rest when you were dead, and all—but, yeah. He’d been cranked tight enough to not even recognize Carly in her own damn kitchen. Maybe he could stand to loosen his grip on his hours. Maybe Carly was right, and there was more to life than filling tickets and firing up the grill.
Or maybe he was just getting soft. After all, wasn’t that “something else” how he’d fucked up his life in the first place?
Adrian’s knuckles hardened over the polished chrome handlebars as he downshifted to turn off of Rural Route Four. A flash of movement, time-warp fast, blurred in his rearview mirror, filling his mouth with the bitter taste of foreboding, black and awful like the scrapings from a forgotten skillet. Ominous recognition shot into place, bringing the rush of motion in a swift, too-close-to-avoid-contact push, and cold sweat slid its clammy fingers beneath his helmet.
He was going to die, right here on the asphalt, and his last earthly vision was that of a minivan.
Christ, that thought alone was enough to kill him.
