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I walked home slowly when I should have been hurrying. We’d spent what I thought had been such a beautiful night together, one that had changed me. I had given him all of me—my body and my heart. And suddenly, because I hadn’t spent time with him for the last few days, I felt doubtful and insecure again.

“I hate love,” I muttered.

I rushed into our trailer and threw my school stuff on the couch. Marlo came out of the bathroom, buttoning up her white shirt.

“Hey.” She smiled. “How’d finals go?”

I didn’t look at her as I grabbed my work clothes out of the closet. “Oh, um, fine I think,” I lied. “I’m just glad they’re over.” I turned to her and gave her a big smile, one I hoped was distracting.

She nodded her head slowly. “Okay, good. Well, are you ready? If we leave now, we won’t be late.”

“Yeah, just give me two minutes,” I said, rushing into the bathroom.

Five minutes later, we were walking back down the road toward town.

There was a big basketball game on television today and the place would be packed, so we were both eager to get there. The extra customers would bring in extra money, and now that we’d both be working a shift, we’d bring in double. At least this day offered some sort of silver lining. I didn’t get a lot of tips, but if the customers got drunk enough, a few of them would confuse me with a waitress and I’d make a little bit of cash, too. My usual MO was to stay out of the way as much as possible, especially when it came to the drunk executives who worked at the mine company headquarters in Evansly, but not today. Today I’d stay right in the way.

I scowled down at my moving feet, thinking of those men who found it amusing to slum it at Al’s. They might look classy in their suits and gold jewelry, but down deep, they were just entitled scums who acted as if we backwoods women were damn lucky to get their attention at all. Of course, plenty of the girls around here thought just that and acted accordingly. I’d heard a particularly loud executive yell drunkenly to his group of out-of-town coworkers, “Take your pick, gentlemen, they come cheap,” and then guffaw loudly. Problem was, food and heat didn’t come cheap, and sometimes you did what you had to do. And sometimes, you got it in your fool head that one of them wanted to save you from the miserable life you were living.

By six o’clock that night, the shift was in full swing, the bar packed with boisterous men cheering and yelling at the large flat screen on the wall.

I moved through the crowd, gathering empty glasses onto my tray and delivering food to the tables that had ordered it. A particularly drunk guy in a red shirt kept grabbing my ass whenever I walked close and so I went the long way around the tables each time to avoid him.

“Come on, gorgeous!” he yelled as I made my way back to the kitchen to drop the dirty glasses off to the dishwasher. “Bring that sweet little ass back over here.”

“He giving you trouble, honey?” Brenda, an older waitress, pretty in a beat-down kind of way, who had been working at Al’s forever, asked when I’d returned to the bar. She nodded her head in Red Shirt’s direction.

I glanced over at him. “I can handle it, Brenda,” I said, giving her a small smile.

“You let me know if you need me to take over your section. I’ve got plenty of extra to grope. I don’t mind sharing a little.” She squeezed a handful of her generous backside and winked at me. I laughed.

I successfully avoided Red Shirt for the rest of my shift and he left with his group of friends as the game ended and the bar started clearing out a little bit.

As I wiped down a table near the back, Marlo came over to me. “Hey, Ten, I asked Brenda and she said she could give you a lift home.”

I stopped wiping and looked up at her. She fidgeted slightly. “Why?” I asked, suspiciously.

“Uh.” She glanced back to a guy sitting at a table near the door. I didn’t recognize him—probably another guy in town on business. I narrowed my eyes, taking him in from across the room. “That’s Corey. He asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him tonight and…”

Dinner? It was way too late for dinner. I moved to the side so her body was blocking me from Corey. “Do not go home with some guy you just met at this bar, Mar. Have you already forgotten how that turned out—”

She straightened her spine. “No, I haven’t forgotten.” She glanced over her shoulder at Corey and gave him a small smile, and then turned back to me. “I’m not stupid, Ten. I know what Corey wants. I don’t have delusions that he’s going to marry me and we’re going to go riding off into the sunset. I just want some company, is that so bad?”