Page 9

Liam

“Hot date tonight?”

Liam was counting out his cash tips just outside the back entrance when Kim stepped out for her smoke break.

“What?” he said, folding the bills into a thick stack. It was busy, even by Friday standards, and a couple of big tippers had ensured a half-decent dinner for him and Jonah tonight. Maybe they could try someplace new. He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he had some way of texting him directly.

“Don’t ‘ what’ me,” she said, shielding her lighter against the cold wind. “I see you’re all dolled up.”

He shot her a dry look. “We’re wearing the same uniform.”

“Mhm.” She smiled around the cigarette between her teeth, giving him a once-over. “And the clean shave?”

“I don’t like scruff.”

“And the sudden interest in hair gel? ”

“It’s mousse,” he shot back. “Aren’t you the one who told me I should learn how to work with my natural curls?”

“Right,” she said. “Well, since you’re not busy tonight, a few of us are going to Stanley’s after close. Come out with us for once.”

“I didn’t say I don’t have plans,” he said. “I’m going to see a friend in the city.”

“Oh, a friend?”

“Yes, a friend .”

“Good,” she said. “You need to hang out with someone other than those twin behemoths you’re always dragging around.”

“I haven’t spoken to them in weeks,” he said. “So I can’t imagine they’ll be coming around any time soon.”

“What did they do?”

Oh, you know. Took me to the city, abandoned me on my birthday, set me up with a prostitute who may or may not be being coerced, whom I am now meeting up with, platonically, on a weekly basis.

Liam shook his head. “I’ve just been busy.”

Kim narrowed her eyes.

“What?” he asked.

“I know you’ve been busy,” she said. “You’ve been picking up shifts left and right. You worked three doubles last week. You were here on Wednesday during breakfast, when I know for a fact you have class.”

“It was canceled,” he lied .

“As your manager,” she said, ignoring him, “I appreciate the initiative. As your friend, I need to know you’re not spiraling.”

“I’m not spiraling,” he promised.

“Liam. You’ve been here since you were sixteen. I know what it looks like when things are getting bad for you. Is that what’s happening?”

He was shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “No," he insisted. He didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t like the reminder that the people in his life held the teenage version of himself in their memory. If he could wipe it from his own, he would. “No, Kim. I’m fine. Just trying to save up.”

She stubbed out her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe. “You know you can tell me if that changes, right?”

He nodded, eyes on the ground.

“Hey,” she said, waiting for him to look at her before she continued. “Have fun tonight. You deserve it.”

Liam’s hands were nearly vibrating by the time he got behind the wheel, though he told himself it was in anticipation of the night ahead, and not a result of the conversation behind him. He tucked his tips away in his wallet, turned on the radio, and let the muscle memory pull him toward the city.