Page 6 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

In spite of people being allowed to dine without reservations, today’s work shift has been way less chaotic than yesterday’s was.

Brunch typically isn’t overcrowded to begin with, but since the other bartender called in because of a personal matter, I did wonder if handling the shift alone would give me any trouble.

I’ve kept up fine, though.

The assistant manager hasn’t even had to leave his office for much of anything, let alone to cater to demanding or unhappy customers, which has been nice.

Plus, fun got brought into the mix about one o’clock, when my mom and Paxton showed up around the same time as each other.

They both took seats at the bar so they could talk amongst themselves and with me when I could manage it.

She’s gone now, but he’s still hanging around, slowly working on his food and generally taking it easy.

“I just never want it to end,”

he’s currently saying as he spears a piece of French toast with his fork.

“I wanna eat this for the rest of my life.”

My personal favorite here is the eggs Benedict.

We use freshly baked English muffins and high-quality smoked ham, and our hollandaise is something else.

That sauce is really the part I like best—seriously crave-worthy.

I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted anything more damn luscious.

Still, I agree with Paxton.

“It’s the best French toast in town.”

He nods ardently, then glances to his right and goes contemplative.

The mere thought of who’s over there adds a touch of heat to my blood.

I look that way, too, to where Maggie is seated at the end of the bar.

A second hostess clocked in a little while ago, freeing Maggie up for some end-of-shift chores: cleaning menus, folding cloth napkins, and making sure the silverware is spotless before tucking it into the napkins.

She wound up in that seat because no other empty ones were an acceptable distance away from the majority of our patrons.

On top of the tension from what transpired between us earlier, her being so near for so long has been annoying.

I feel like I can’t relax, like some sneaky part of her is on the lookout for me to really screw something up so she can comment on it.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Paxton doesn’t have a problem with her, though.

“What’s your favorite food here?”

he calls to her in an easy tone.

“Brunch food, I mean.”

She goes on meticulously folding a napkin.

My kneejerk reaction is to roll my eyes, but right after I do it, I comprehend that she might not realize he’s talking to her.

I’m well-versed in what it looks like when she ignores someone on purpose; she’s just busy doing her job to a T right now.

Talk about someone not being able to relax.

‘Don’t cuss when you’re at work,’ I mentally mock her, the voice in my head exaggeratedly girly. ‘Someone halfway across the building might hear you. Blah, blah, lecture, lecture.’

She’s still in her own little bubble, not answering Paxton, so I prompt her flatly.

“Magnolia.”

That gets a pause and a slow blink out of her. She slides an equally flat look to me from beneath the slight curl of her bangs.

Mmhmm. Join the world.

It’s clear she’s actively trying to sound patient when she asks.

“What, Luke?”

I tilt my head towards Paxton, and she looks at him.

His light tone doesn’t change a bit.

“What’s your favorite Lucent brunch food?”

“Eggs Benedict.”

Now I blink slowly.

Didn’t know we had that in common.

“Aw, is it really?”

Paxton is saying.

“I’ve never eaten that.”

Maggie has resumed her work, but she still says something back to him. I don’t quite catch it.

Paxton must not have caught it either.

“Sorry, what?”

She raises her voice just enough.

“I said the hollandaise is phenomenal.”

…Well, shit.

I don’t agree with her out loud, but when I catch Paxton’s eye, I reluctantly nod it to him. He chortles and raises his eyebrows. Maybe he’ll try that dish next time.

My attention shifts to the couple seating themselves at the bar about halfway between him and Maggie. Just after I’ve greeted them and set out cocktail napkins, an order comes in from a server.

Work officially takes over once again.

The couple is as friendly as Paxton and I are, so some chatter gets sprinkled into their visit.

We learn they’re looking at houses in town because the husband has just scored a new job.

When he orders a whiskey, I tell him it’s on the house celebration-style, which only adds to his and his wife’s happy mood.

Paxton is more than willing to recommend the French toast to them when they ask what’s good here at Lucent.

Someone who is more on Maggie’s side of the social scale is a man seated at the opposite end of the bar from the girl herself.

He’s quiet and he looks like he has a lot on his mind; he keeps idly rubbing at his thick black glasses frames as he stares at his drink, keeps glancing at his phone lying silently on the bar.

Beneath his suit, his buttoned-up shirt is a happy yellow, a stark contrast to his dull mood.

He isn’t interested in food, just appears to want to be left to his thoughts, so I take care not to bother him unless it looks like he needs another gin and tonic.

After two drawn-out ones, he’s done and so is the other couple, who decided to share an order of the French toast.

“I’m out of here too,”

Paxton tells me after I’ve delivered soft leather guest check holders to the others. He finishes dealing with his, then scoots it across the bar to me and turns his head again.

“Celebratory couple and Maggie, ’twas nice conversing with you. A good day to you all!”

I pick up the check holder and tip a nod at him.

“Later on, man.”

“See ya!”

After the couple says their goodbyes, he heads off. My eyes find Maggie just in time to see her glance at him and give her own polite nod. Then her attention flicks back to her work.

Then it flicks to me and catches me watching her.

Before I can react, she narrows her eyes.

I narrow mine back as if to ask, ‘What?’

Now she raises her eyebrows and cuts a quick look along me.

Well, I’m no mind-reader, but if you ask me, that’s a, ‘You started it,’ sort of expression.

Apparently I’m not allowed to look at her any more today.

Pardon me, Princess Maggie. I beg thee not to order my execution over this grievous insult.

I stifle the urge to roll my eyes again as I turn away.

I don’t even know why she was so bothered by me staring at her earlier at the hostess stand.

I do it pretty frequently.

What was different about then?

Guess it could’ve been that she was already unhappy about whatever was going on with her boyfriend.

Or ex-boyfriend.

Or whoever he is to her anymore.

I was looking in her direction when he showed up, and I saw how her face fell at the sight of him.

I don’t understand it.

That dude is bland.

She never even looked truly happy with him.

I happen to know he wasn’t a big fan of going to Merritt’s with her and her friends, so his absence there has been business as usual, but I also haven’t noticed him dropping by Lucent to see her lately.

Earlier, I was initially deeply displeased by the notion of him cheating—be a real man and end your relationship properly, you know?—but I think now that they probably broke up recently.

Maggie wouldn’t have remained so calm if she’d caught him stepping out on her.

Seems like he was trying to make her jealous by flaunting his new girl in her face; I saw the whole ass-grabbing thing.

Which means he’s officially even more lame than I already thought he was.

And such flaunting is a waste of time on his part because as far as appearances go, in my opinion, the new girl is only okay.

Maggie has no reason at all to be jealous.

Hell, Maggie looks so much better even in her work-appropriate clothes that my silent comparisons had me zoning out of half the stuff she was saying to me.

‘So super rude,’ that overdramatic voice silently mocks again.

I clear my throat and focus on finishing up with my patrons before I can think too long on how quickly our conversation turned down the rough road that is Memory Lane.

Soon, I’ve returned cash change to the couple and a weighty credit card to the quiet man.

It isn’t much longer before barstools are being vacated and wishes for great days are being exchanged.

I stack dirty dishes and tote them off to the kitchen.

When I come back, I crouch down for the cleaning supplies under the bar, but, “Luke?”

makes me pause.

I blink at the spray bottles and clean rags. A familiar voice, but not a familiar tone—it’s almost calm rather than disdainful.

I straighten out of my crouch to see if that’s really Maggie or if I’m imagining things.

She’s standing between two nearby stools, one hand resting on the edge of the bar and the other holding the credit card she’s inspecting. After a moment, she looks at me and holds the card out.

“I just found this over here on the floor. Do you think it belongs to someone you were serving?”

I step over to her. Even before I check the name on the silver card, the heft of it in my fingers jogs my memory.

“Yep,”

I confirm.

“the man who just left.”

I start hurrying down the length of the bar. Maybe I can catch the guy outside before he’s gone for good.

Yellow shirt, I’m recalling now. Gray suit. Thick black glasses.

Someone comes breezing through the front door just as I’m about to walk out of it. I feel a second of hope that it’s the man returning, but nope, I promptly see it’s a girl. Kind of familiar—a coworker’s girlfriend or wife? She doesn’t seem to hear my courteous greeting, though, much less recognize me to any degree. So I hasten along.

Out in the cold sunshine, I look around and around for the figure I need.

Gray suit, yellow shirt, thick black glasses.

No one matches the description.

No one at all is in sight.

Damn. It’s been too long. A minute or two is plenty of time for someone to get in their car and—

Wait! A car!

Smiling in relief, I head towards the shiny black Mercedes parked a few spaces left of where I am. The man I’m searching for is in the driver’s seat, texting on his phone.

I wave and hold up his card, calling.

“Mr. Leslie?”

His window is up, but he still looks at me. It takes him a moment to register what’s going on. Then astonishment is on his face and he’s rushing out of his car.

“Oh my God!”

he says.

“Is that mine?”

“Yes, sir! Looks like you dropped it on your way away from the bar.”

“Oh my God.”

He takes the card from me, reads it, then closes his eyes.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Of course.”

When he reopens his eyes, I smile at him, but to my surprise, he looks like he might be growing emotional.

“You’re more appreciated than you know,”

he tells me.

“I’ve had the worst couple of days, and I can’t believe I was this close to adding a lost credit card to everything else.”

My smile wilts into sympathy.

“Oh no. I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope things will look up for you soon. I’m glad, too, that you don’t have to worry about a missing card on top of it all.”

He shrugs.

“Two family deaths in a row and a hell of an assets battle just starting up. I’m afraid stress lies in my foreseeable future.”

Wow. I can’t even imagine. Frowning now, I tell him again.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is.”

He extends a hand, and when I reach out to shake it, he grips mine hard.

“Thank you for your honesty here.”

“No problem at all, sir. Best of luck to you.”

“The same to you, young man.”

I go back into Lucent feeling relieved I was able to catch him in time.

Never know which direction your day will turn towards next, huh?

Once I’m back behind the bar, Maggie asks what happened with the card. I tell her I got it returned, and she looks relieved too.

It occurs to me that she deserves a bit of applause for the part she played in the whole thing. However, she’s gone back to her silverware inspection before I can figure out how to make my mouth form the words, ‘Good job noticing he dropped it.’

Wouldn’t be easy to say that kind of thing to her sans sarcasm.

Oh well. I’m sure she’s plenty proud of herself anyway.

Instead of bothering saying anything else, I start cleaning the bar top.

After that’s done, I move on to restocking the beverage coolers for whoever will be arriving shortly to tend bar after me. I’m partway through it when Maggie finishes her work and disappears.

I finally feel like I can breathe easily.

Within fifteen more minutes, I’m set to leave the area as well because my replacements are here and ready to take over for me. I bid them farewell and head for the back room. All I need is to clock out and get my coat and I’ll be good to go enjoy the rest of my Saturday…although I don’t know yet what I might do with it.

I ponder my options all the way to the wall hook my coat is on. Food definitely lies in my future, but it’s a hard choice between—

“Luke!”

This time my name is a pop through the air, like I’m in trouble, but not with a certain girl like usual.

I grab my coat, confused and curious, just as the assistant manager appears next to me with crossed arms.

“What’s this I’ve heard about you being rude to a customer?”

Actually, now I’m confused.

I take in the displeasure on his face as I scramble to recall what he’s talking about. Nothing is coming to mind, though.

Unless someone really did hear me say ‘ass’ earlier at the hostess stand.

Surely not, right?

Oh my God, Maggie would never let me live that down….

“I’m…”

after a second, I shake my head.

“…I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Just a few minutes ago, I had a lady approach me and complain that during her meal, she saw our bartender getting in another customer’s face and arguing where people could hear.”

My eyebrows are in the sky.

His go up, too, silently demanding an explanation.

But I don’t have one, obviously. I haven’t even acted that way towards Maggie, nevermind towards a patron of the restaurant. I don’t think anyone short of my dad would warrant that kind of behavior from me.

“Sir, I don’t know what that’s about. Honestly.”

I shake my head again, confusion mounting.

“That definitely didn’t happen.”

He turns incredulous.

“Are you saying a customer and I are both lying?”

“I—well, no, but—”

“It sounds quite a bit like you are. So here’s what we have going on, huh?”

He holds up a hand and starts counting things off.

“You fit the description: tall, dark hair, bartender. Your shift ended just now at four, which means you were on the clock when the cause for complaint happened. And now that I’ve confronted you, you’re telling me nothing did happen, which means you’re calling me and the customer liars.”

He drops his hand and shrugs.

“And that, my friend, warrants a write-up.”

My jaw drops.

Okay, it’s no secret that this guy is an especially customer-pleasing assistant manager, but this is outrageous. I’m seriously getting in trouble for something I didn’t do?

I protest.

“Ronald, no. I promise I didn’t—”

“Save it. And stick around for another minute, please, so you can sign the write-up form and I can get this on record.”

I suck in a breath to respond in one of about five different ways.

But as I’m turning to follow his pivot and keep standing my ground, a quieter voice speaks up.

“It was Cristiano, sir.”

Halting in my tracks, I snap my gaze to Maggie, who apparently entered the room at some point.

As her words register with me, I level a dumbfounded look on her.

Ronald has stopped walking too.

“Excuse me?”

Her eyes flick from him to me, then back to him.

“Just now, I overheard what you were saying about someone complaining against Luke, but you’re mistaken. Cristiano—”

“Cristiano isn’t a bartender, Maggie.”

The blink she gives him isn’t as slow as the ones that she tends to give me, but I can still tell she doesn’t appreciate being cut off to basically be told she’s stupid.

“No,”

she agrees.

“he’s a server. But a man who’d been sitting at the bar dropped his credit card when he was leaving, so Luke ran outside to try to catch him and give it back. While he was gone, Cristiano went behind the bar for a second—I don’t know why—and his girlfriend followed him over there. They’ve been in a fight for a week or something now, and she showed up here today while he was working.”

Her shoulders lift and drop in a graceful shrug.

“Whoever you spoke with wasn’t complaining about Luke. He wasn’t around. But Cristiano just so happened to be and he was trying to tell his girlfriend to leave before she caused a scene, but a little bit of a scene got caused anyway. He hurried her away right before Luke came back.”

Ronald has his arms crossed again.

She looks at him with steady composure, the picture of someone telling the truth.

I know I believe what she’s saying. Her explanation makes a huge amount of sense. Much more sense than someone making up something about me. And Cristiano is also tall and dark-haired.

What doesn’t make sense is why she’d spend time and energy siding with me.

I scratch the back of my head about that while Ronald takes his time deciding whether he believes Maggie for himself.

And I also remember that girl I passed on my way out the front entrance. Now I get why she was familiar to me: she is Cristiano’s girlfriend. She’s been around here before to dine in his sections like how my mom and Paxton sit at the bar when I’m working.

Just as I’m about to offer up that useful information, Ronald speaks again.

“How do you know all this?”

he asks Maggie.

“I was still doing my detail work at the end of the bar when it happened.”

He dips his head.

“Ah. Okay.”

After he takes a deep breath, he looks at me in a way that is either annoyed or bored.

“All right, then. As you were, Luke.”

And…that’s it.

He’s walking away again, and I’m letting out a lungful of air I guess I was holding.

While I watch him leave the room, Maggie comes farther into it. Once we’re the only two in here, I turn so my eyes can follow her to her locker.

Something like gratitude tries to climb up my throat.

But it halts before I can voice it.

She just cleared my name and got me out of undeserved trouble, but that situation wasn’t her business to get involved with.

Why was she even paying enough attention to think to butt in? She doesn’t know how to stay in her lane? Did she think I couldn’t figure out a way to handle things myself?

That’s probably exactly what she thought.

I don’t stand very tall in the grand hall of her opinions.

Just earlier, she didn’t think I could look around the freaking hostess stand without the help of a responsible adult.

Meanwhile, our boss believed her after next to no interrogation. She’s all honest and reliable and I’m not, huh?

‘Oh, can I trust you?’

Remembering her saying that only deepens my displeasure.

So what ends up leaving my mouth is.

“Why’d you do that?”

She pauses opening her locker only long enough to draw a breath.

“Why wouldn’t I have done it?”

Her voice remains measured. She doesn’t bother looking at me.

“People shouldn’t be punished for things they haven’t done.”

“I’m not helpless,”

I counter.

“I’ve never needed your backup before, so what made you think I needed it just then?”

“Wh…?”

Now she does twist around. Her bangs can’t hide the fact that she’s frowning.

“I’m sorry, did you miss how Ronald was completely brushing off what you were saying? Did you want me to let him write you up for no reason?”

“I didn’t want you to let him do anything. I wanted to take care of it myself.”

She chortles out.

“Oh, okay.”

I frown, too, as she turns back to her locker.

“What’s funny?”

She doesn’t answer, just keeps doing whatever she’s doing.

It irritates the hell out of me. First I had to deal with her sticking her nose into my business, and now she’s laughing at me?

I start striding over to her. “Maggie!”

And she spins around and starts striding up to me, eyes suddenly on fire.

I freeze while she zooms closer, hissing.

“Do not use my name to command me to pay attention to you! I’m not a dog! And you wanna know what’s funny to me?”

She jabs a fingertip into my chest.

“It’s that I should’ve realized you wouldn’t have it in you to be thankful for anything, even for being defended when you didn’t have the chance to defend yourself. You care too much about being the cool guy all the damn time.”

Her eyes pierce mine.

“Now, let me say that again: you didn’t have the chance to defend yourself. Ronald wasn’t interested in your side of the story. That’s why I thought you needed backup.”

God, she’s fucking gorgeous.

I blink at the thought. I blink at how she’s gone a bit breathless from her small torrent of words, her typical quietude cracked through by vehemence like any other time we get into an argument. I blink at how unfair it is that someone can be so beautiful and such a huge pain in my ass. And, embarrassingly, I blink at her lips.

Then I get away from our history for the umpteenth time today, play back her current accusations, and summon my own glare.

So she did think I couldn’t handle Ronald on my own.

“Uh, no,”

I tell her.

“I’m not an ungrateful person, and I’m not obsessed with being cool. That’s not what this is about. I just—”

A wry, raspy laugh bursts out of her. Her hands fly up in mock-surrender.

“Yeah, of course not. You ‘just’ wish I had left you to get in trouble for no reason ’cause your pride would rather have that happen than accept a tiny bit of help from me.”

I open my mouth to retort again—

—but as her hands lower to her sides, her shoulders slump and her head tilts. Her hip cocks out and she pins an abruptly weary stare on me.

Ugh.

It’s. The. Shoulder drop.

Of course she would do it now, when I’m trying to argue my case and validate my irritation with her.

She starts walking backwards way too soon—she has turned away again way before I get my fill of the inexplicable magnetism that is the shoulder drop.

“Whatever, you know?”

I hear her say. She audibly tries to even out her breathing.

“Just…whatever, Luke. I’ll leave it alone next time.”

I still have things to say, still have points I want to make, but the words won’t come. All I can do is stand here and watch her mess around in her locker again, dark brown ponytail tumbling down her back. The loose bit I noticed at the start of her shift has long since been fixed.

Damn it, man.

I don’t want to be shut down just like that.

But…well, I can’t help noticing a little part of me whispering that I’m truly not ungrateful, but only because what I am is immature.

I’m even more irritated by that.

And more so when it occurs to me that it really is easier to be stubborn than show my gratitude for her help, since gratitude isn’t something that’s typically shared by people who don’t like each other. It’s like the thing with the credit card—I should’ve given her props for finding it, but my aversion to giving her props for anything at all stood in the way.

I watch her scratch at her hair for a quick second.

Belatedly, my chest tingles where the prod of her fingertip was before. It’s been a long time since she last touched me.

Those years-old memories come back yet again and take this opportunity to spiral up and out of control. They send that tingle from my chest to my lips and from my lips to the bottom of my spine.

I don’t know why today has insisted on me remembering these things.

Still, animosity aside, one thing remains as true as it was years ago: I can’t believe I was the first guy to kiss—

The metallic sound of her locker door closing startles me like she slammed it.

I can’t fend off the bizarre hope that she’ll toss one last look at me before she walks away so I can get another clear glimpse of her lips. A flat look, a sneer, a roll of her eyes—I’m not picky.

But she just goes to the door.

Only when she’s gone from view do I find enough brainpower to wonder, in more than one way, what the hell is wrong with me.

I lift both hands to my face and rub at my eyes. The darkness behind my eyelids is colored by sixteen-year-old Maggie’s green eyes fluttering open tiny inches from mine. Fluttering open to look at me with the furthest thing from the frustration she was firing at me a minute ago.

Then, once again, I remember how she humiliated me in front of a ton of people in our class a couple weeks later. On purpose. Without tacking on even one of the apologies I’d tried to extend for my own actions—not to my face, not even over a note or text message.

It’s a welcome shift in my thoughts…except for, you know, how it pisses me off all over again.

“Maggie fucking Moss,”

I grumble.

Jerking my coat on, I start leaving the room too.

I happen to know we have to work together again tomorrow, and I’m ready to properly relax before then.