Page 5

“She was, once upon a time. But sometimes it feels like the world is against you. For us more than most. One would think that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but every time we think we’re getting closer, they add a damn layer of bricks to the other side, extending it.

” She clammed up. “Thank you for the ride.”

The thank you came the moment that the bottom opened up above us.

Heavy sheets so thick that I had to slow down ten miles per hour.

I passed Doggie Doos where I needed to be in five minutes before they closed, and in turn drove to the diner that was around the block.

Pulling to a stop at the curb, I said, “Thanks again.”

She slammed the door closed without a thank you, which only had me grinning.

“I like her,” Scottie said as we watched Searcy walk inside the diner, unhurried and uncaring that she was getting soaked.

Did the woman rush anywhere?

“I do, too,” I admitted.

Instead of going inside and airing out all my dirty laundry, I waited in the parking lot on my bike, watching her through the front window of the diner.

Searcy was once again serving food, but this time to the dinner rush.

The elderly lady that’d left with the kids earlier still wasn’t back, and now what I guessed to be all of Searcy’s siblings, even the youngest girl, were working.

They looked like a well-oiled machine, as if they’d done this so many times before that they didn’t need to say a word to each other to communicate.

It was very interesting to watch, and kind of sad.

I didn’t know how to feel about kids working.

Then again, I guessed I’d been doing the same when I was young.

I couldn’t remember a time that I wasn’t up working, even if I had school that day.

Hell, during calving season, I specifically remembered going out to the barn after school, helping deliver calves all night, then turning right around and going straight to school with barely any sleep.

There were times that I’d gone to school in the same clothes that I’d been in the day before.

Yeah…needless to say, I could see how a kid would be working.

Was it called child labor when it was your own family making you do the work?

The soft whine of an electric vehicle pulled up beside where I was straddling my bike, but I didn’t look over.

I knew who it was.

My lips twitched when a woman tried to stop Searcy to likely ask for something, but Searcy whizzed right on by, holding her hand up.

Unapologetically rude.

I really liked that.

The woman at my side would never…

“Are you even going to look at me, or are we doing this without eye contact?”

I rolled my eyes and pushed up off my lean against the seat.

Swinging my leg over the bike, I made sure to leave the motorcycle between us to make sure to let her know I didn’t want her too close.

“Let’s do this,” I grumbled.

Elisha crossed her arms over her chest, her anger at my lack of caring palpable.

She always had this perfect way of displaying her displeasure.

Pinch at the corner of her eyes, and a thin-lipped smile.

At one point, I’d thought her beautiful. Now, every time I looked at her face, I only saw signs of disappointment.

Once beautiful blue eyes now seemed too sharp. Too uncaring.

I’d spent a year of my life with her, and where I’d once seen beauty, I now questioned what I ever saw in her.

Maybe it was time for me to get checked for cataracts.

Could you get cataracts at thirty-six?

“Why do you have to act like this is such a chore?” She rolled her eyes, and the muscles around her eyes didn’t move.

Botox.

Sigh.

She had so much of it that sometimes I didn’t even think that she could show any emotion at all.

“Because it is,” I stated. “I had to take time out of my day to come up here and talk to you when you could’ve just accepted the first talk. Or the seventh text. Or the fourth phone call.”

She sighed, long and loud, as if she was incredibly over my attitude.

Probably, she was.

But there were only so many ways I could say “ I’m really not getting back together with you ” before I lost patience.

“Posy, listen,” she pleaded. “We’re good together. I’m sorry for asking you to go to that function with me, but who else was I supposed to go with?”

I prayed for patience.

“That’s not the only reason we broke up,” I returned. “And you know it.”

“Your parents love you,” she started.

“My mom loves me, sure,” I agreed. “My stepdad couldn’t care less about me. He’d rather that I disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Posy…” she ground out. “He’s a good man.”

He was an asshole.

But I didn’t bother to say anything.

What would be the point?

I’d been saying my piece for what felt like forever, yet it felt like every time I explained, she turned it around on me.

“This has nothing to do with him. Or with the stupid fucking ball you wanted me to go with you to. Or the desire to give you the life you’ve come to want.

What it’s about is I don’t want to be with you anymore.

I don’t love you. I don’t even like you.

You exhaust me. You make me cringe every time I hear your name.

You make me want to rewind the last year just so I could walk the other way when you walked into the room I was in.

I don’t want this.” I gestured between the two of us.

She sighed. “We don’t have to like each other to have a successful marriage.”

At that, I laughed. “Go fuck yourself, Elisha.”

She growled, which was the first sign of a crack in her armor.

“Why are you doing this, Posy?” She threw her hands up in the air. “My god.”

I shoved the keys to my bike into my pocket and said, “Stop calling me. Don’t show up at my house. Don’t call my mom and ask about me.”

“You’re…”

The door to the diner banged open and an angry female voice said, “If you didn’t have any money, why’d you fucking eat? Holy shit, do you think normal people show up to a place and know they don’t have any money,eat, then record the server as you tell her to ‘bill you?’”

I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking toward the commotion.

“I’ll make sure to bring a lot of revenue here,” the man said. “You should be thankful that I recorded that. I can post it and bring you so many views.”

“I don’t care if you’re fucking Keith Lee!” Searcy threw up her hands. “You’re not coming in here and eating and not paying at least something. Fuck your views and your followers. Now, either give me something that you think will cover your meal, or I’ll punch you in the throat.”

“Classy,” I heard Elisha say.

I kept walking, not stopping until I was on the curb of the sidewalk that led into Hodges Diner.

“I’m going to put you on the map!” he declared. “You won’t know what hit you when I post the video!”

“Ass, grass or gas. Nobody eats for free.” Searcy took a menacing step toward him.

The kid turned and started to run, but unfortunately for him I kept him from going anywhere but the ground when he bounced off my chest.

The kid hit the ground and his phone went sliding across the concrete, landing conveniently beside Searcy’s feet.

Searcy picked the phone up and started swiping on it.

Her fingers stopped and swiped, and she threw the phone down on the ground and kicked it toward him.

It skidded across the concrete and hit the kid in the side of the head.

I bent down and pulled the wallet from the kid’s back pocket, rolling my eyes when I saw the wad of cash inside.

He had more than enough money.

Dumbass.

I yanked a hundo out of the wallet, then threw the wallet onto the kid’s face.

He cried out, covering his nose.

Stepping over him, I handed Searcy the bill and said, “Are we back to only grilled cheese? Because I had that for lunch, and my sister really likes your turkey sandwiches.”

“No,” she sighed as she shoved the hundred into her pocket. “I only do that sometimes for lunch because I hate when I have to remember all the orders, and people complain when I get them wrong.”

My lips twitched. “Not a fan of being a waitress?”

“No,” she said. “Not even a little.”

She didn’t wait for me to grab the door for her before she yanked it open and allowed it to slam behind her.

I had to laugh inwardly at that because no way would Elisha get to a door and not wait for me to open it for her.

Speaking of Elisha, I heard the whine of her electric car zoom away, spitting gravel and dirt from the in much need of repair parking lot.

Searcy didn’t spare me a second glance as she went right back to work.

I chose the seat at the bar, hoping that by my closeness to the hub of the diner, she’d be forced to talk to me.

I didn’t know what it was that had me so intrigued, but there was something about her that was drawing me in.

“What can I get you to drink?”

That was the young girl.

“Um,” I thought about that for a second.

I’d had so many damn Dr Peppers over the last couple of hours—there was nothing better than an ice-cold Dr Pepper out of the cooler when you were hot—that I should probably consume some water.

But…

“Dr Pepper,” I answered.

The young girl got me my drink and said, “Do you know what you want to order?”

I nodded and placed my order, choosing a burger, and replaced my menu in the holder between the salt and pepper shakers.

Then I watched.

And realized that whatever I felt for Elisha was nothing.

Not when I was obsessed with a woman named Searcy that had zero desire to please anyone, not even her own family.