Page 135 of Soul So Dark

He glances at the table covered in baskets of wings and pints of beer. “We got hungry.”

“Oh, yeah,” I laugh, realizing how idiotic that sounded. “I mean, what are the odds I finally run into you after all this time?”

“It’s not that strange,” Jesse scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, “hasn’t anyone ever told you that there are no coincidences?”

“Like you were predestined to be sitting here with some wings and beer in the middle of my shift tonight?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “or you just fucked up our timeline.”

I blink once and then plant one hand on my hip. “I didwhat?”

He doesn’t bat an eye. “I’m just saying, maybe if you’d gotten on my bike that one night, it wouldn’t have taken six years for me to see you again.”

My mouth opens and I pinch my brow. I don’t know whether to be excited or outraged.

His cheek twitches with amusement, drawing attention to his dimples. “You could’ve saved me a lot of trouble,” he adds.

“Icould’ve savedyoua lot of trouble?”

The audacity.

“It’s OK, I forgive you,” he replies with nonchalance, “just don’t do it again.”

“Are you finished?”

“For now,” he nods to the table, “want to sit down?”

“Can’t, I’m working.”

“Until when?”

No sooner does Jesse finish the word than a man’s hand squeezes the back of my neck and I flinch as he leans into my ear. I don’t know whether to be relieved or horrified when I pull back and see that it’s Ron.

“Allie called in,” he says over the roar of the pub. “I’m going to need you to help close tonight.”

“But I’m off in an hour,” I argue.

“Do you have plans?”

If I do, they’re none of your goddamn business.

I can’t help but notice that he has plenty of people here to close, even without Allie. My skin begins to crawl as he starts brushing his thumb up and down the side of my neck, making me wonder if Allie was even scheduled to begin with.

Ron glances at Jesse and then around the table at his friends. “Ambitious of you, don’t you think?” he asks, giving me a quick once-over. “Where are you going to put the fourth?”

My shoulders go rigid and I feel a wave of heat rush into my cheeks. I hear a snicker, and then a murmur, but I don’t dare look at the table. Once the shock subsides, a mixture of rage and humiliation replaces it and I shove Ron’s arm off of me and storm back to the bar. But instead of stopping, I continue down the corridor to the restrooms.

Miraculously, it’s empty, so no one is there to witness my face contort into a frustrated sob before I suck a lungful of air in and pull myself together. I’ve seen Ron’s creepy ass go after other people, but this is the first time it’s actually been directed at me.

Fuck him. I should quit. I could walk out of here right now and it wouldn’t matter.

And then I feel an eerie sense of déjà vu. My brother’s voice pops into my head. We’re sitting in my room, and Colson’s lying next to me, watching me play a video game.

“You always try to be nice first…but sometimes you should lean into being a prick.”

Since when is that a character flaw? I clench my jaw and my eyes fall to the crack in the stall door. I set my jaw, step out of the stall, and check my makeup in the mirror before leaving the restroom. I keep my eyes ahead and disappear into the back, where I start restocking supplies and doing the tasks that no one else wants to do on a busy night, which also guarantees that no one will speak to me for a while.

About an hour later, I notice that the bouncers, Joey and Steve, are lugging two five-gallon buckets each out of the basement. Good, I hope they’re throwing the stupid pickles in the dumpster out back. And I hope someone stabs Ron on the way to his car and throws him in after them—commit him to the briny deep like the squid that he is.