I didn’t want her to make lunch feel like work.
And I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea either.
“So,” she said, glancing at me as we walked toward the pub’s entrance. “What made you want to get a job here?”
The truth was that I’d applied at this idiot-zone solely to piss off my mother’s boyfriend. He’d convinced her that I needed to get a responsible job so I didn’t waste time “scrolling apps” and “gaming” （the guy was such a douchebag） all day, so I got a job at the city’s largest dipshittery just to give him a wicked case of the eye rolls.
And man, did it work.
“It was this or Chuck E. Cheese, and that mouse gives me the fucking creeps.” I didn’t bother with a legit explanation because I knew she didn’t care. Bailey was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger, yet I knew enough about her to know she had no use for me whatsoever. “Same question but your turn.”
She gave me a tiny smile, one of those polite little numbers that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Nekesa and I applied out of boredom, but now I’m strongly considering quitting.”
“Because you suck at bouncing?” I said, trying to make the smile reach her eyes.
“Because it’s so stupid,” she said, looking at me wide, like she wanted me to commiserate. “Right? I mean, there is a person whose title is audience exciter. I don’t think I can work at a place where adult humans approved that job title.”
That made me smile, even as she blinked fast in her uptight way. “I can see that about you.”
We walked up to the order counter, and Bailey asked, “Does that mean you like it here so far?”
“God, no.” I looked at the menu board, and my stomach growled. “It’s a complete and utter shitshow. My car needs gas, though, so I will unfortunately be sporting a flight suit whether I like it or not.”
“That’s the one thing I don’t mind,” she said, sounding mildly amused. “I kind of like the cut of these jumpsuits.”
That brought my eyes to her body, which was a mistake because the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was checking her out. I quickly raised them to her face and was relieved that she was looking at the menu, not me.
Whew—avoided the trap.
But as I looked at her pink cheeks, I was a little taken aback by how pretty she was. I mean, I had eyes—I’d known she was attractive the times we’d met. But there was something about the freckles on her nose and the way she blinked like she was continually processing things that I found… interesting.
“What are you going to order?” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and said, “I think I’m just getting fries.”
I shrugged and cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m just getting a few burgers and a couple fries. Maybe some onion rings and a hot dog. Step aside, Glasses—let me show you how it’s done.”
“This should be a real treat,” she deadpanned, and as I moved around her to place my order, I realized that I could breathe deeply for the first time in weeks. She was twenty things that annoyed me, all rolled into one, but there was something oddly relaxing about being around her.
Maybe it was the slight sparkle that she always had in her eyes, like she was expecting magic to appear at any given moment. That wide-eyed hopefulness kind of made me feel hopeful, which was dangerous but mildly intoxicating.
We got our food and grabbed a table, and as she rambled to fill the silence while squeezing every drop out of three ketchup packets like a lunatic, it occurred to me that I didn’t want her to feel like that. Like she didn’t know how to act around me. Like she was waiting for me to be a dick.
I wasn’t always a dick, for fuck’s sake.
“So how bad was it?” I asked, unwrapping one of my burgers and reaching over to grab one of her fifteen ketchup packets. “Tell me all about the divorce.”
She stopped squeezing, and her eyebrows went down. “Why would I tell you?”
“Because I know how absolutely hard it sucks and I get it.” I squirted the ketchup onto my wrapper, then dipped my burger into the condiment. I could tell she didn’t trust me—hell, we were basically strangers so it made sense—but I’d never forget the way she looked on the plane when I’d mentioned divorce.
For a split second, her prickly demeanor had evaporated entirely.
The crinkle between her eyebrows, the hard swallow, the way she’d sucked in a deep breath—it felt like I’d punched her in the stomach.
She’d recovered, but her face had haunted me afterward.
So much so that here I was, trying to assure myself that she was okay.
Fucking weird, that. I said, “We’re like soldiers, comparing scars and stories of our shitty battles. People who haven’t been there don’t understand, but we do.”
She made a noise, like she didn’t necessarily agree, but her eyebrows returned to normal as she said, “That’s actually a terrible analogy.”
“Agreed,” I said, taking a bite, “but misery loves company and I’m a miserable piece of shit. So tell me everything.”
CHAPTER NINE Bailey
“What’s weird is that it seems like everyone but me is cool.” I set my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my hand while Charlie finished his third cheeseburger. “I feel like I’m the only one, besides little kids, who can’t just adapt to the divorce and adjust.”
That was the total truth. I was seventeen, for God’s sake, and I’d be out of high school next year. Like a grown-ass person. So why did it still make me unbearably sad when my dad wasn’t around for school events? When the art club had a showcase and our work was hung in an actual gallery, I’d watched for him all night like he was going to just hop on a plane from Alaska to surprise me. Spoiler: he did not.
And why, when my mother’s boyfriend came over and sprawled out on our couch, watching TV in his socks like he was part of my family, did I close myself in my bedroom with the all-encompassing homesickness that felt like it was physically choking me?
Charlie shook his head and took a sip of his soda. “At least you seem to keep it all inside like the type A, repressed person you are.”
“First of all,” I said, surprised that not only was I sharing my story with him but I was actually enjoying the interaction, “I’m not repressed.”
He was the second person to call me repressed in the past half hour; that was an ouch.
“Second of all,” I continued, “how would you know if I was type A?”
He gave me an irritating I know everything look as he shoved a few fries under the bun of his burger. “Anyone with eyes can see that you are. And that’s okay—it makes for peace, if nothing else. I go off like all the time, so not only does everything just straight-up suck, but my mom, my sister, and the douche boyfriend are always pissed.”
“Like how?” I asked, genuinely curious. “How do you go off?”
He grabbed the pickle spear off the corner of his plate and stuck it under the bun as well and said, “I’m just honest. When I see Clark in the hall in the middle of the night, I say, Dude, why don’t you stay at your own house like you aren’t a mooching loser? And when my dad cancels on me because his girlfriend’s kid has a Little League game, I tell him that he’s a shitty father for choosing her kid over me.”