Damage: (Lakefield Book 5) Read online

  Richard walked away with a confused grimace on his face, head still bent toward his clipboard. If the damn thing ever went missing, he would probably break down into a fit of crying and thumb-sucking.

  Pete wandered back over to my end of the bar after he left, and I set my tray up on the counter. He leaned over it and put his hands on the counter as he watched our boss walk away.

  “You owe me twenty.”

  I dug in my pocket and slapped it on the bar. “I think he got a new calendar. He saw that damn resignation.”

  Pete took the bill, while smiling, and held it up so that one of the other servers could see. He’d bet me earlier in the week that Richard was going to either demand that I stay on, or act like he hadn’t gotten the notice.

  He gave me a wink. “Sure you don’t want to go out on a date with me before you leave? Apparently, I’ve just won the lotto.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes. “The answer is still no.”

  He gave me a dramatic pout. “Heartbreaker.”

  Pete had been asking me out for months. The answer was always no. It wasn’t that he was bad looking. He was quite the opposite. Muscles, short cropped hair, and a flirtatious smile on a handsome face. He just wasn’t the person I wanted to be with.

  Fuck. I had to stop thinking about it.

  Olivia came through the door with her bodyguard, John, just in the nick of time.

  Shrugging at him, I stepped back. “I’m sure you’ll find someone to take out with that twenty. Hope she’s a cheap date.”

  He studied me for a moment then laughed. “Seriously. It isn’t going to be the same around here.”

  “Thanks, Pete,” I said, and walked across the room to greet Olivia.

  She was being seated in her usual spot, and John took up his familiar position to the right of the table. He gave me a chin lift when he saw me.

  “Hey, John,” I greeted him and moved to the table.

  Olivia looked up and gave me a huge smile. “Suzanne!”

  I slid into the seat opposite of hers and gave her a smirk. “Just John today? I’m surprised the armada didn’t show up with you.”

  “Holy shit, I know. Aiden was busy when I left, otherwise they would have been here. So, are you leaving today?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, today’s the day. My manager apparently didn’t get the note or didn’t read the note. One of the two.”

  Liv craned her neck around, looking for him. “He’s so weird. Serious crackpot. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was in one of those secret cults. The type that hack up chickens and bathe in their blood.”

  I laughed. “Where do you get this stuff?”

  Her expression was serious as John rolled his eyes over her shoulder.

  “I read about it in a book just last week. There's fucking weirdos everywhere. You have to be careful. He looks like a prime candidate for live sacrifices.”

  “Well, he’s not that great of a manager and he’s not particularly pleasant, but I can safely tell you that I haven’t seen anything weird other than changing his clothes twice a day.”

  She considered that, like she was trying to come up with a list of reasons he might fit any number of other psychotic groups of people.

  “Stop thinking about it or I’ll call Julia to come pick you up.”

  She grinned at me. “You know she would too.”

  “So, what can I get you today, Liv?”

  She shrugged and smiled. “To be honest, I just came to see you. I was hoping that you might change your mind and stick around here.”

  “Well, my mom—”

  She grabbed my hand and leaned over the table. “I know. Maybe the best thing for both of you is to be together. I get it. It sucks, but I get it.”

  My jaw clenched a little and I glanced away. Trying not to give away too much of how her concern made me feel grateful that I met her.

  “I’m good. Just ready to hit the road and get on with things.”

  She gave my hand a squeeze again before letting go.

  “You can always call me. If you need to talk about it.”

  I nodded at her. “I definitely have your number.”

  “And you rarely call. Julia and I always have to come find you. You know, after the funeral, there was a lot I wanted to say to you. There just never seemed like there was a moment that we could talk privately.”

  Shrugging, my eyes roamed over the customers in the room. “It’s okay. You know I’m not real big on hanging out.”

  “Which is exactly why, when you did come out with all of us for lunch or dinner, we tried to make it light.”

  Thinking back on what happened after the funeral, Liv was right. The girls had tried to cheer me up in their own individual ways. We'd gotten to know each other slowly over the last eight months. The conversation had never really turned toward the subject of Cade. It'd been distracting, and for someone like me, who had very few friends in life if any, the significance wasn’t lost on me. I’d cherished every moment that they'd let me into their world, as surreal as it was.

  She smiled at me. “Going to miss you. By the way, Aiden and I wanted to give you a gift.”

  I tilted my head, considering what she said. “You didn’t have to do anything special.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t, it’s just a bonus check from Aiden. Consider it time paid for all the vacation you never took and putting up with a bunch of drunk women on our girl’s night out.”

  “Oh, Liv, I can’t take that,” I argued. “Don’t do anything with that, it was enough just to let me into that wacky world of yours. I’m going to miss the late shifts for sure.”

  Liv sighed and opened her book. “Already done. Where’s my burger?”

  I shook my head. “Coming up, princess!”

  She laughed as I walked away. Stubborn woman.

  My remaining vacation hours only totaled about twenty, but it was nice that they wanted to give me a check for it. I didn’t need it, but it was nice all the same. It would just make things easier once I got settled with my mom.

  I took a deep breath, surveying Muse Bar and Grill one last time.

  I was going to miss this place.

  Chapter Two

  The next day, I was wondering why the hell I felt the need to be nice to an asshole. One last thing I needed to do before I left, had turned into a nightmare suddenly.

  Meeting David at his house, to give him his guitar back had been the worst idea I’d had in a while. The fact that he was drunk when he opened the door, meant trouble, and I was learning the hard way.

  Pain filtered through my jaw at the same time my head hit the floor.

  “You stupid bitch! Do you honestly think you can make a life for yourself? You’re just a waitress! You have NOTHING. I don’t even know why we dated!”

  Wincing, I scrambled back, and away from David’s leering face.

  “You’re something else, you know. First, it’s no sex, then when I do make a move on you, it’s bye-bye David. No calls, nothing. Two months of dating you, if that’s what you want to call it, was a complete waste! Then you want to come over and what, be nice?”

  I glared into the face of a huge fucking mistake. One of many over the years, but this one had really been over the top. The grandest of the grand in Suzanne fuckups.

  Spitting some saliva and blood onto the floor, I managed to get my arms under me and sit up. I needed off the floor if I didn’t want him on top of me doing more damage.

  “David, I just came by to give you the guitar and picks back. I didn’t want to leave with them.”

  “Oh, and tell me I was an asshole?”

  “That’s not what I said. I said we weren’t good for each other, and I needed to move on. After what happened, I thought it was probably best for both of us.”

  He leaned over and pointed a finger in my face. “You mean you weren’t good enough for me. That’s what this comes down to. If I wanted you, I would have had you. I just didn’t fucking want you.”

  David had a
bout fifty pounds on me and a temper to match his muscles. Dark hair, good-looking. I’d been surprisingly flattered that he was interested in me when we ran into each other at the gym a few months back. It'd been short-lived, though, when he started pressuring me to have sex with him.

  At the time, I thought he might be the ticket to the distraction I really needed. Someone new. Not who my heart really wanted, but it'd been a first floundering step into dating after Cade. David even had the same kind of smile sometimes.

  Sometimes.

  In the gym he’d always been so nice, encouraging. Even on the days I wanted to go home and call it quits, he’d gone out of his way to make it fun. When he’d smiled at me the first time, I saw something I wanted to see. A small sliver of the ghost of Cade. The problem was it was fake. All of it.

  A real charmer in public, and something else entirely in private.

  The first few dates had gone fine. It was pretty typical—dinner, followed by a movie. We saw each other at the gym and he visited Muse a couple of times.

  I should have cut it off when I saw him checking out some other woman’s ass at the bar. For some reason, against absolutely all my instincts, I’d chosen to think that he was just doing that guy thing. No harm in looking. The behavior I expected all guys to do. Check out women, maybe even talk to a few. But in the end, it was harmless, right?

  Except when it wasn’t. After telling him I needed more time with the sex thing, I found him fucking a brunette in the backseat of his car.

  Opportunity number two to leave. Nope, I fell for the flowers, apologies and lies.

  Why? His fucking smile. The one that reminded me of Cade.

  I wasn’t a weak woman. Hell, I’d been through so much worse, and yet there I was, accepting the same excuses, from the same type of man, that I’d been with before. Yeah, I was that woman. Who couldn’t seem to make the right choices when it came to men.

  There was a turning point to my thinking, however. It was like a light went off, or a switched was flipped one day.

  I’d lost some weight and had just started feeling better about myself when it really hit me that I didn’t need David. He'd been an excuse to drown out my own sorrow. It'd been nice to have some male companionship, but after a while I’d found better outlets.

  Our breakup had already been an inevitable outcome by the time it happened. Maybe he sensed it, because he’d tried to press the sex issue again. I broke it off after he tried to coerce me into bed one night after a few drinks.

  Worst experience of my dating life, but I’d escaped unscathed. My dignity was a little bruised, but it could have been so much worse.

  And now I was here. Obviously making another gigantic Suzanne mistake, by trying to return his guitar he’d lent me and forgotten at my house.

  I didn’t want him to have an excuse to contact me going forward. I just hadn’t planned on showing up mid-day to a drunk man with a temper. If he hadn’t already proven that he was a jerk, this would have been the nail in the coffin.

  David gave me a small smile like he might not be the asshole that he was. And for a moment, I thought he might leave it at a hard slap on the face. A slap that had surprised me and knocked me to the ground after stepping in his door.

  But this was David, and he just couldn’t stop hurting people.

  “Suzanne, you’re a waste of a life. You disgust me. Get the fuck out of my house unless you’d like to give me a blowjob as a goodbye present. You're lucky I'd even take one from a fatty like you.”

  He raised his chin and flexed his shoulders as he stared down at me. The smug smile on his face said it all. He thought I was an idiot. I felt like it, but I wasn’t his idiot anymore.

  I pushed myself up the wall and got my feet under me. No dizziness, nothing broken. Still alive and still kicking.

  “Yeah, I’ll pass on that,” I said, as I brushed past his guitar in the foyer, and through his open front door.

  I should call the police on his ass instead of walking away. The problem with that was it meant pressing charges. That led to restraining orders, and dodging a guy like David, while he waited for a hearing. I knew his type, he’d either push the limits of what the court allowed, or he'd make my life a living hell.

  The law was shit when it came to protecting victims of domestic violence, and anyone that had been a victim of it could attest to that fact. A one-time offender might get a slap on the wrist and be able to plea it down to a misdemeanor. That type of guy would skulk off and leave a girl alone. Guys like David wouldn’t skulk. They'd get revenge.

  The other downside was having to stick around Lakefield to see the charges stick, which could honestly take months, and I didn’t have that kind of time.

  The sun had just peeked through some clouds as I set out down the sidewalk to the parking lot. I heard a crash behind me and felt something nick my leg. When I turned around, David was smiling at the door, the guitar I brought to him in pieces on the sidewalk just behind me. Fucker had tried to hit me with it.

  “Want to fetch that for me, Suzanne? I must have dropped it,” he laughed. “Bring it back like a good little bitch and we can make up.”

  The only thing I wanted to do was leave and get out of the situation as fast as possible. But that fucking smug smile. Jesus. I did the only thing I could think of, which was the same thing I’d done most of my life when bad shit happened.

  Turning on my heel, I stuck my head up in the air, flipped my hair over my shoulder, and swung my hips as I walked down the cement toward my SUV. For good measure, I held my hand high above my head and flipped him off as I neared the last couple of feet to my door.

  Eat that, David. You never got in there and never will.

  I drove a block up and parked on the side of a gas station with an outdoor bathroom. Scuzzy, but it would do.

  The lights flickered as I entered and the smell that hit me was nearly overwhelming. It was a mixture of puke and death. I wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible, but I needed to clear my mouth and examine the mess on my face before I drove home. After locking the bathroom door, I turned to the mirror. A split lip and a red cheek. Maybe a small bruise on my jaw. Not so bad.

  The only problem was that every time I opened my mouth, more blood started dribbling down my chin. By some small miracle, the restroom did have soap and clean water. I wiped at the counter and sink with a soapy paper towel until it looked somewhat cleaner. After I washed my hands I inspected the inside of my lip.

  Fuck. There was a small gash where it must have hit a tooth. It meant a couple of stitches and curiosity from clinic staff. Something I really didn’t need.

  I blinked in the mirror a few times wondering what the fuck I was doing here. The person that stared back at me wasn’t the same person I was several years ago. She wasn’t even the same person she wanted be yet. Staring at the stranger that I’d become, I had to remind myself that I was changing that. Slowly, but the change was happening.

  It'd been a hard road up to this point. I’d followed a low-life idiot to Lakefield with the promise of getting married and having kids. Then found out he was cheating on me after a couple of months. The fact that I miscarried the same day I found out, was equally as devastating. I cried a lot that week, but still punched him in the nose.

  Then there were the incidents at random bars. Grabby customers, drunk patrons and men that just didn’t like hearing the word no. I’d made it through the dregs of some of the worst bars when I landed the job at Muse. One of the best things that'd happened to me by a long shot. Hired by the same man I couldn’t get over. Cade.

  He might have felt sorry for me in the state I was in. Tired, depressed, and desperate to prove I wasn’t some skanky bar whore. The interview didn’t last long. We talked briefly about some of my more stressful experiences working bars, and the next thing I knew he was handing me a smock and shoving me out on the floor to work. He’d saved my life.

  And even though my interest in him was never recognized, I wouldn’t have cha
nged one single thing. I regretted absolutely nothing in my background. My life had landed me a job where I got to work beside him.

  I was good at burying hurt and brushing off most of the bad stuff that happened now. There weren’t many things that could faze me. A few things, but not many. I had some distance on the bad in my life and had known a lot of good for the last couple of years. I’d grown a backbone somewhere along the way and I was proud of it.

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

  A backbone that I clearly hadn’t used when it came to my latest fantastic mistake. Otherwise, I would have told him to eat shit a long time ago. In the future, if anyone ever asked if I’d dated someone named David, I was going to emphatically deny it. David who?

  My hair was tangled, so I pulled at it a little bit trying to get it under control and slipped a band around it to hold it in place. I swished some water around in my mouth, spit it out in the sink, then wiped my face.

  Inspecting myself again, I took stock. Not perfect, but better. That damn lip was my only remaining problem.

  I might have felt like crying if I’d been any other person. There were so many moments in my life where I’d wanted to give up, break down, and check out. But I wasn’t that person anymore.

  Narrowing my eyes at the reflection staring back at me, I whispered, “Yeah. You in the mirror. You’re built of sterner stuff.”

  Some blood seeped out of my mouth and I spit it in the sink.

  I could only think of one person to go to that wouldn’t ask too many questions. A friend’s husband, Dr. Matthews. I’d seen him and Kate two days prior. They were in the city visiting, and Kate had invited me to join her for lunch this week. I’d turned her down expecting to leave today. And I would. I just needed a stitch.

  I picked up my phone and dialed Kate.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Hey girl,” I replied, as I stuck some tissue against my lip.

  “I thought you were gone already. Are you in Bakersville?”

  “Uhm, no. I had to take care of something. But in my idiotic haste, I tripped going down the stairs with a box and now I have a split lip.”