is this possible? “I forgot to put it in. I am so sorry.” She feels like a fraud; she isn’t such a superstar after all. She’s a crummy server.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “This looks great.”
Carson hesitates. “Let me put it in, please. I feel awful.”
“What if you let me buy you a drink when you get off tonight?” he says. “You finish around eleven? We can hit the back bar at Ventuno.”
Carson nearly laughs. He’s asking her out? Marshall from the Field and Oar? Oh, how cute. He’s probably a year or two older than she is but she knows she would eat him alive. DUCKS means the University of Oregon—this comes to Carson out of nowhere. He’s fresh and piney like the Pacific Northwest.
“Let me see how I’m feeling, okay?”
“Whatever works.” Marshall stares down at his plate and Carson can tell he’s stung. He put himself out there and she turned him down and he doesn’t have any other friends, or if he does, they’re all working at the Field and Oar.
“I’ll let you know before you finish eating,” Carson says. She flags the other barback, Jaime, who is a girl and not a kiss-ass, to cover her, grabs her bag, and goes to the bathroom.
She takes one bump, then another. Tomorrow, she’ll have to call her guy. She needs to get back out there and finish the dinner rush strong, but she sees her phone and it’s like falling into a hole. She checks her texts.
Can I see you tonight? End of Kingsley?
We should probably talk.
Carson’s head pitches forward; she loves her phone so much in that moment that she’d like to take a bite of it. These texts are like cool water on a bad sunburn, like a soft pillow when she can’t keep her eyes open. A balm, a relief. He wants to see her.
She sends back a text: No.
She counts to ten, which is all it takes for three dots to appear. And then—
I can’t go another day without seeing you. Meet me, please.
She hesitates. Giddiness bubbles up inside her; she’s a shaken can of seltzer about to spew. But no. It has to end. While it’s still a secret. They have done enough damage. Her mother is dead.
Okay, she texts back. See you at midnight.
Carson heads back out to the bar. Marshall finished his dinner and Jaime has gotten him a fresh drink.
“I can’t meet you tonight,” Carson says. “But maybe another time. And, hey, your dinner is on me.” She takes his tab and slips it into her apron pocket.
“There’s no need—”
“Oh, but there is.” She winks at him. “We have to take care of each other.” She heads to the other side of the bar to take orders. When she comes back, Marshall is gone. A fifty-dollar bill and a napkin with his phone number are in his place.
Carson shakes her head. Bold move; she likes it. She throws the napkin away, tosses the fifty in the bucket, and rings the bell.
Midnight finds her in cutoffs and Chuck Taylors walking down Kingsley toward the dead end. There’s a space in the bushes big enough (almost) to hide one car and that’s where Zach Bridgeman is waiting for her in his Audi Q7. She climbs into the back seat with him, and when she sees him, smells him—he smoked a cigarette on the way over, another secret he keeps from his wife—she starts to cry. He gently takes her face in his hands and licks her tears and then they’re kissing like it’s the only thing keeping them alive. Carson wants to straddle his lap; she wants to wriggle out of her shorts or even rip them in half to get them off; she wants to slide down on top of him and bounce up and down, his hands grasping her ass, until they both climax in a burst of heat and light.
But instead, she pulls away. “She’s dead.”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“And I have nobody to hold me.”
“I’ll hold you.”
“This is our fault.”
He flinches at this as she knew he would. Zach refuses to acknowledge the dark side of what they’re doing. All he ever talks about is how happy Carson makes him, how his life has new meaning, how each day is filled with possibility instead of despair. He’s the one who’s married; he’s the one who has to lie, sneak out, delete everything on his phone. But he would never accept that their union was evil enough