and he had something special about him.
Plus, it helped that every dime he made went to his mom’s cancer treatment. Scumbags didn’t spend all their time and money on their sick moms.
Still, I was the good girl. The straight-A student. I was going to graduate school soon. I’d barely smoked pot, let alone took pills. It was such a cliché, but it was the truth.
Reid was changing something in me. I felt more open, freer.
“What are you smiling about?
I looked up with a start. “Hey, Dad. You scared me.”
“Scared you? It’s not a big house,” he grumbled as he poured himself some coffee.
“Why aren’t you at work yet?”
“Getting a late start this morning.” He sat down across from me. “Mill had some repairs overnight.”
“Anything cool?”
“No. Unless you find hydrothermal cooling techniques cool.”
“Can’t have ‘hydrothermal cooling’ without ‘cool,’ right?”
He cocked his head and then laughed. “Good one. I’m a little dense this morning.”
“How’s everything else going? I feel like I barely see you.”
“Good. Busy at the mill. A few guys got laid off so I’ve been picking up their slack.”
I frowned. “Should we be concerned?”
He waived his hand “Not at all, sweetie. Everything is fine.”
We lapsed into a short silence and I sipped my coffee. My dad looked ragged, exhausted, probably even more tired than I was. I barely slept because I was too busy having sex with my stepbrother every night. He didn’t sleep because he was too busy working all the time, trying to support the family.
“By the way,” he said, cutting into my thoughts. “You been hearing some weird noises at night?”
My heart almost stopped. “Uh, what kind of noises?”
He shook his head. “I’m not really sure. Maybe like animals or something.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been sleeping pretty soundly.”
“Yeah, okay. Probably just my imagination. Be careful though, might be some rabid bear around here or something.”
“Sure. I’ll be careful.”
I took a sip of my coffee to mask the embarrassment that was flooding through me. I couldn’t believe he had just said that. We did not sound like animals!
Then again, I’d rather him think those noises were animals and not Reid making me come over and over again. Fortunately, he was a heavy sleeper and probably was never awake enough to really understand what he was hearing.
“Anyway, I need to get going,” I said, standing up.
“Okay. Have a good day.”
I finished off my coffee, put the mug in the sink, and started off toward the front door.
“Oh, and hey, Rebecca.” I looked back at him. “It’s really good having you home.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
“See you.”
I waved and headed out as fast as I could. Hopefully I wasn’t going to run into any rabid bears.
I plopped down in the booth, my feet killing me, a warm mug of coffee in my hand. It was cup number three, if I was counting right, but it wasn’t doing anything to cut through the heavy exhaustion weighing me down.
Lindsey looked up from her phone, bags under her eyes. She looked tired, too, though I didn’t know what was keeping her up. She was already halfway through her mug.
“Long morning,” she said.
“I can’t believe it’s only our first break.”
“I know, seriously. And that table?” She nodded toward a group of young guys, business bros.
“They’re not that bad.”
“Didn’t one grab your ass?”
“No, but he tried.”
She made a face. “Disgusting pricks.”
“Don’t worry, I spit in his eggs.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you serious, Becca?”
I grinned at her for a second, letting it sink in. “Nah, I’m kidding. But I seriously should have.”
“Oh my god.” She burst out laughing. “You had me for a second.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“What, spit in food?”
“Yeah.”
“Once. I felt really shitty about it afterward, but the guy was such a fucking piece of shit.”
“What did he do?”
She finished off her coffee and leaned forward. “He offered to buy me.”
“Buy you what?”
She smirked. “Buy me. You know, for sex.”
“What! Are you joking?”
“Nope. He held up a stack of hundreds, looked me in the eye and said, ‘all of this is yours if you spend the night with me.’”
“What did you do?”
“I spit in his eggs, obviously! I mean, seriously, do I look like a hooker? And why would he ask me that at the beginning of his meal?”
“That’s so, so ballsy.”
“I know. And he was old, too. Like all decrepit and shit. That was the worst part.”
I laughed. “So if he were young and good looking, it’d be fine?”
“Not fine, but better.” She paused and grinned at me. “It was a lot of