Perfect Match Enemies to lovers romance - Leia Stone Page 0,17
on me to Gran for smoking? What hell was this? I was firing her tomorrow. The second I found a replacement. There was no way I could work with her every day. It was bad enough I’d have to see her in the halls of the apartment. I don’t care how down on her luck she was; I wasn’t putting up with this shit a moment longer than I had to.
An hour passed and I could hear her clanking around back there, slamming things down in anger. Honestly, I was surprised the princess was willing to work under such conditions. I’d expected her to walk out by now.
Time crept on and I yelled for last call. The three patrons chugged their drinks before heading out for the night. Grabbing a wet cloth, I quickly wiped down the bar and then went to turn off the Open sign. That’s when I saw him.
Fucking Wayne.
A week without my father stumbling in looking for handouts was the longest he’d ever gone. I’d hoped he died, but he was leaning against the yoga studio wall across the street, so I guessed not.
With a sigh, I went back to the order window and saw Millie practically dead on her feet. Something told me she wasn’t used to these hours. “Hey, can you put together a plate of whatever scraps we have,” I hollered through the open window. “Then you can shut the kitchen down.”
She obliged, throwing a few dry chicken tenders and leftover chips on a plate and shut everything down. She placed a lid over the frying pan that held oil while I wiped down the pass-through counter.
Walking out into the empty bar, she handed me the plate.
“Over there on that table, please,” I told her. The fight had gone out of me at the sight of my old man. Just looking at him brought everything back. One look at his face and I was back to a year ago, lying at the scene of the accident with Jenna’s dead body draped over me. My fucking father walked away without a scratch while my sister and I were catapulted ten feet out the front window.
Even now I remembered the slightest details like the smell of the airbag smoke, the way the glass sounded when the EMTs stepped over it with their boots to reach us.
“What’s with the pillow?” Millie’s voice snapped me from my thoughts, and I followed her line of sight to table number seven. I kept a pillow and blanket behind the bar for nights he came in and needed a place to sleep. I was filled with so much anger for that man that sometimes I thought I was capable of actually killing him, but at the end of the day he was my father. A lost old man with a disease and a broken soul.
So I left food and a pillow and blanket, because it’s what Jenna used to do and I was trying to live a life she might approve of. Although I was far from it, if she was looking down on me, then she was doing so while cursing under her breath.
I lit a cigarette. “A homeless guy sleeps here at night, okay, Mom?” My anger at her personal questions was back. I regretted the sharpness in my tone when I saw how much my comment stung her. Why did I do that? Why was I such a dick? It was like this automatic response and I couldn’t control it. Ever since the accident I was so angry that I could barely breathe.
“Okay,” she said meekly and walked over to set the plate down on the table.
Shit, now I felt bad. She’d sweated her ass off in that kitchen tonight and did way above and beyond what I expected.
“I’m … sorry. Uh, thanks for your help tonight.” That was painful, physically; it gave me a tightness in my chest to apologize to that woman, but my grandma didn’t raise an asshole.
She spun from the table, hand clutched to her chest in a dramatic display.
“Ashton Knight … did you just—”
I grinned. “Okay calm down.”
She smiled back and I couldn’t help but admire her beauty. She was one of those naturally beautiful chicks, no makeup and she was still banging.
The front door slammed and my old man stumbled into the bar and headed for the table I stood at.
Damn it.
His clothes were filthy; he had holes in his shoes, and his beard was long and unkempt. He looked like