Chapter 114

“We don’t have to stay and eat here if you are busy,” Landon adds.

“No, it’s okay. Really,” I assure my best friend. I know what he’s thinking; I know he feels guilty and worried that bringing Hardin here will ruin the new Tessa. The Tessa who laughs and makes jokes, the Tessa who has become her own person, maybe even stubbornly so. That won’t happen, though. I have myself in check, under control, totally cool and collected. Totally.

I gently pull my wrist from Hardin’s soft grip and grab two menus from the board. I nod to the confused hostess, Kelsey, letting her know I’ll be taking these two to their table.

“How long have you worked here?” Hardin asks, walking with me. He’s dressed the same way he always was, same black T-shirt, same pair of boots, same tight, black jeans, though this pair has a small tear at the knee. I have to keep reminding myself that it has only been a few months since I left for my mother’s house. It feels like so much more time has passed—years, even.

“Only three weeks,” I say.

“Landon said you’ve been here since noon today?”

I nod. I gesture to a small booth against the back wall, and Hardin slides in on one side and Landon on the other.

“When will you get off?”

Get off? Is he making an innuendo? I can’t tell after all this time. Do I want him to? I can’t tell that, either.

“We close at one, so I usually get home around two when I work a closing shift.”

“Two in the morning?” His mouth drops open dramatically.

I set the menus in front of the two men, and Hardin reaches for my wrist again. I pull back this time, pretending not to notice his intentions.

“Yes, in the morning. She works like this every day almost,” Landon says.

I shoot him a glare, wishing he would have kept that to himself, then wonder why I feel that way. It shouldn’t matter to Hardin how many hours I spend here.

Hardin doesn’t say much after that; he just stares at the menu, points to the lamb ravioli, and orders a water. Landon orders his usual, asking if Sophia is busy in the kitchen, and gives me more “I’m sorry” smiles than necessary.

My next table keeps me busy. The woman is drunk and can’t decide what she wants to eat; her husband is too busy on his phone to pay attention. I’m actually grateful for the drunk wife sending her food back three times; it makes it easier to only stop by Landon and Hardin’s table once to fill their drinks and once to clear their plates.

Sophia being Sophia, she wrote off their tab. Hardin being Hardin, he left me a ridiculous tip. And me being me, I forced Landon to take it and return it to Hardin when they got back to the apartment.

Chapter sixty-seven

HARDIN

I curse when I step on something plastic, but not too loudly, since I’m sure you can hear everything in this apartment—an apartment that, having few windows, is entirely too dark to see shit. And here I am, trying to remember the way back to the couch from the minuscule bathroom. This is what I get for drinking all that water at the restaurant in the hopes that Tessa would have to stop by more often. It didn’t work, and another server ended up filling up my glass several times. It did, however, make me have to piss all night long.

Sleeping on the couch while knowing Tessa’s closetlike room is empty drives me fucking crazy. I hate the idea of her walking through the city alone in the middle of the damn night. I scolded Landon for giving her the tiniest of the two “bedrooms,” but he swears that Tessa won’t allow him to change the arrangement.

Go figure. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s still as stubborn as she has always been. Another example of this: she works until two in the morning and walks home alone.

I should have thought about this sooner. I should have been waiting outside that ridiculous establishment to walk her home. Grabbing my phone from the couch, I check the time. It’s only one now. I can take a cab and get there in less than five minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, thanks to the near impossibility of catching a cab on a Friday night, I guess, I’m standing outside Tessa’s workplace, waiting for her. I should text her, but I don’t want to give her the chance to tell me no—especially since I’m already here.

People pass on the streets—mostly men, which only increases my anxiety about her leaving work alone at such a late hour. While analyzing her safety, I hear laughter. Her laughter.

The doors to the restaurant open and she walks out, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand. A man is next to her, holding the door for her. He looks familiar, too familiar . . . Who the hell is this guy? I swear I’ve seen him before but I can’t remember . . .

The server. The server from that place up by the cabin.

How the hell is that possible? What the hell is this guy doing in New York?

Tessa leans into him, still laughing, and as I take a step forward out of the dark, her eyes meet mine immediately.

“Hardin? What are you doing?” she exclaims loudly. “You scared the crap out of me!”

I look at him, then at her. Months of working out to relieve anger, months of talking shit with Dr. Tran to control my emotions, haven’t prepared me, and never could, for this. I have had small thoughts about Tessa’s having a boyfriend, but I wasn’t expecting or prepared to actually have to deal with it.

As nonchalantly as I can manage, I shrug and say, “I came to make sure you got home okay.”

Tessa and the guy share a look before he nods and shrugs his shoulders. “Text me when you get home,” he says, brushing his hand across hers as he departs.