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Carter caught sight of me and eyed me the way I imagined I was doing to him.

He approached me, bending for a quick, hot kiss.

I started to hurry to the garage to leave, but he stopped me by grabbing my arm. “I keep meaning to ask. Where do you work? I’d like to know where you are in case I need to reach you.”

“The little diner on Harmon and Tropicana. Close to the university.”

He nodded. “I know where that is. Thank you.”

I tried to tug my arm loose to leave, but he didn’t let me, pulling me close. He started kissing me, wet, drugging draws at my lips, his hands buried in my hair, using it to pull my head back for deeper angles against his mouth.

“Don’t go,” he said in the most convincing tone he could conjure. “Stay home and let me feed you dinner and fuck you as many times as you can take.”

I was so tempted I trembled with it, but it was impossible.

“I need this job,” I told him, my tone almost pleading with him. “What happens when you don’t want me around anymore? Then I’ll be homeless and jobless.”

His kiss this time was almost painful. Punishing. He drew back and glared at me. “That’s not what’s happening here. Even if I never lay another finger on you, this is your home. And if you need money I’ll provide you with it; whatever you need.”

The concept was so foreign to my experiences that I just couldn’t see how it was real or moreover, that it could last for any length of time.

I pulled away, and he let me go, though he looked pissed, nostrils flared. “I’ll be back late.”

He looked like he wanted to break something, but he let me leave.

My shift wasn’t over for another hour and a bunch of obnoxious college boys were making my life hell. I was exhausted and fed up.

Usually it wasn’t this bad, the students from UNLV came in to study and drank too much coffee at all hours, but this crowd was especially rowdy.

It was only Thursday, but for some reason the place was full to capacity. On the weekends, we got the crowds after they left the bars and needed to carb up before stumbling back home, but it was unexpected, if not unheard of, on a Thursday.

One table in particular was getting loud and making crude comments that they had to know weren’t out of my earshot.

You couldn’t be meek with men like that or they walked all over you. With a suggestive laugh one asked me, “What time do you get off?”

I shot back, “Never,” and they roared with laughter but laid off me for a while after that.

I’d been working here since I was sixteen so I knew how to read customers by now. The types that were real assholes never tipped well, if at all. If you aren’t afraid to show someone what an asshole you are, you certainly don’t care if they think you’re a bad tipper. Hell, I thought some of them were probably proud of it.

So with that, when I clocked an asshole, I served them but didn’t even try chat them up.

I was staying away from that table as much as I could, but it was fifteen minutes until closing now and they showed no signs of moving even as the rest of the patrons had made their way out.

I sighed. I was going to have to kick them out myself, I just knew it. My manager was never good with that kind of thing, always put the burden on someone else, and it never turned out well for me.

I heard the bell ding that sounded when someone came in. I opened my mouth to tell them we were closing, then shut it abruptly. I smiled bemusedly, forgetting everything but the man walking in.

Mr. North had arrived to check up on me. I was suddenly less tired, more filled with cheerful energy.

He was dressed casually in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers, his hair messed up, his expression grumpy as hell.

“Have a seat anywhere,” I told him as I approached, grinning up at him. “We’re closing in fifteen minutes, but I can get you whatever you want if you order quickly.”

He looked around like the entire place had offended him personally.

Just then one of the guys from the rowdy table called loudly for me by name. I needed to start wearing a fake name tag at work, I decided on the spot.

“I’ll be right back to get your order,” I told Carter, walking over to their table.