Page 7 of Slaughter
Tall, broad-shouldered, with blond hair pulled back in a low ponytail that showed off the sharp line of his jaw. Diamondback cut over a black T-shirt, the leather worn soft at the edges. He scanned the room with those pale blue eyes, found me across the checkered linoleum, and his face softened into a smile—the kind of smile that made my stomach flip, even though I knew better—as he slid into a booth near the back.
I finished with the truckers, grabbed a menu, and walked over.
“Hey,” he said, his voice warm.
“Hey.”
“Didn’t know you were working today.”
“Last-minute shift.” I set the menu down. “Coffee?”
“Yeah. And we need to talk.”
I froze. “Angel.”
“Hope, please. Just sit with me for a minute.”
I glanced around. The diner was slow. Stacey, the other waitress, caught my eye and nodded. I knew she would cover my tables as I slid into the booth across from him, my hands folded in my lap.
Angel leaned forward across the small table, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my chest tighten. “I need to know what’s going on,” he said, his voice low and careful, like he was afraid of spooking me.
“Nothing’s going on,” I replied, wrapping my hands around a coffee cup even though it had long gone cold.
“Bullshit.” His voice was gentle but firm. The kind of tone that cut through excuses and deflections. “We’ve been doing this dance for months now. I ask you out; you say maybe. I text; you respond but keep me at arm’s length. I try to get close; you pullback like I’ve crossed some invisible line I can’t even see. I need to know. Is it me? Did I do something wrong? Because if I did, just tell me and I’ll fix it.”
“No,” I said quickly, maybe too quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then what is it?” He spread his hands on the table between us, palms up, almost as if he were offering me something I couldn’t quite grasp. “Help me understand. Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like you want this, but you’re terrified of it at the same time.”
I didn’t know how to answer. The words stuck in my throat, tangled up with all the reasons I couldn’t say them out loud. Because he was right. He was absolutely right. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had been nothing but kind and patient and interested. Genuinely interested in who I was, not just who he wanted me to be. The problem wasn’t him.
The problem was me. It had always been me.
“I just—” I started, then stopped. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know why I keep pulling back. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You’re great, Angel. You really are. But something just... doesn’t feel right.”
His jaw tightened. “What doesn’t feel right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hope.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “I know that’s not fair to you. I know you deserve better than this. But I can’t explain it. I just... I’m not ready.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching mine as if trying to decipher some hidden code written across my face. Then he leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking slightlyunder his weight, and ran a hand over his face in a gesture that seemed equal parts exhaustion and resignation. “You’re waiting for something.”
I blinked, caught off guard by the statement. My mind scrambled to catch up with where this conversation had suddenly veered. “What?”
“You’re waiting for something. Someone. I don’t know what, but you are.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw tight. “And until you figure out what that is. Until you stop holding part of yourself back, you’re never going to give me, or anyone else for that matter, a real chance.”
His words hit me like a punch to the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong, that he didn’t know what he was talking about. But the protest died on my lips before it could form.
