He didn’t need to know it was actually just over one-seventy that I had as take-home cash.
Not enough, that little voice in my head whispered.Not nearly enough.
But it was something.
It would help.
“Hm,” Tommy said as he looked around the diner that somehow managed to look spic and span despite the hordes of people who’d come through.
Dolin’s Diner never closed, but once the after-bar scene cleared out, there was usually a pretty good lull until the breakfast crowd shuffled in.
So there was almost no one around to see when Tommy moved closer to me and snagged a strand of my hair that had fallen out of my bun.
“This is a violation, you know,” he told me. Like I hadn’t attended all the food safety courses. Like I was the only woman who ever had a strand of hair escape her tie. “I might be willing to forget all about it if—“ he started, and I felt my stomach tightening, knowing where this was going.
It was why I avoided the man like the plague, why I tried never to be caught alone with him.
But the kitchen staff was turning over, so no one was near the window. The guests were situated in a back corner behind a pillar. And I was the only waitress in the building.
Damnit.
How the hell could I get out of this and keep my job?
“Tommy Martin Dolin, if you don’t keep your grubby little sausage fingers to your damn self, I will slice them off with a very dull butter knife.”
That was Maureen.
The force of nature morning waitress who had worked at the diner since Tommy Senior was running the place.
She was tall and skinny with orange-red hair, a bit too much eye makeup, and a chain-smoking habit.
All she did was smart-mouth our boss.
I think the only reason she still had a job was because Tommy was genuinely too scared to fire her.
I adored her.
She was like the diner’s grandma. She’d seen it all, done it all, and rarely ever got flustered. She was who’d trained me. If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I would have lasted a week.
“I was just—“ Tommy started even as he snatched his hand away and took three large steps to the side.
“Leaving. Yes. Good idea. I don’t want you breathing down my neck while I’m working. Hey, girl. How’d it go?” she asked, physically placing herself between me and Tommy, a power move that had me smirking and wishing I was half as badass as she was when I got to her age.
“Busy,” I told her truthfully.
“Busy is good. Keeps you from noticing how your feet are hurting and your back is aching and your underwire is cutting into your left one,” she said, getting a chuckle out of me. “What did he want?” she asked, giving me a knowing look.
“He was complaining that my hair fell out of my bun. But I was more worried about him wanting to start getting a cut of tips.”
“Over my dead and decaying body will that ever happen. If he mentions it again, you tell me. I’ll take care of it, no problem.”
“Maureen, you are truly the best of us,” I said, giving her a one-arm hug.
“Yeah yeah yeah. Now get. You need some rest.”
She was right about that. I was dead on my feet. And my feet were still going to need to walk me all the way home. I couldn’t afford to waste any money on cabs or even the subway.
It wasn’t that far anyway.