Before That Night: Unfinished Love Series: Caine & Addison, Book 1 (2 page)

The stoic, moderately grumpy potential employer she was interviewing with just grunted in response and flipped her resume upright as a signal for her to stop talking while he looked over her work experience. Or in her case, the serious lack thereof.

Meanwhile, Addison was slowly and surely spiraling down a brain-vomit rabbit hole in her crisis of conscience over the whopper of a three-for-the-price-of one lie she’d just blurted out.

Wonder if that upgrades me to one of the premium seats on the bus, right next to the broken toilets, situated so the meal carts for sure bang you in the elbows?

To be fair, only the ‘waitressing’ part was a true lie. The other two were more like…white lies. Or fibs. The kind told to protect the innocent. Or more accurately, the kind kids tell each other to make up for a truth that just plain sucked. Like how their dad is ‘really’ a spy on a top secret mission instead of someone they’ve never met, or how their family had gone on a trip up north in the summer instead of spending it watching TV all day in the basement of their mom’s latest sleazy boyfriend’s crack house that he shared with five other burnouts, who thought a
curtain
was a suitable barrier to separate the children from the adults doing drugs and other things the TV couldn’t muffle every other night.

In Addison’s case, she’d never been one to fantasize that her father was an astronaut orbiting space for the last eighteen years or anything like that because frankly, she had no clue who her father was, and as far as she knew, her mother didn’t either. And truth be told, she probably would’ve enjoyed working part-time at a diner growing up, like some of her friends had done.

But the main reason why she’d never been able to commit to more than a few seasonal jobs here and there was that taking care of her two siblings had always been her full time job, even back in grade school—aka the blur-like cluster of years her mom had first begun mixing recreational drugs in with her drinking. Addison had learned real quick that if she didn’t make a point to feed herself and her then one-year old brother Tanner, no one else would remember to.

So it was no surprise that by the time Addison started middle school several years later, and her new little sister Kylie was born, she’d been a pro at the whole raising kids thing.

They always say by the second child, it gets easier.

“Why do you want to work in my diner?”

Though his tone indicated he already had his mind set about her regardless of what her answer was, she cut to the chase and told him honestly, “Because it’s the job I need.”

Not ‘want.’
Need
. No sense bullshitting the man in that regard.

He raised a surprised eyebrow, his first non-grouchy response to her today.

“No offense, but you look way too young and way too sweet to ‘need’ to work in a place like this,” he responded after a beat, blunt as an arrow.

Puzzled, she gave a pointed nod out the window at the pristine street the diner sat on. “This is
Creek Hills
. Next to Scottsdale, there aren’t much nicer areas around here for miles.”

That assertion seemed to reawaken his lovely prickly disposition. “I meant my business, not the neighborhood.” He rolled his eyes when she continued to stare at him like she was missing something. “Joe’s Diner isn’t a teen hangout sorta place. Not sure if it’s because of all the cops that eat here but kids don’t really like stopping by. So you probably won’t ever see any of your little friends here.”

God, when was the last time she’d actually ‘hung out’ with a friend?

Grade school, probably.

Addison shrugged. “Don’t have time for friends. Never really got along with the ones my age anyway.”

Again with the surprised brow lift. Then: “You pregnant?”

“What?
No.
”

He frowned, looking genuinely mystified. “So then why do you need this job so bad?”

She kept it short and to the point. “I’ve got bills to pay.”

Now he was back to looking annoyed with her. For some reason, she liked that though. He was real. And that realness made her not want to lie to him.

“Sorry to break it to you little girl, but I’m not hiring any more part-timers. Plus, it’s the closing shift I’m needing to fill. I can’t be here in the evenings since I help my brother out at his restaurant in Tempe most nights so I need folks I can count on to close-up shop for me here.”

“No problem. Closing shift works perfect for me, and full-time is exactly what I’m looking for.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied her for a bit. Then he said simply, “Look, you need to tell me something more. Something to make me understand you. Or I can’t hire you. Because to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust you not to up and leave when you figure out that being a waitress is damn hard work, or when your feelings get hurt when I yell at you for screwing shit up, or when you get tempted to go enroll in the local community college because daddy says he’ll give you back your allowance and car since you’ve ‘learned your lesson’ about the real world.”

This time, she was the one eyeing him in annoyance. “I’m not some rich kid being punished by her daddy. And for your information, I already got into college, thank you very much. I was all set to start NAU this August, on a
full ride
.”

Though his expression softened, he remained silent, waiting for more.

What the heck more did he want her to say?

That the only reason the kids were able to go to school in the Creek Hills school district was because they’d been living with her mom’s current boyfriend, who, while a prince in comparison to all the crackheads and abusive sonsofbitches she’d dated before him, the guy was a flat-out conman with the moral acuity of a mollusk?

Or was Joe wanting to hear that because Sonny’s roommate was no longer covering the lion’s share of the rent and utilities, Sonny was behind on a month and a half of rent—not including the upcoming rent check due—and lapsed totally on all utilities?

Oh, no wait, she probably shouldn’t bury the lead, and should instead begin by explaining how in two days, seeing as how he and her mother were nowhere to be found, Addison and her siblings would be evicted from their now powerless and waterless apartment unless all four thousand seven hundred fifty bucks Sonny owed magically appeared on the landlord’s desk.

…That is, if the landlord didn’t call the authorities first to have the kids whisked away from her.

Doing her damndest not to let that last threat gut her like it always did, Addison held Joe’s gaze and decided to lay her cards out, and go with one big truth. “I’m going to level with you; my mom was a single mom, and she just up and deserted my younger brother and sister to go run off with the guy she’s seeing now. They’re just kids. They’re relying on me. So when I say I need this job, I really
need
this job. I’m not going to flake out on you because I literally
can’t
.”

His brief pause of silence carried as much empathy as it did hesitation. “How old are your siblings?”

“Twelve and six.”

He frowned. “Hang on, exactly how old are
you
?”

“I’ll be nineteen in a few months.”
Five months could count as ‘a few’ right?

He did a surprised double take. “And
you’re
financially responsible for them? But you’re just a kid yourself. How is that even possible? Where are you guys even living?”

Dammit, she had to go back to lying. But she tried to word it just so. “Our Aunt Bernadette lives not that far from here.”

That made the alarmed I’m-calling-social-services look on his face dissipate.

“It works out great because the kids don’t have to change school districts this way,” continued Addison on a panicked ramble. “Only, Aunt Bernadette is way older than my mom, and living on a fixed income—social security and retirement can only go so far. So I need to do my part to help cover the finances for the kids.”

All partially true. The elderly woman she’d been hired to watch from eight to twelve on Monday through Friday
was
on social security and retirement. And she
did
tell Addison and her siblings to call her Aunt Bernadette.

“Which brings me to my proposal for you, Joe.” Addison took a breath and steamrolled right along, hoping beyond hope that he saw the merit in the plan she’d been thinking up for days. “You’re looking for two new full-timers, both for the closing shift, right?”

“Yeah. No one likes that shift so I need to split ‘em up across a few waitresses. Why?” Now he sounded curious where she was going with this.

“Well, what if you just hire me to work a modified swing shift all seven days of the week? It’ll save you money. That way, you won’t need to pick up two full-timers at forty hours a pop; I’d be here right at the start of your dinner rush and stay until closing. Every day. Five and a half hours a day Monday through Thursday when you close at midnight, six and a half hours a day on Friday and Saturday when you stay open to one a.m., and five hours flat on Sunday when you close at eleven. Think about how much you’d save by just hiring one person to cover all seven nights.

He looked intrigued…for about a second before he shook his head. “I always have two waitresses and one cook on the last shift, but one of the waitresses needs to stay after closing to close out the registers and all the other nightly duties.
That’s
the position I’m trying to fill.”

“Even better. I can be your closer every night. You’ll have total consistency that way. So we’ll just shift the times forward a bit. About a half hour, right?”

“Yeah, good guess. Did you help close for your dad’s friend’s diner, too?”

It was a test, she could tell. “Ye— Okay, no,” she admitted. “I drove by here last night and saw the lights shut off at about twelve-thirty.”

He was
almost
smiling now.
What’s that saying about the magic of honesty again?
“My morning crew comes in an hour early so you wouldn’t have to do too much.”

“I’ll pick it all up fast, I swear. I’m smart. And responsible.”

“I still don’t know.” He looked good and torn. “That’d be a crazy schedule for you to keep.”

“It sounds perfect to me.” It really did.

“Are you kidding? I don’t know
any
waitress who’d want to work those hours. Especially not for seven days straight.”

Probably because those other waitresses you know have somewhere to go home to after they’re done with work.

“Well you do now. I need to pick up my sister from school every afternoon, and since Aunt Bernadette isn’t all that active anymore, it’ll be great if I could be there to take the kids to the park, or even just be there to help them with their homework and stuff since her eyes aren’t that great either.”
Reel it in, reel it in, he’s starting to look like Aunt Bernadette isn’t that great of a guardian either.
“So yes, it’s the perfect shift for me. I promise, I won’t let you down, Joe. I literally
can’t afford
to let you down.”

He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, frown firmly settled on his face.

Oh no.

“I’ll see you tomorrow for your first night.”

The wave of relief that slammed into her almost knocked her to the ground.

As she attempted to get all her runaway emotions under control, Joe gave her a quick rundown as he walked her out of his office. “Shirley, who you met when you first came in, will be with you on most nights. She rotates with Stacy, who’s going back to her part time hours around her class schedule once the semester starts back up next month, and Maggie—he pointed at a very pregnant waitress shouting into the order window like a drill sergeant—who will be here for another few weeks until she pops and takes the next year off to focus on being a mom. So I’ll have three of you working for the first two weeks or so until you get the hang of things, then wean Maggie back and adjust Shirley’s and Stacy’s schedules.”

He handed her a couple of Joe’s Diner’s shirts and a few short black waitress aprons. “That’s your uniform. I don’t have a clock or nothing for you to punch into. If you need to come in late, make sure you tell whoever is working, and then let me know after so we can adjust your hours.”

Lastly, he tapped on the security system. “I’ll give you the codes and keys and things tomorrow, but again, the girls will be with you to show you the ropes on how to close up. It’s easy. And don’t worry, the after-hours janitorial crew usually comes in and starts working while you’re tallying receipts and things, or at the latest, before you leave, depending on their schedule. So you won’t be here all alone after closing. They’ve got a set of keys, but I scheduled them to overlap with whatever waitress I have closing. So we’ll stick with that. Just gives me piece of mind to have people here with you after hours.”

Even though she’d kept on a brave face the entire time, that little tidbit did make her feel loads better about being there after midnight on her own.