Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2) (10 page)

“If I weren’t in a rush, I would take my shoe off and throw it at you right now,” I informed him.

“Good thing for me you throw like a girl,” Jake pointed out, pulling on the overalls with the body shop logo sewn on.  “I’ll pick you up at 7.”

“Pick me up?” I asked, halfway out the door.  “You work downstairs,” I reminded him.  “And we’re living here… together.”

“Technicalities.” Jake shrugged.  “See you at seven, Winters.  Have a good day at work,” he said, kissing me quickly before bounding down the stairs, leaving me a little stunned.

Walking—or in this case jogging—to Sunny Side Up I smiled to myself as I thought about the date that Jake had managed to get me so excited about.  Despite everything that was going on around us, he had this amazing ability to make things better.  And someone that will hide your footwear in a refrigerator just to get to talk to you—that has to be love!

“What are you looking all pleased with yourself about?” Crystal asks, lowering her voice as if she were expecting me to confide some big bit of juicy gossip.

I come back from my daydreaming over the morning’s conversation with Jake.  “Am I?” I ask, feeling myself blush.  I’m not really used to talking to anyone about my relationship with Jake, or with anyone, for that matter.  Suzie was the only friend I’d had that I felt a close enough bond with to be able to have the boy chat that seemed to be standard fare among all the other girls at school.  Suzie. 
No
, I tell myself,
You can’t think about her now.  Don’t let her ruin today for you
.  “It’s nothing,” I say, concentrating harder than necessary on putting the tips in three neat piles.  “I’m just going on a date tonight,” I said, suddenly feeling silly.

“No shit,” Crystal replies, popping her gum and sounding more than a little surprised.

“No shit,” I confirm, wondering why her reaction has irked me.

It must be clear from my expression that she has irritated me.  She bats her eyelashes in the same way she does with customers when she’s managed to get their order wrong, but doesn’t want it to affect the tip they’re going to give her.

“Well, that’s great, Aimee,” she says, her already-high voice getting even squeakier as she tries to show that she shares my excitement.  “With Jake?” she asks, hesitatingly as if there were any other options.

“Yes, Crystal, with Jake,” I confirm, trying not to roll my eyes at her.

“What a catch that guy is,” she says dreamily, looking off into the distance, and I feel that sense of annoyance rising again. 

“Yeah, he is great,” I agree, wondering if this is what jealousy must feel like. 

“Not that
you’re
not, I mean,” Crystal blabbers. “A catch, I mean,” she clarifies.  “Because you totally are. If I were a dude, I’d totally be into you,” she confirms, looking serious.

“Thanks, Crystal,” I tell her, unsure of how to respond.  “That’s nice.”

“So, what are you gonna wear?” she asks, her eyes shining with excitement.  Clothes is one topic that never fails to excite her.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I admit, realizing that I really should have.  Not only because a girl is supposed to be concerned with what she wears on a date, but because my wardrobe had been severely culled care of my house burning down.  Now that I think about it, I really
don’t
know what the hell I’m going to wear.

Crystal sees the obvious panic rising on my face.  I’m not immune to the irony of the fact that with all the craziness going on in our lives, I’m worrying about clothes. 
But wasn’t that sort of the point?
I reason with myself.  This was supposed to be about us doing something outside of the madness that we deal with on a daily basis.

“Don’t worry,” she says, nudging me gently with her sharp elbow.  “If there is anything that I’m good at, it’s makeovers. We’re probably the same size,” she says looking between us. “But you’re taller.” Now she’s talking to herself and not to me.  “We’ll figure it out,” she declares, looking pleased.  “I’ll come over with a few things and we’ll get you ready.”

I’m surprised at how nice Crystal is being to me—not that she’s ever been mean.  But at the same time, it’s not like we’ve never known each other well enough to have sleepovers and do each other’s hair and make-up. 

“That’s really sweet of you, Crys,” I say, genuinely touched.  “But you really don’t have to; I’m sure I can figure something out,” I assure her, not really even managing to convince myself.

“Aimee, let the girl Cinderellafy you.” Big George’s voice comes from out of the kitchen, sounding like he’s bored of listening to our conversation.  “If you try to do it yourself, the Lord only knows what poor Jake is going to be taking out tonight.” I’m sure that I hear him chuckling to himself.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Big G,” I mutter, just loudly enough for him to hear me.

“So...?” Crystal asks, looking at me expectantly.

I take a deep breath, knowing that the only other option I have is to head into the sparse shops in the town and spend pretty much everything I’ve managed to save on finding something that’s date-suitable.  “That would be great; thanks Crystal,” I say, smiling.

“Yay!” she squeals loudly, attracting interested glances from the other customers.  She jumps up and down like a little girl and, for what seems like the longest time, I feel excited.  “So,” she says, calming herself down and getting down to business. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“Dinner and a movie,” I tell her confidently.

“Uh-huh. Where are you going for dinner?” she asks, squinting her eyes at me.

I squirm a little under her direct gaze and realize that I don’t know the answer.  “Somewhere they serve food,” I reply, slowly, smiling apologetically at Crystal to show I’m aware that I’m letting her down.

Crystal sighs theatrically.  “We’ll figure it out,” she tells me.  “I’ll see you at your place in a little while.” Her expression is so serious, and I wonder what I’ve let myself in for.  She grabs her tips and heads out the door faster than you can say ”my shift finishes before yours.”

“Don’t worry, Crys,” I say under my breath.  “I’ll wait for Vanessa to show up.”

“Aimee—you still there?” George’s voice comes from the kitchen again

“Coming,” I sigh, wondering how, after less than a couple of weeks back at the diner, I’ve managed to get sucked back into covering for the other waitresses.

“Thought you were off now,” George says as I walk through the swing door to the kitchen.

“Me too,” I grumble good-naturedly.  “What do you need?” I ask, looking around and expecting to see an order that needs to be delivered.

“Nothing, just to tell you that you might want to get on the graveyard shift tomorrow night,” he says shiftily.  “You’ll need to swap with Vanessa,” he points out.

“And why would I want to do that?” I ask, curiously.  “Because working until 3 in the morning is just the most fun you can have with your clothes on?” I joke, shaking my head at George’s suggestion.  “I’m off tomorrow anyway. So you’ll just have to muddle through without missing me too much.” I grin cheekily.

“I would have asked you to pull a double tonight, but with your date and all...” George continues, as if I haven’t even spoken.

I lean against the stove so that George has to look at me.  “And why would you ask me to pull a double tonight?” I ask, frowning, knowing that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.  “You have enough waitresses.”

“You read the news?” George asks, reaching around me to pick up a clean spatula.

“Yes,” I reply.  “Anything particular that you’re talking about?” I ask, scratching my head and trying to make heads or tails of George’s caginess.

“We’ve been getting some guests in here on the graveyard shift, when the diner’s pretty much empty,” George explains, and I realize that his voice has dropped to a whisper.  “People that are interested in finding out what really happened out there that night.” George nods in the direction of the highway.

“The Feds,” I say, too loudly, causing George to whip around and give me a look that would have frozen me to the spot.  “The Feds have been coming here?” I ask, my voice now a more acceptable volume level.

“The last couple of nights,” George nods, studying the waffles he’s working on.

“How do you know they’re Feds?” I ask.  “I’m guessing they don’t walk around in black suits and sunglasses like in
The X Files
?”

“I know what the Feds look like; I’ve seen enough of them,” George replies enigmatically.

I desperately want to ask about George’s past, about what made him leave Mexico. But he’s fiercely private.  I know from experience that George doesn’t respond well to coaxing.  If he doesn’t want to tell you something, then it doesn’t get told.

“Okay, and why do you think I’d want to be on shift when they come into the diner?” I ask, twirling the spatula that he’s just put down in my hands, a million thoughts whirling around my head.

“You’re a smart girl, Aimee.  I think you can figure that one out,” he says cryptically.

“George,” I tell him. “Sometimes you’re very ‘wax on, wax off.’ Has anyone ever told you that?” I ask, only half-joking.

“Nope.” He smiles.

“I’m here!” Vanessa’s voice comes from the front of house, and that’s my signal to head home.

“That’s my song,” I say to George.  I start to turn away, and then I give in, although I know I should know better.  “Put me on for the graveyard tomorrow. I’ll switch with Vanessa,” I tell him.

“Enjoy your date,” George calls after me.  “Just don’t let Crystal make you look like a drag queen,” he wheezes out, unable to contain his laughter.

“Thanks G,” I say sarcastically, waving behind me as I go.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

On the walk home, the excitement I was feeling about the date is tempered by the knowledge that tomorrow night could be the start of Jake and I finding our way out of here.    If I can talk to the Feds, tell them what I heard that night in the diner, without any of the other customers overhearing me.  I stop my train of thought right there.  If I could do both those things, then I would have to be the Invisible Girl.  The first step was to see if they even show, I guess.  Just because George has seen them in the diner a couple of times, doesn’t mean they’re going to carry on showing up every night like clockwork. 
First see if they show, and then see if you can overhear anything they say about their investigation
, I tell myself.  Baby steps.

As the beginnings of a plan come into formation, I allow myself a smile as I think what this could all mean for Jake and for me. For us.  I’m desperate to tell him about the Feds and George tipping me off about changing my shift.  But I remember his ground rules.  No talk about the Angels or any of the insanity of Painted Rock. Not tonight.  Tonight was just going to be about us.  Two people in love doing what people in love do. 
Sounds pretty good to me
, I tell myself, unable to stop my smile spreading from ear to ear.

“How have you lived this long without an eyelash curler?” Crystal asks me, her blonde head taking up the whole of my field of vision as she works laboriously on my eye make-up.

“Umm, just never needed one before, I guess,” I say.

“Wrong!” she announces somewhat gleefully.  “Every girl needs one of these, even ones blessed with long lashes like yours, sweetie-pie,” she tells me, pointing the mascara wand in my direction.

“Okay, well, thanks,” I reply, shrugging.  “How are we looking?” I spy the time on my cell out of the corner of my eye.  It’s 6.50, and although I know that Jake probably won’t show until he’s at least a half hour late, I, as always, want to make sure that I’m ready on time. 

“Almost there, impatient one,” Crystal says, looking pointedly at me.  “You can’t rush a masterpiece. Now close your mouth so that I can do your lips without smudging your cupid’s bow,” she instructs me, poised with a lip gloss stick in her hand.

I close my mouth obediently, having learned that trying to argue with Crystal when she’s in the make-up zone is pretty much equivalent to interrupting a scientist during a volatile experiment.  I had always known that Crystal was concerned about her appearance and I had never seen her without being painted to the nines.  But, I hadn’t quite realized how seriously she took the act of beautifying.

She had wanted to be a beautician, but she was suffering under the Bleeding Angels economy, like every other person in Painted Rock.  She couldn’t afford to pay for the course.  So, instead, she worked any number of odd jobs around the town, getting together as much money as she could to pay for her dream.  But, inevitably she would get bored and quit and move onto the next job, which is how she found herself in Sunny Side Up. 

“But, when it came to pay day, with all that money in my hand, I just couldn’t stop myself,” she explained to me.  “I would head to the nearest store and buy whatever I could afford—a dress, shoes, make-up, whatever it was.  I needed it.”  I thought back to earlier today in the diner when she quickly snatched her tip money almost right out of my hand and I couldn’t say that I was surprised by her confession.  “Soon enough, I would be dead broke
again,
and getting into more and more debt.  Saving wasn’t really an option.” She shrugged.

The simplicity that she showed in her way of seeing her possibilities made me a little sad.  I pondered how easily we’re willing to let our dreams slip away from us.  “So what are you planning on doing now?” I asked.

“Well, the plan is the same,” she said.  “But it’s real hard, you know?” I nodded my understanding.  “Every time I start a new job, I tell myself: ‘Crystal, this time you have to do it right.’  But I guess I haven’t managed to figure it all out yet…” she said, looking like she really wished that she had.

“I could help you,” I offered.  “I’ve always been pretty good with money, I’ve sort of had to be, without my mom and dad around,” I explained matter-of-factly.

“Sure, yeah, that’s really sad what happened to your dad and then your mom going crazy and all.” Crystal nodded sympathetically. 

I burst out laughing because there really was something amazingly refreshing about Crystal’s honesty.  It was a trait of hers that I had never really appreciated before.  But at a time like this, when everyone in the town seems to want to tip-toe around the important things—the things that actually mean anything, that actually matter—it’s good to have someone like Crystal around who doesn’t seem to have any concern or even awareness of what may or may not be the appropriate thing to say.  I guess maybe her “brain to mouth” filter was as poorly exercised as mine.

Crystal seemed to have no idea why I was laughing and was looking at me like I may have, as she would say, “gone crazy and all.”  “So, anyway,” I said, moving on from my unexpected hilarity, “If you need a hand, I’d be happy to help you save for your beautician course.”

“Really?” Crystal asked, looking dubiously at me.  “You were serious? You’d really do that for me?”

“Sure.” I shrugged like it was a no-brainer.  “It’s the least I can do after you’ve helped me so much tonight,” I pointed out.

It was true—Crystal had come over to the studio, weighed down with more clothes, bags, and coat hangers than I would have thought her small frame could handle.  When I showed her the clothes I’d picked out from my own wardrobe, she’d looked mildly horrified and then patted my head like you would a dog and told me to put them away.

As we pieced through the clothes that Crystal had brought it became clear that our styles couldn’t have been more different.  Whereas I definitely had more of a laid-back approach to clothes, Crystal’s way of thinking was clearly that more is more. 

“You would look awesome, in this,” she said, holding up a cute top.

“That’s pretty,” I agreed.  “What pants do you think would work with it?” I asked, wishing that I didn’t feel like such a sartorial retard.

“Pants?” Crystal looked at me like I’d said a word that she has no hope of understanding.  “Why would you wear pants under a dress?” she asked, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe I’d said something quite so stupid.

“A dress. Right.” I nodded, trying to appear casual.  “Maybe something a little less… short?” I asked, not wanting to offend Crystal, but starting to despair at the incompatibility of her clothes with my personality.

“Honey, if I had your legs, you would never see me not showing them off,” she informed me, clearly finding it hard that I was giving her so little to work with.  “Alright, new plan—you go on and have a shower and get freshened up. I’ll pick out what you’re going to wear and you don’t get to argue. Not until you’ve at least tried it on,” she pitched, smiling like she had figured out the best way to deal with me.

I have to admit, I was a more than a little apprehensive at what the hell Crystal would decide to dress me up in.  But, I’ve got to hand it to her—the girl knows what she’s doing. 

So here I sit, while Crystal completes the finishing touches to my make-up.  I try to push George’s comment about drag queens out of my head, although it manages to sneak back in again and again.  Crystal has put me in a shot denim skirt that is not
quite
as indecent as the ones she seemed to want me to wear.  The top is something far more daring than I would ever have come up with on my own, but I can’t deny that it makes me feel pretty good.  From the front it looks like a standard black halter-neck, but the back is slashed, exposing streaks of skin as I move. 

“Now shoes, what size are you?” she asks. 

“Five and a half,” I inform her. Every time Crystal asks me a question about clothes, I feel like it’s a test. 
Because you haven’t done the girl chat thing in such a long time
, the little voice in my head reminds me. 
Not since your only girlfriend Suzie went over to the dark side
.  I groan inwardly, wondering why my inner voice has to be such a bitch sometimes.

“Okay, well I’m a five, so that’s pretty close,” she tells me, holding up a pair of heels that are so cute I’m desperate to put them on.  But they also look like they cost more than I earn in a month at the diner.

“How could you afford these?” I ask, feeling for the first time a girly fascination with shoes.

“Like I said, bad with money, good with credit cards.” Crystal shrugs.  “Try them on,” she encourages me, holding them out.

“No, I couldn’t,” I say, although what I really want to do is grab them out of her hands and shove my feet into them.  “They’re way too expensive—what if something happened to them?  I’d feel awful,” I tell her truthfully, knowing that the possibility of me ruining them wasn’t all that remote.  I really am that clumsy.

“What are you going to do to them?  Throw them in the river?” Crystal laughs.  “And besides, what other options do you have?” she asks, looking around the room as if a pair of stunning shoes are about to jump out at her from behind the couch.

“Well, there are these,” I say, wincing as I hold up my basic pumps, already knowing what her reaction is going to be.

“Those sad little shoes that you wear to the diner?” she asks, as if I’ve mortally offended her.  “No way, Jose. I haven’t worked this hard to create this look—” She gestures towards me, “—only for you to ruin it with those. Now put these on, before I get mad,” she says, and the combination of her steely words and high-pitched voice makes me want to laugh out loud.

“Alright, alright,” I surrender, slipping on the shoes.  As soon as I put them on my feet, I don’t really want to take them off despite clearly being too small for me.  “They’re, umm, a little tight,” I say, wincing as I try to walk around in them and feel like my feet are being tortured at every step.

“Doesn’t matter; they look hot.” Crystal looks approvingly up and down.  “You wanna see?” she asks, sounding excited.

I nod rapidly. Her excitement is contagious and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t curious about what I looked like with the Crystal magic makeover.  The only mirror in the place is in the bathroom and it only shows me up to my waist.  But, for a moment, I don’t even really recognize that the person staring back is me.

“Hot damn,” I say under my breath.  The woman really is a magician. She’s managed to give me the kind of smoky eyes that I’ve only seen in fashion magazines.  Not only that, but my eyelashes look like they go on for days.  She’s kept the rest of my make-up really natural so all the attention is focused on my green eyes.  “Crystal, you are amazing,” I tell her, still a little in awe of what she’s managed to pull off in such a short time.

“You really like the look?” she asks nervously. 

“No, I don’t like it, I
love
it,” I confirm, giving her a grateful hug.  “I’ve never looked anything like this before. I feel… pretty,” I say, for once not looking in the mirror and focusing on my too-big mouth and the other design flaws I can usually find in my face without having to look too hard.

“Well, you’ve got the basics all going on, Aimee,” she informs me.  “You’re gorgeous. I’ve just made you a little more… sparkly.”  She surveys her handiwork in the mirror, clearly pleased with the outcome, and then she stops as if something has just occurred to her.  “You telling me you don’t feel pretty on like, a daily basis?” she asks, tilting her head and examining me.

“Umm, no,” I admit, looking down at the beautiful shoes that are slowly mangling my feet.  “To be honest, it’s not something I think about all that much,” I tell her truthfully.  “Bigger things to worry about, you know?” 

“Oh, honey.” Crystal shakes her head at me in despair.  “This is a big thing,” she confides, like she’s letting me in on an important secret.  “The way you look is power. Women in this town, all we do is get to see our friends, our boyfriends, our brothers, get taken away and turned into something else.  When they come back—and that’s
if
they come back—they’re never the same.  But us girls, we’re stronger than they all think, and smarter too,” she adds.  “We have to use what the good Lord gave us to get by in this town.” She must see the expression on my face at her words as she hurries quickly on to explain.  “I ain’t talking about hooking or anything like that. I just mean that if you can make a man do what you want… In this town, that’s worth more than any kind of money or status or anything,” she finishes with confident certainty.

Not for the first time, Crystal has surprised me.  I had always thought that she was a bit of an airhead—a nice girl, but who lived with her head in the clouds.  She also had a reputation of being kind of a flirt. I think back to her batting her eyelashes at the customers at the diner and I wonder if I haven’t misjudged her this whole time.  Perhaps she doesn’t behave that way because she likes the attention—maybe she does it because she knows that it’s the quickest way of getting what she wants. 

“Crystal,” I say, really seeing her for the first time, “I think we’re going to be good friends.”

To my surprise, she blushes and looks absurdly pleased.  “I think so too,” she says, smiling.  “Besides, who else is going to teach you how to make the best of yourself?”