Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 73445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “Just be glad Bill isn’t in yet today.”
She huffed out a laugh. “As if he’d get off his fat ass and actually work the grill.” She leaned over the counter and waved through the little window back to the kitchen. “Hey, Darnell, how ya doing this mornin’?”
She grabbed an apron from behind the counter while she was bent over it.
The diner was fairly empty since it was 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, but Mr. Simmons was a regular. Over his coffee, he took in the eyeful provided by Delilah’s short shorts while she bent over. He was a dirty old bastard who pinched my ass every chance he got.
“I’m just fine, ‘Lilah.” Darnell smiled back.
I just shook my head at her. “Don’t let Jimmy catch you flirting with Darnell again.”
Delilah pulled back from the counter and glared at me. “Jimmy can go fuck himself. You’re so lucky to have Kyle.”
Kyle. My boyfriend of three years. There was a time when just his name would’ve sent butterflies fluttering through my stomach.
Now?
I think of finding him passed out on my couch last night after I’d worked a double, videogame controller still in hand, leftover take-out containers on the table, drool dripping down his chin.
The applications for local positions around town sat untouched on the kitchen table where I’d left them. He hadn’t even moved them, meanwhile I was working my ass off to support both of us. And I’d told him not to order takeout. It was the last thing we could afford.
But whenever I tried to bring up money, he just said he liked me better back before I used to bitch and complain all the time. Usually followed by him grabbing a beer from the fridge and walking out of the room.
“Yeah,” I murmured, running a cloth over the counter. “So lucky.”
“Hey.” Delilah’s voice was sharp. “I mean it. You got one of the good ones.”
I smacked the cloth on the counter and braced my hands, looking up at her. “Did I?”
Then I shook my head at myself. “I always swore I’d be nothing like my mom but look at me, shacking up with the first guy who looked my way.” I grabbed the cloth and started scrubbing again, harder than ever.
“You’re gonna scrub the Formica off that countertop, you keep going at it like that,” Delilah said. But she crossed her arms over her chest. “And someday you’re gonna have to get down off that high horse and realize you’re just like the rest of us. Yeah, you’re super pretty, but ain’t nothing special about you, or me, or any other girl ever born in this county. We were born in the dirt and that’s where we’ll die. Reading all these books is only making you miserable about that fact.”
She thumped my Econ book closed.
“Hey.” I grabbed for the book, but she yanked it out of my grasp.
I glared at her. “Bitch.”
“Snob.”
Then we both cracked up laughing.
She tossed my book back on the counter and reached into her enormous Mary Poppins bag. I swear, her whole arm could disappear into it when she was hunting for one particular item or other, and it was always bursting at the seams. A leopard bra strap hung out of the front pocket. A packet of tissues along with several used ones spilled out as she hunted and finally pulled out a shimmery pink lip gloss.
She was already wearing a siren red lipstick, but she puckered up and smeared lip gloss on top. When she smiled, her cigarette-yellowed teeth clashed with the color, but my grin was still genuine.
“Gorgeous as always. But take off those sunglasses.” I reached over and pulled them off her face. “Bill might be in later and you know he hates—”
I gasped and froze once I saw her face underneath the shades. And the giant bruise blooming around her right eye.
“Delilah! What the hell?” I dropped the glasses on the counter and scooted closer.
She shied back from me and turned her face away. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!”
She spun and glared at me, her shiner swollen and puffy. “Jimmy and I just got in an argument last night and it got out of hand.”
“Jimmy did this to you?”
I’d kill the bastard. He was twice Delilah’s size.
“It’s not what you think.” She sighed. “I pissed him off. I was snooping around on his phone and he caught me. I really shouldn’t have been doing that. He was angry and it went downhill from there. I started shoving him. It really wasn’t his fault.”
I could not believe the shit I was hearing.
And at the same time, I understood it all too well. Hadn’t I heard the same crap from my mom? Over and over. Boyfriend after boyfriend.
He loves me, he just has an anger problem.
It only happens when he’s drinking. He’s getting help, he swears.