You got him to yourself in the end, just as you wanted.
Hazel hugged her sides and, despite the afternoon heat, suppressed a shiver. One wrong step and playing messenger could’ve been her lot instead of Penny’s.
* * * *
After their morning tangle, Sadie gave Hazel a wide berth until the end of the shift. She took Travis up on his offer of a ride home when he swung by the diner. Hazel thought Sadie must have called him. She pretended not to notice them leaving together—Sadie’s laugh a sonorous, bright thing, as though she wanted to be heard. In her absence, there were tables to be bussed and napkins to fold.
“You pulling a double shift?” Marco asked, when he noticed Hazel making busy around the diner an hour after her shift had purportedly ended.
“You want me to go?”
Marco mulled this over. It was no secret that he lacked the cash flow to pay overtime. He brought it up whenever anyone complained about needing extra hands at peak hours.
“If you think you can stick around till morning, tell Emmalee to head on home,” he decreed. “And can you tuck those menus right? Drives me insane.” He pointed with a meaty finger to the leather sleeve into which were crammed all the laminated one-page menus that passed through their patrons’ greasy hands.
Hazel tackled that first. She didn’t relish the thought of spending the night in Marco’s diner. Her feet were already killing her. But the alternative was to head home and pretend everything was all right. She couldn’t imagine telling Ward and Dylan about Penelope’s visit. The less they talked about her sordid past, the better.
It would be easier to pretend it hadn’t happened in the morning.
“Hey, if you want to head on home, Marco says it’s cool,” she told Emmalee.
She glanced up from a thick textbook, highlighter in hand. “You want to swap shifts?”
Hazel shrugged.
Might as well, since I’m too chickenshit to go home.
She had an apartment she could run to if she needed the space, but that place had been tainted, however indirectly, by Malcolm’s foray into film-making. “What are you doing, anyway?” she asked, changing the subject. “Looks like homework.”
“That’s ’cause it is. I’m taking a couple of night classes at the community college. Nothing fancy,” Emmalee added with a self-deprecating laugh. “Just, you know, I was thinking I’d make a pretty good shop assistant or something. But they want college degrees for that now, can you believe it?”
It had been the case already when Hazel had first come to LA, four hundred dollars in her wallet and no idea how she was to make ends meet. She hadn’t looked for a job since Marco had taken her on. Waiting tables was grueling, blistering work, but it saved her the indignity of being turned down at recruitment office after recruitment office.
As if guessing her thoughts, Emmalee asked, “You went to college, right?”
“For a couple of years,” Hazel confirmed.
“You graduate early?”
“Nope.”
“Ah.” Emmalee flashed her a commiserating smile, foundation cracking after a day spent bathing in steam and greasy fumes under unflattering fluorescent lights. “Well, shouldn’t be hard to get those credits transferred.”
“Yeah,” Hazel echoed, “so I can be a waitress
with a college degree
.”
They already had one of those.
Emmalee arched her thinly penciled eyebrows. “Who says you’ll be a waitress forever?” Books packed into her arm, she squeezed Hazel’s shoulder. “Anyway, you’re the best. I’ve got a ton of reading to get done.”
“Sure…”
Hazel leaned against the vinyl booth to watch her saunter into the back of the restaurant, a woman who knew what she wanted out of life. To Hazel, hers was just one more table to set to rights for clients that might or might not show up until the shift change in the morning.
She gave it another half hour to make sure Emmalee was well and truly gone before she dug out her cell phone from her locker and texted Ward to say she wouldn’t make it home tonight. His reply was almost instantaneous, a tongue-in-cheek plea not to have
too
much fun with her other lover. She didn’t dignify the tease with a response.
Penelope’s venomous barbs still kicking around in her head, Hazel found herself thinking that maybe Emmalee had a point. The thought of going back to college was nearly enough to make Hazel break out in hives, but it didn’t have to be a full-time thing.
She needed a back-up plan, in any event. Her family’s money was running out and she couldn’t rely on Ward and Dylan to put her up forever.
She couldn’t let herself become their Penelope.
* * * *
Yawning, Hazel pulled the parking brake, then slammed the car door shut. The Volvo squeaked in protest as she turned the lock. Not for the first time, the battery in the remote control had opted to take the night off. Her cell phone was similarly indisposed.
Hazel tugged a hand through her hair and hefted her handbag.
It took her a moment to grasp that she had driven to the wrong address. The graffiti-festooned concrete walls of her apartment building loomed on the other side of the street, shrouded in the darkness of busted street lights. The sun wasn’t up yet and wouldn’t be for another hour. A strangely lugubrious aura hung over the tower in the absence of illumination.
Don’t be stupid.
There would be people of all ages sleeping behind the windows of their apartments. Parents would wake kids to pack them off to school in a little while. Harried men and women would rush out to their first minimum wage job of the day.
Hazel sucked in a deep, fortifying breath and crossed the silent street. Too much Aulden Way was messing with her worldview.
She hadn’t meant to come here, but her inner autopilot must’ve decided that she needed the reality check. It had been one of those days. Hazel pushed past the front door of the building and stepped into the pervasive scent of fried onions. She picked her way up the stairs in the dark, using her cell, once it deigned to switch on, to cast a dull bluish glare over the three or so feet ahead of every step. It was slow going, the elevator out of commission again, but without any surprises, she made it to her door in just a couple of minutes.
The lock was untouched, wood sticking to the frame like an added security when she pushed through. All her fears about online trolls paying her a visit in real life seemed unfounded. No one had even bothered to leave a bouquet on her doormat. Still, for safety’s sake, Hazel flicked on all the lights in her apartment and checked every nook and cranny before she truly let herself breathe easy.
“Home sweet home,” she told the living room couch. The cushions sighed as she dropped down, too exhausted to make it to the bed in the next room.
After a good couple of weeks spent exclusively in the loft, every crack in the walls registered as a personal affront. The mismatched furniture had been an achievement once—going from nothing to
something
always was—but Hazel suddenly felt that it wasn’t enough. She toed off her ballet flats and laced her fingers behind her head. This, right here, was the source of her fears.
If she fought for Dylan but lost herself along the way, was it still a victory?
The creaking, rattling hot water pipes vibrated in the walls as if in silent answer. Hazel squeezed her eyes shut, mind made up.
Chapter Six
“You didn’t make it home this morning,” Dylan noted, his hand a gentle weight against the small of Hazel’s back. “Marco riding your ass?”
Hazel didn’t struggle too hard to suppress a smirk. “Why? Jealous?”
She had slept away the morning in her own apartment before driving to the loft. The boys were gone by then and she’d had the massive shower adjacent to Ward’s bedroom all to herself. The indulgence hadn’t felt earned, but Hazel tried not to dwell on it as she carved up the chicken. Dylan’s state-of-the-art range had browned it nicely and his carving knife sliced through the meat as though it was heated butter. Hazel could bend to her task
and
tolerate Dylan’s breath on the nape of her neck.
She just didn’t want to.
“Here.” She turned and pressed the utensils into Dylan’s hands. “You do it.”
He pouted. “But I like watching you work.”
“Oh, flattery,” Hazel tossed over her shoulder, already stepping away. “Did Ward say if he’ll be home for dinner?”
“I didn’t hear anything…”
“Hmm, better save him a plate anyway. You know what he’s like when he’s hungry.”
“Same as he is when he’s not?” Dylan guessed.
His smile looked genuine enough, but Hazel had a hard time shaking the sense that they were
performing
the role of a happy couple. A happy triad.
Whatever
. She set the table while Dylan filled their plates, trying to find her footing before he figured her out.
“You enjoy your time off?” Dylan wondered.
“Yeah.”
“Do anything interesting? Slept, shopped…”
Hazel shook her head.
My life is painfully uninteresting.
The fact that her horizons were so limited had never failed to rankle before, but for the first time since she had hooked up with Dylan, it annoyed her that she didn’t even make an effort.
How could Dylan and Ward be expected to find her exciting if she bored herself?
“Oh, I met one of your neighbors.”
Dylan sat down at the head of the table, leaving the seat directly across from Hazel to Ward’s ghost. “Did you?”
“Mm. Cute guy. Late forties, maybe? The one with glasses.”
She laughed when Dylan arched a probing eyebrow.
“No, no. Go on. Sounds promising.”
“It was.” Hazel smoothed down the corners of a folded napkin. “He wanted to know how much I charged.”
Dylan nearly choked on his wine. “Come again?”
“He was looking for a housekeeper.” And Hazel, in her battered jeans and washed out T-shirt, had fit the part. After yesterday’s barrage of reminders about her wasted potential, it wasn’t the nicest thing to hear. “Don’t get me wrong,” Hazel added quickly, trying to play it off, “I’m flattered that he thinks I’m worth sixty bucks an hour…although between you and me that sounds a lot like something a guy would offer when he’s hoping for a little polishing on the side.”
She flashed Dylan a rueful grin, less than shocked when he didn’t return it.
“You don’t need me to tell you there’re a lot of assholes on this street,” he muttered after a beat. “I’m sorry that happened. I can—”
“Have a stern talk with him? Defend your property?”
It felt perversely good to see Dylan balk at the proposition. He had the kind of face that lent itself best to dangerous or seductive. Bewilderment softened the shelf of his jaw. Hazel reached out a hand and knuckled his mouth closed.
“I’m fine. It was just a misunderstanding.” Any resemblance to real hurt feelings was thoroughly inconsequential.
She could tell that Dylan didn’t want to drop it, but for reasons Hazel was not privy to, he went back to his dinner rather than push the point. They ate in silence—Dylan mostly picking at the chicken with birdlike bites while Hazel methodically devoured a pair of drumsticks. The peas were nothing to write home about. Neither was the tiramisu she had attempted in the late afternoon as a distraction from her computer, while she waited for some divine sign as to whether or not it made sense to disburse a couple of hundred dollars on a whim.
To his credit, Dylan ate everything she put in front of him without complaint.
“There’s beer in the fridge,” Hazel told him as they worked together to clear the table. She had noticed he liked a bottle now and again after a hearty meal, leaving the harder liquors to Hazel and Ward.
Dylan avoided her gaze. “I was hoping to stay sober tonight.”
“If that’s what you… Oh.” There were few things Dylan insisted on in their play—sobriety was one of them. He had delayed a scene before if he thought Ward had self-medicated with a little more bourbon than was strictly safe.
He always made sure Hazel was sober before they engaged in anything risqué.
“We don’t have to,” he hurried to add. “If you’re not in the mood.”
Hazel drew herself up a little straighter. “Didn’t say that.” They were getting better about not second-guessing each other’s motives when it came to asking for sex, but even the most faithfully upward curve could know the occasional hiccup. “Just you and me, huh?” she mused, watching as Dylan loaded the dishwasher.
“No one else here…”
Not right now.
Sadie was gone, but her presence lingered. Hazel couldn’t dispel the memory of her leaning against the counter, making Dylan’s favorite pancakes. She was embarrassed to admit she had thrown away the leftovers as soon as she had the kitchen to herself again.
“Okay.”
Dylan glanced up, something at once eager and wary in his eyes. “Sure?”
He always asked. He never could just take her at her word. And while that generally struck her as an extra precaution, tonight Hazel had no patience for unwarranted doubts.
Without a second thought, she strolled up and slid a hand around Dylan’s nape to pull him into a searing kiss. The short hairs on the back of his neck tickled her fingers. His body was a rigid wall against hers, supporting her when she shifted forward to rest her belly against his pelvis. It was worth it to hear Dylan’s sharp inhale.
“Bed or playroom?” Dylan asked, tipping back. His eyes were blown wide, practically no difference in tint between the rim of his irises and the glossy black of his pupils.
“Playroom,” Hazel decided abruptly.
They left the rest of the dishes in the sink.
* * * *
The chain between Hazel’s breasts clinked with every twist of her body against the cross. It tensed occasionally, turning the dull ache in her nipples into a sharp sting. The butterfly clips were merciless. Hazel dreaded looking down at herself for fear of seeing the puckered flesh purpling from the lack of blood flow, but her spine had a mind of its own. Her back curved, independent of conscious thought, as Dylan flicked the crop against her shoulder blades.