Prey Drive by Jen Stevens
Chapter 21
the lamb
Thursday morning at Old Soul, and I'm working alone until Rosie gets here to help me close. I typically don't mind handling shifts like this on my own, but something feels different about today. I feel off.
I constantly find myself taking in my surroundings, scanning the cafe for some sort of threat, like the gazelle who senses the lion watching them in the grass. I just know something isn't right.
My mystery man, Bash, hasn't made any attempts to contact me since the bathtub incident. It feels surreal to have been so intimate with the man who stalks me without the comfortable excuse of him possibly being a dream. Although, even with a new name to call him, I still know next to nothing about the stranger. And yet, I stupidly allowed him to touch me again. To devour me, really. Only for him to disappear for over a week. It all seems so… weird. Weird and foreign and alarmingly close to abandonment.
But the weary feeling I'm experiencing now isn't anything like how it feels to have Bash around.
Eventually, I'm knocking orders out as fast as they come in, caught in a rhythm of efficiency that keeps me from looking around the restaurant longer than it takes to count the people lined up out the door. I've overheard enough conversations to gather that there's a training seminar being held at one of the bank buildings down the street. One of the people running it tipped them off that Old Soul was the best coffee in town, and they all congregated here for their lunch break. While I appreciate the tips, I'm swamped. So much so, I had to admit defeat and call Rosie in early just to help manage the line.
We're mid-conversation behind the counter, speculating which of our regulars would have thrown us this business, when a hand wraps around my wrist across the checkout counter.
I had just told the customer standing before me what his total is, hardly glancing up at his unsmiling face before he's shoving his debit card into my hand. It's when I go to grab it that he stops me.
Startled, I lift my gaze up to meet two terrifyingly familiar cerulean eyes staring back at me expectantly, and my heart drops into my stomach.
“Gabe,” I greet grimly, frowning at the Cheshire Cat grin splitting his face, and the way his fingers tighten against my skin as his name passes my lips.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Rosie cuts in, dropping the order she was working on to step over to us.
“Not at all. Just catching up with an old friend,” he explains coolly, sliding his eyes back over to me in a silent command. He wants me to get rid of her.
Rosie follows his lead, the question burning in her gaze. Is he going to be a problem? She wants to know.
I'm torn between the two. I don't want to lie to Rosie, and I don't want to be alone with Gabe. But years of conditioning by my narcissistic sociopath of an ex have taught me that if I don't go along with his antics, there will be punishment.
It doesn't help that his fingers digging into my flesh are serving the perfect reminder of what happens when I don't obey him.
For that reason, I shake my head at Rosie, protecting Gabe like I always do. Gabe gives my wrist another appreciative squeeze, so hard that I'll probably find marks later, and I rip my hand away from him.
He recovers from the rejection flawlessly. “Do you have a free minute?”
Tilting my head toward the dwindling line, I say, “We're busy right now.”
A false frown tugs down at his lips, guilting me. But I can tell by the quick, subtle way his eyes darken that he's irritated with me for not playing along as easily as he wants me to. Getting Rosie off his back was as far as my kindness extends to the snake standing before me. I won't be spending any time alone with him. Not when it's so easy for him to manipulate and confuse me.
His lips flatten into a tight, barely there smile as Rosie hands him his drink. The person behind him in line impatiently steps closer.
“Fine. Another time, then.” I swipe his card in the POS machine and slide it back over to him, careful not to make any physical contact again.
As the machine processes his card, he releases a dramatically loud sigh, casting his glance over at the crowded cafe. “I suppose I should have kept this place to myself so I could steal a free minute with you. I heard through the grapevine that you moved into your own place and figured you could use the extra customers.”
I flinch at that. Through the grapevine is a fluffy, casual way to say that he hunted the information down and likely pestered multiple people to find a shred about me. He probably doesn't expect that mine and Halen's friends would rat him out for harassing them, but I'll be questioning them the moment I get a chance to. It's the same method he used to get my new phone number.
To think that every customer who came through here today was somehow tied to him makes my stomach turn. I don't even want to take the cash overflowing from our tip jar home just on principle. Anything that comes from Gabe has invisible strings tied to it, even if I can't see them right away.
Maybe I'll give them all to Rosie.
I pass over his receipt and don't even bother plastering a fake smile on when I say, “Thanks for that, but I'm doing okay. Another time.”
I don't give him space to respond and, thankfully, the customer behind him shoulders his way in front of me to pay for his drink. Gabe scowls at the man, but turns and walks out the door, his shoulders a little more tense than before.
There isn't another chance to obsess over what it means for Gabe to have my phone number and knowledge of at least one of my jobs. Or the fact that he's apparently working right down the street from me. The line doesn't go down until it's time to close the cafe, and I end up staying another hour past closing to help Rosie clean up the mess from such a high traffic day.
“That was a whirlwind, huh?” She wipes her brow, setting the last chair up on a table to make room for us to mop. “Sorry I couldn't get in earlier to help. You must be ten times more exhausted than I feel right now.”
I shrug dismissively. “I'm fine.”
She rounds the counter to stand beside me, waiting for me to move so she can prepare the mop bucket. “Seriously, Jovie. I don't know where I'd be without you. I mean, you've even got weird exes sending me business.”
A hard, boney elbow jabs me in the side jovially. But when I turn toward her with a laugh ghosting my lips, I see the seriousness in her expression.
“Yeah, well, I'm not sure if that's much of a gift. You’ll be soaking your feet for the next three days.”
Rosie barks out a laugh, then picks up the overflowing tip jar and grabs up the cash so she can count it out and split it up.
“You take it,” I tell her.
She pauses, watching me like she's waiting for an explanation. When I nod my head to reassure her, she holds up the wad of cash.
“You want me to take all of this for myself?” she asks in disbelief.
Busying myself straightening a cup full of straws, I nod my head a little too fast. “You didn't have to come in early, but you did.” The weak excuse falls out of my mouth before I can think it through. I just don't want Gabe to have any reason to say he helped me, and taking those tips feels like taking his help.
She doesn't bother arguing, though I can tell she wants to. I wouldn't be surprised if she tacked a few extra dollars on my paycheck later on. Either way, she gathers up all the money and shoves it into her purse before we shut off the lights and walk out the door together. This time, I'm looking around for not one, but two men who hunt me.