Page 23 of Vas

Tiffany waved a hand. “Bah, a few days. That’s nothing.”

She’d change her tune if she knew about the ignored texts but Anna couldn’t bring herself to mention that part and embarrass herself further even if it would persuade Tiffany to climb down off of Vas’s bandwagon.

“We’ll see.” Anna shrugged as if it were no big deal then promptly turned the tables asking about her and Luke.

Her plan worked. Anna’s love life forgotten, Tiffany spent the rest of lunch gushing about her boyfriend.

Her friend truly was a helpless romantic.

Chapter 9

The next day Anna worked the mid-shift so if Vas had shown up at the diner that night, she wouldn’t have known it, but now it was Sunday, almost closing time and still no Vas.

And Anna had moved on from hurt to angry.

She took her aggression out on the poor tables, scrubbing them hard enough to remove the lacquer. Next the mop got a beating. Slapping the mop head onto the floor with enough force to spray water and gripping the handle so tightly her knuckles turned white. None of that seemed to help, and she arrived home just as aggravated as she’d been when she left for work that afternoon.

Stripping out of her clothes, she hopped in the shower to wash away the day, not in the mood to relax in her usual bath and then climbed into bed, turning on her favorite movie in the hopes that John Wick would make her feel better.

He didn’t.

But she didn’t blame Keanu, she blamed Vas.

Turning her head, she looked at her phone, sitting on her nightstand and quiet as a church mouse with no beeps, dings, or rings emanating from it. She went to reach for it, then promptly pulled her hand back, giving it a disgruntled sidelong look. She wouldnottext Vas again.

Long minutes passed as she debated that decision.

Screw it.

Giving him the benefit of her three-text rule, she’d give him one last chance, and if he didn’t answer, she would never text him again.

Grabbing her phone off the nightstand, she pulled up their message thread, then typed,Hey. Haven’t seen you at the diner in a while. I’m worried about you.No. She deleted that last bit and changed it to,Text me back so that I know you’re okay.

Long minutes passed as she stared at her phone. So long, she saw the small wordreadappear under her text. She waited for him to respond, watching so intently, her eyes began to water and go blurry from not blinking. Yeah, that’s what she was telling herself. Her watery eyes had nothing to do with disappointment. Feeling sorry for herself, she carefully laid her phone face down on the nightstand.

The next morning, she checked it again.

He’d never texted back.

Two days later with still no word, she deleted him from her phone.

A few days after that—exactly two weeks to the day since she’d last had contact with him—Vas showed up at the diner.

Too bad for him it was too little, too late.

“Guess who’s here?” Tiffany poked her head into the storeroom and directed her question to Anna as she stood on a step ladder, retrieving a case of napkins.

Looking down from her perch, she threw her friend an annoyed look. “It better not be Mrs. Sklowsky again. I swear, if she’s back to complain that our food made her sick and wants a refund, I’m going to scream.” Mrs. Sklowsky was always looking for a way to get a free meal and had gone through many inventive schemes for getting one.

“Not even close. Different gender and much hotter.” Tiffany’s smile grew bigger.

“Jason Momoa?”

“Come on, be serious.”

Anna fumbled the box as she stepped down from the ladder. “I am. You’ve got the big goofy grin on your face that you only use when talking about him or Luke.”

Tiffany opened the door wider for Anna to step through then took the box from her hands. “It’s your rescuer, Mr. Hottie Stalker,” she gushed, bouncing on the tips of her toes as though unable to contain her excitement.

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