Page 51 of Brutal Obsession

The rest of the money comes with me in the bag. I take one last look at this room where I’ve slept for the past two months. This was my home for a little while. I don’t know where the nextone will be, but I’d be foolish to think it might be half as nice. Being a small part of a normal family for once…

When I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror, a few tears trickle down my face. I look like shit, really. I’m very tempted to apply my makeup, but I don’t want to give Cian the impression that I made myself up forhim.

Honestly, I think I’d rather die.

So I leave exactly the way I am. On a normal week, today would be a farmhand workday. But I’ve told Cian I’m due to work a shift in Waikiki, same as yesterday.

I want to apologize to Paul and Mike for the way I ran out on the job yesterday, and most importantly, I need to trick them into helping me get away from Cian.

The drive back to Waikiki is painful. Breezy silence. Sexual tension. I almost stick my head out the window like a dog, just to suck down more air.

Cian doesn’t glimpse over at me once while we drive. Meanwhile, I sneak peeks at his lap, unable to stop myself from imagining what it would be like to climb into it and bounce for a while.

This has been the strangest day of my life, hands down.

We arrive at Dish around noon, which turns out to be perfect. The lunch rush has the placeswamped.Mike appears ready to sing when I waltz through the door. Cian, a few paces behind me, glances toward the patio…probably for any evidence of the fight he started yesterday.

Speaking of disasters, I completely forgot about Anna’s injury. She won’t be walking normally for a few weeks, and I eagerly volunteer to fill in, starting immediately. I show Cian to a table in the back, like he’s a regular guest, and go through the motions of hosting, sensing his eyes on my back the entire time.

As I work, I try not to glance too often at the clock hanging on the wall next to the front door. Today is Wednesday,which means my salvation will arrive around two-thirty this afternoon.I just have to play it cool until then.

And test Cian’s response time, the same way I did while working for my father.

First, I go to the bathroom on my break. I sit in a stall, staring at a little watch I bought myself weeks ago. I’m timing how long it takes for Cian to become suspicious.

When I come out around the eight-minute mark, he’s leaning outside the door by the water fountain. He doesn’t have to speak. His folded arms say it all.

Don’t think I’m going to slip up just because of what happened this morning.

I won’t underestimate you,I don’t say in reply.

He follows me as far as the restaurant’s main aisle. There, he breaks left, headed back to his table, and I return to the host stand.

Cian’s far more responsive than my father. Just eight minutes? How the fuck am I going to pull this off?

Worry spreads like juicy gossip through my gut. I’m trying to keep it together because, just like getting stuck out in open water, panicking now equals death. If I seem nervous about something, Cian’s surveillance will only get more intense. I need to act as if today is a normal day, but instead, I can’t get the sensation of his tonguedevouringme out of my mind.

I try to focus on customers by leading people to their tables, complimenting tourists, asking about booster seats for small children. And every time the weight of Cian’s eyes bores into the back of my skull, I get hot beneath my clothes, like he’s the direct sun on a gorgeous, humid summer day in the tropics.

Maybe I like it when he watches me, which is so odd. I never did before.

Then again, until this morning, I’d never come on someone’s face before either.

My heart starts to flip and flop in my chest as the time winds down.

The moment of truth nears.

A tall family of five walks in. My fingers shake as I grab a pile of menus and begin the hot walk onto the patio. Cian’s eyes follow me from inside, as far they can.

Eight minutes. That’s all the time I’ll get from the moment I can’t sense his eyes anymore to gun it out of here. I seat the family, trying not to sweat too much or smile too hard, but their pleasant questions eat into my unspeakably precious getaway time.

As soon as I’m done with them, I zip to the section of the patio where the kitchen staff take their breaks and use the building’s back door to slip into the kitchen. Paul’s at the tail end of delivering foods from his family’s farm.

Most of the time, he just receives the deliveries, but on Wednesday he drives the truck himself. The few times we’ve both worked on a Wednesday, he’s always offered to drop me off down the street at the convenience store, so we can grab a snack.

Today, when I ride with him up the road, I’m going to leave. He’ll never see me again. As soon as I step up to the man in his Dish Waikiki t-shirt, long hair roped into a tight bun at the base of his neck, tears threaten to fall. I’m so thankful for him and his family, and I hate to do this to them.

I hate to just up and disappear.

---