Page 48 of Belle

“Fuck you.”

“You ready to head to the diner?” she asks, not even caring that she might have bruised my ego.

“Yeah. Let’s go have our last meal in Deadhorse.”

We walk into the diner together and it feels like all eyes in the place are on us. I don’t know if I feel that way because I’m feeling guilty, or because they really are staring.

“Does it feel like everyone’s watching us?” I lean over to whisper in her ear.

“I’ve got no idea. I don’t notice when people stare anymore. Perks of my job, I suppose.” She shrugs nonchalantly. She’s clearly unaffected by everything.

“Belle, I’m so sorry to hear about your mama,” the young waitress says, walking up to the booth.

Belle stares at her for a minute. It’s starting to get a little uncomfortable. Eventually, she settles with a shrug. “No big deal. She was a shit mom anyway.” The girl just looks at her, mouth open, unsure of what to say.

“Um, we’ll both take a coke for now, please. Thanks,” I interrupt, and the girl shakes herself out of whatever daze she was in.

“Are you fucking kidding me with that shit?” I growl at her.

“What? She said she was sorry, I wanted to make sure she knew there’s no reason to feel bad about Destiny dying. She was a piece of shit.”

I lean back against the booth and take a deep breath. Belle is exhausting. Her lack of caring about anything is so frustrating.

I take the opportunity to glance around the diner. Most of the usuals are here––the ones I’ve seen every time I’ve been here.

“Tell me about your life in California.” She shocks the hell out of me.

“Excuse me? You actually want to know something about me?” I put my hand up to my chest and she throws the wrapper from my straw at me.

“Fuck off, Maddox. If I’m going to leave town with you, I at least want to know something about you.” She shrugs.

“Let’s see. I own a construction company with my best friend. We built our company from the ground up about six years ago. I met him one night at a bar. He had just moved to town from Arizona and was looking for work. I had just been let go from the construction company I was working for, so we put our heads together and came up with a business.” I move my straw around in my glass. I’m a little uncomfortable talking about myself.

“How does your best friend feel about you bringing a stripper home?”

I debate on whether or not to tell her the truth. “He doesn’t care. He knows I live my life how I want to live it. He respects that.” That’s not entirely true, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“Interesting.” She looks at me, really studying my face. I think she can see through my lies. “You ready to go?”

I shake off her intense stare. “Yeah.”

An older man approaches Belle at the door. “Did you hear the latest?” Belle looks at him, almost uninterested in anything he has to say.

“No.”

“Tiffany is missing. Your mama is dead. The police aren’t looking into any of it. They think the murders are connected. Seems the two of them had some shady business happening behind the scenes. You know anything about that?” My eyes fall to his hands. He’s got them wrapped around her arm. I can tell his fingers are digging into her skin. I almost say something, but she beats me to it.

“First of all, remove your grimy hands from me. Second, I don’t know what the two of them were up to. They were both trash.” She shakes him off and walks out the door.

“You better be careful, boy. That one can’t be trusted.” I look at him but don’t say a word.

“I think it’s safe to say we aren’t suspects,” I say when I get into the car.

“Yeah. Thank goodness those two made their fair share of enemies. That just made things a hell of a lot easier for us.”

“You ready to get the fuck out of this town?”

“That sounds like music to my ears,” she says. I watch her stare out the window.

---