Page 25 of The Coworker
He arches an eyebrow. “We used to. Now—not so much.”
Before I can figure out what to say to that, a petite waitress in a tight T-shirt that shows off an impressive bust for her size comes over to take our order. She looks vaguely familiar, like many of the people in this town do—I think we may have gone to high school together. I let my hair fall in my face as I place my order, hoping I look different enough that she won’t recognize me.
Before she leaves, she rests a hand with red fingernails on Tim’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back, Timmy.”
“Thanks, Kelli,” he says.
Kelli. It comes back to me in a flash—she was on the cheerleading squad like me and Chelsea, but two years behind us. She looks almost the same as she did back in high school—same blond hair and heart-shaped face, although much larger boobs. Thankfully, she isn’t looking at me and doesn’t seem to recognize me.
Actually, she’s only looking at Tim. She gives him an unmistakable look, and I’m surprised by the flash of jealousy. I haven’t seen Tim in ages. I have no right to feel proprietary around him.
“I tried to find you, you know,” he says after Kelli leaves with our drink orders.
I attempt not to react to that revelation. “Did you?”
“You are really hard to find though.” He eyes me across the table. “No social media, huh?”
My parents did their damnedest to keep my name out of the news when it all went down, given I was a minor. And while I was in school, they also gave me a small stipend—a monthly check that along with my waitressing job just barely covered my expenses without leaving a penny left over—and one stipulation was I couldn’t be on social media at all. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram. It was easy to agree to that because I didn’t want to be on social media either. The last thing I wanted to do was catch up with my old classmates.Hey, Brooke, remember when your boyfriend tried to murder you? Man, those were good times.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was being cautious.”
“I know. But it’sme, Brooke. I just wanted to know you were okay. You could have gotten in touch.”
When I was nine months pregnant, about to give birth to the son of a convicted killer, I had no interest in talking to old friends. Even Tim. But I can’t explain that to him. “I’m sorry,” I say again. “I needed time to heal.”
He’s quiet for a moment, mulling over my answer. “Fair enough.”
The waitress/former cheerleader, Kelli, returns with our drinks. She lays his glass down carefully in front of him and plunks my own more unceremoniously down on the table. She turns her attention back to Tim. “Are you getting any food today, Timmy?”
He looks up at her and smiles. “Not right now.”
“I can’t tempt you with any onion rings?”
Tim shakes his head no.
She winks at him. “Buffalo wings?”
“Nah…”
“Curly fries?”
Oh my God, is this waitress going to offer him every item on the menu one by one? But thankfully, after he turns down the curly fries, she finally goes off to another table.
“We went to high school with her, didn’t we?” I say.
Tim glances at Kelli, who is tapping her foot impatiently on the floor while she waits for two women to decide on their orders. “That’s right. You’ve got a good memory.”
“I think she was flirting with you.”
“Actually…” He lowers his voice a notch. “We went out a couple of times.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t a big deal. Pretty casual.”
“Did you kiss her?”
I laugh at the way his face turns slightly pink in the dim light of the bar. The freckles may have faded, but he is still fair and his skin tone shows off his emotions way too easily.
