I didn’t bother dressing; instead, I collapsed onto my bed and curled into a tight ball. I forced my eyes shut and prayed I would soon fall asleep. Anything was better than reality. I needed to see Tucker. I knew it would hurt more when I woke, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to see his smile.

I finally cried myself to sleep and dreamed of the carriage ride. My body was tucked safely into his side as we toured the town. The world stopped spinning for us then. I could feel every bump of the cobbled roads, the smell of the pizza in the air mingling with the delicious coconut scent of Tucker. I could hear the band singing “Hotel California” off in the distance: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” That was true about my heart. Tucker was gone, but he was still with me. I couldn’t shake him. I could feel his fingers laced in mine as if our hands were molded for each other.

I awoke with swollen eyes and a dampened pillow, partly from my wet hair and partly from my tears. I silenced my alarm and slowly unwrapped myself from my towel, then grabbed my work clothes and dressed quickly. I put on my locket and tucked it away under my shirt. The small piece of cold metal was a constant reminder of Tucker. I knew it would be best to burn everything he’d given me and try to move on, but I decided I deserved the hurt I felt from thinking of him. And the hurt was better than feeling emptiness, feeling nothing at all.

I slipped on my sneakers and made my way to the living room. My mother was in the kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee.

“What are you doing up?” I asked as I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet. She didn’t answer, just shook her head. I patted her on the shoulder and filled our mugs. I held her mug out to her, but her hand was shaking violently. I knew she would end up with burns if I gave it to her.

“Come on.” I motioned toward the small table. She sat down and I slid her mug in front of her while I took a minute to relax with her.

“What’s with you?” she asked as she took a small sip.

“Nothing. Tired.” I raised my mug and began to drink.

“You’ve been crying.”

I slammed my mug down harder than necessary, which made the hot liquid splash onto my hand. “Ow . . . f**k! I’m fine, Mom. You don’t get to pretend you care if I cry now. It’s too late for that.”

I stormed from the kitchen and left the trailer as quickly as possible.

If someone had asked me yesterday, I would have said it was impossible for me to feel any worse, but I was wrong. My mother was actually sober this morning and cared about my well-being and I shut her down. What have I done?

I didn’t turn back. I made my way through the empty parking lot toward the diner.

“Good morning, Larry,” I called out as I entered through the employee entrance.

“What the f**k is good about it?” he called from the kitchen. “Not a damn thing.”

I couldn’t argue with him on that. Everything was wrong. I grabbed the bin of clean silverware and a stack of napkins to begin some of my side work. I glanced up at the table Tucker usually sat at. My heart cracked a little further. I swallowed hard and got busy with rolling. Time would make this go away. I sat in silence, reliving my memories because I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the radio. I might hear his voice and lose all control over myself. Instead, I tried to think back to a time when Jackson wasn’t the monster he was now. It was almost impossible.

“Oh, God. What is that smell?”

Jackson frowned as he pulled out a chair at the table for me. “I cooked.” He was beaming from ear to ear.

“You cooked?” I slid into the seat and he pushed me forward before joining me on the other side of the table. “Well, what is it?” I grabbed my fork and pushed around a hard, brown piece of something.

“It’s macaroni and cheese.”

“Which part?” I joked.

“I added a few ingredients. I made it with love.”

“Is the black part supposed to represent your heart?”

“Funny. No. I gave my heart to you a long time ago.”

But those memories seemed like a lifetime ago, and I knew now that they hardly made up for what I had to go through now.

Larry came through the kitchen doors with breakfast in hand. My stomach panged at the smell. I hadn’t realized how incredibly hungry I was. I was so thankful I had Larry. He could be an ass**le, but deep down I realized that he cared. He just didn’t know how to show it. Just like my mother. I knew it was dysfunctional, but I also knew that now more than ever I had to grasp at any happiness life would give me, and those moments were few and far between. But when my thoughts drifted to Tucker, the tears threatened to fall again.

“Thanks,” I whispered, and picked up a piece of toast. I could feel Larry’s eyes on me but he didn’t say anything.

I forced myself to eat a few bites. I knew my stomach was craving more, but my heart had wedged itself in my throat.

“So . . . ah . . . you gonna be staying your whole shift today?” he asked as he dipped his bread into the yolk of his egg.

I cleared my throat and nodded, unable to speak just yet.

“That’s good.”

“Aggie’s been askin’ about ya. She wants you to stop by our place sometime.”

“Sure.” I stared down at my plate of food, wishing I could fast-forward time.

“I know your situation ain’t what you hoped for.” He cleared his throat. I nodded in agreement. “We can’t always have what we want or what we think is best, but things work out for us in the end.”

“Nothing has changed, Larry. I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately but it won’t happen again.”

“All right. If you want to talk about it—”

“Larry, I am not about to share my boy problems with you.”

“Jesus Christ, Cass. I was gonna say Marla knows a thing or two about men. She sleeps with a different one every night. Sometimes two.” Larry laughed, then took a drink. I managed a smile.

We ate the rest of our meal in silence. I knew he’d been referring to Tucker. It was better if I didn’t say his name.

I just needed things to go back to normal. It wasn’t a good life, but it was mine, and I suddenly missed the simplicity of it. In a perfect world, I would have run into Tucker’s arms and never looked back at this godforsaken place, but that wasn’t reality. I had a mother to take care of and bills to pay.

I pushed myself from the bench and held out my hand for Larry’s plate. He laid his fork on top of the half-eaten mess and pushed it a few inches in my direction. I grabbed it, along with my own plate, and made my way to the kitchen.

Customers began to trickle in not much later, and I was finally able to get my mind to relax and think of something else. By the time a woman gave me a dirty look and mumbled something about good help being hard to find, I felt as if things might get back to normal.

Still, every time the bell chimed above the door, my heart seized for a fraction of a second. I wanted it to be Tucker. I wanted him to come and whisk me away and for me to never look back. It was selfish, but the daydream kept me from breaking down altogether.

By lunch, my body was begging for a break, but I was glad not to have time to take one. When the bell on the door chimed, I snapped my head up and saw that it was Jackson. My stomach instantly tied itself in knots as I waited to find out if he’d discovered what I’d worked so hard to hide.

His eyes caught mine, and he nodded, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. I managed to force a small grin and hurried to deliver a cup of coffee to one of my customers, then walked over to Jax.

“Hey,” I said with a heavy sigh as I nervously smoothed my apron and looked anywhere but in his eyes.

“I’m hungry and I need some money.” His hand ran over his stomach and he stifled a yawn with his fist. I grabbed a menu from the hostess stand and turned to find him a table.

“Come on then.” I walked a few tables back and stopped in front of an empty booth.

He slid into his seat and held out his hand for the menu. Habit, I guess, as he knew the menu as well as I did. “You gonna join me?”

I set the menu down on the table before turning to walk over to the coffeemaker. “I’m too busy,” I called over my shoulder.

In truth, my tables were taken care of, and besides the occasional drink refill, I could spare a few minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. To look him in the eye while he was sober and lie to him was not how I wanted to spend my afternoon. I grabbed the coffeepot and made my rounds, taking extra time to make sure everyone was satisfied.

Jackson waited patiently for me to return so he could tell me what he wanted to eat. I took down his order with shaky hands. I used to dream of these rare days when he wasn’t completely loaded and I could catch a glimpse of the boy I fell for years ago.

Thinking back to how I felt about him then, it still paled in comparison to what I had been feeling the past few days with Tucker. Still, I hoped things could change with Jackson. They had to change.

“I was thinking of going down to the creek later tonight. Maybe we could try our hand at catching dinner again?”

I gave him a sad smile. He was still in there, the guy who’d protected me and stood by my side when my own family didn’t seem to care. I knew he was still there. And I needed to be the same for him. I needed to stand by his side when his life was falling to pieces. I nodded my head, hoping he wouldn’t want to make idle chitchat.

I made my way to the kitchen and gave Larry the ticket for the order, lingering in the back to wash a few dishes. Marla made her way in while tying her apron low on her hips.

“You look like shit, darlin’.” She grabbed a still-wet coffee mug from the rack and made her way back onto the floor.

“What is she doing here?” I shot Larry a raised eyebrow.

He cleared his throat and focused on cooking Jax’s burger. “You haven’t been here even when you are here.” His eyes flicked to mine for a brief second. He was right. I had been in my own world lately, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up losing my job. I couldn’t imagine where my life would go from there.

Larry set the plate of hot food on the line and I grabbed it, determined to make things get back to normal as quickly as possible.

I took the food out to Jackson and placed it in front of him before sliding into the bench seat across from him.

“Mmm,” he moaned as he picked up the burger and took a large bite. I grinned as he pulled it away from his mouth, leaving ketchup in the corners of his lips.

“You are worse than a baby.” I laughed and unwrapped his silverware so I could wipe his face with the napkin.

He gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s why I have you to take care of me.”

I stole one of his fries and gave him a weak smile. I could make this work. If this Jax stayed around, I could learn to forget about Tucker . . . eventually.

Larry came out of the kitchen and leaned against the waitress station. He nodded once at me, and I looked down at the table.

“So . . . what are your plans for the day?”

Jackson raised an eyebrow as he shoved a handful of fries in his mouth.

“I heard they’re hiring dockworkers . . .” I stopped talking as Jackson’s face grew hard.

He was now glaring at me with a clenched jaw. “I’ll look into it.” He took another bite. I waited for a threat but it didn’t come.

“Good. I think I would like to try fishin’ again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, why not? As long as you pull them off the line. I could fry them up for dinner. It would be nice to have a meal around the kitchen table again.”

“You want some?” He held out his burger, dripping grease all over his hand.

I leaned over the table and took a small bite.

“It’s good, right?” He smiled and wiped his hand on his shirt.

The bell chimed and my head snapped toward the sound. Tom Fullerton staggered in. My eyes shot to Jax, growing wide. This wasn’t going to go well. I knew Jax probably owed Tom drug money, and this was not the kind of guy who forgot about your owing him something. Marla and Larry immediately began watching the local troublemaker.

His eyes met mine and his lips twisted into a sneer when he saw Jax. I tapped Jax on the hand and motioned with my head so he would look behind him. He dropped his burger on his plate and turned to face Tom, who was now standing next to our table.

“I believe we still got some business we need to handle.” Tom grinned at Jax, then turned to me. “Good to see ya again, Cass.”

Jackson’s eyes shot to me with anger as if I had been sneaking around with dirty Tom.

“I saw him at the Laundromat.” I rolled my eyes.

Tom found humor in our little exchange. “Three nights ago. I thought she would have made it clear that we needed to speak.”

I glanced over at Marla, who had her brows drawn together in thought. Larry looked at her and shook his head. I had been lying to all of them so much. Marla and Larry knew it now, and I hoped that they would keep Jax in the dark.

“What do you want?” I leaned in closer to Tom and kept my voice low so we didn’t disturb any of the customers.

“I want the money this f**ker owes me.”

“There’s a time and a place for these sorts of things, Tom.”

“I want my f**king money and I want it now!”

I rolled my eyes and looked to Jax. “How much?” I had some saved and he couldn’t have gotten himself in that much trouble. What kind of drug dealer sells on credit anyway?

“Six hundred.” Tom crossed his arms over his chest.

The air went out of my lungs. Six hundred dollars?