But then my eyes fell on the journal—exactly where I had left it. For a moment, the sight of the brown leather left a sinking feeling in my gut until I noticed the small slip of paper below it, with the words: Please leave here, neatly scrawled across it.

The handwriting looked too familiar not to recognize. I doubt I would ever forget it after having stared at it for so long earlier—after trying to decode the words they’d formed.

I took a second to glance around to see if anyone was watching me—expectantly or not—then snatched the journal and paper from the desk and walked quickly toward the booth I always sat at.

I flipped through the pages until I found the one I was looking for, but only had time to see that there was something written below my note before I had to stash the journal next to me when one of the waitresses walked up.

“Well, well . . . Deacon Carver. What can I do for you tonight?” she asked. Her voice dripped with sex, and her tone held so much meaning. The look she gave me promised a night I knew I needed after the day I’d had.

I couldn’t remember her name, I rarely tried to remember their names, but I remembered her. If I hadn’t already known from personal experience that she was bat-shit crazy, I had no doubt I would have told her to come to the house that night.

Unfortunately for her—and my memories—I didn’t forget girls who wrecked houses and screamed like banshees when they found out I didn’t want to be tied down, and I also didn’t have the patience to deal with her now.

I’d been consumed with stress and guilt all day over finding what I thought was the beginnings of a fucked-up suicide note, had just released a year-and-a-half’s worth of pent-up anger on Charlie because I couldn’t seem to control myself around her lately—and was hating myself for it—and now this waitress was keeping me from seeing what had been written back to me.

“Absolutely nothing,” I responded gruffly. “Whoever is cooking right now, tell them I need the usual for Graham and me. To go.”

I stared at her expectantly until she turned with an exaggerated huff, and waited until she was back in the kitchen before pulling the journal back up.

The relief that pounded through my veins as I read the note written back to me was so intense that my hands began shaking.

They hadn’t been about to commit suicide—she hadn’t been about to, I internally amended as I stared at the neat, feminine handwriting.

A harsh, relieving breath forced itself from my lungs, and I had to set the journal on the table when the shaking of my hands made it too hard to read the words again.

And again.

She’d added more to what I had originally thought was the beginning of a suicide note, and now thought might be a poem. If what was in front of me then had been written down earlier that afternoon, I probably wouldn’t have spent hours panicking that this girl was going to kill herself.

I wouldn’t have said what I had to Charlie.

I ran my hand through my hair, agitation poured from me as I tried to force her face from my mind.

With a rough breath out, I focused on the poem . . . but after reading it again, I still felt depressed as shit for the girl. Because if this was supposedly about her relationship with a guy, then she had no fucking clue that he was using her, or that she was nothing more than the best friend. Because those words pretty much summed up how Graham, Knox, and I all talked to, and thought of, Grey.

Sister. This girl wasn’t in a relationship, she was thought of as a sister.

After grabbing a pen from a different waitress as she passed by, I added a couple words to the last line, and wondered why the hell I was smiling over the fact that she’d left my other changes in as I wrote back to her.

You’re alive! Christ, you have no clue how damn scared I’ve been all day. But I think we might have other problems now. This relationship . . . are you sure you want to be in it? You say you’re always there for this guy, listening to him about everything apparently . . . so who’s there for you? Who’s listening to you? I don’t know you, and you don’t know me—or, hell, maybe we do; this is Thatch—so you don’t have to listen to anything I say. But from what I’m reading, I think you’re putting way more of yourself into the relationship than he is. Find someone who would write these words about you.

Who listens to your sad songs

The shoulder that you cry on

Out on that ledge you walk on

When you’re sinking

Who knows your keeps your secrets locked up

When I’m there’s no one you can trust

I know it’s much more than just wishful thinking

Just say the words and (you know) I’ll be there

Before I left Mama’s with dinner for Graham and me, I placed the journal back on the greeter’s desk with the same piece of paper just below it. Only this time, I copied her words in my own writing on the back, warning anyone who saw the journal not to move it.

Chapter Five

Charlie

May 31, 2016

I PRACTICALLY RAN into work the next morning; my footsteps only slowed once I was inside and spotted my notebook where I’d left it the day before. I glanced around at the few workers already inside—none of whom were looking in my direction—and walked up to the greeter’s desk.

I took the torn paper between my fingers, and eyed his scrawl in wonder. I didn’t realize I was smiling until I had flipped the paper over numerous times, looking at each side and how our words mimicked each other’s.

But the smile faded when I read the note he had left for me.

I wanted to write back, saying that I’d thought he was listening to me, but knew those words sounded immature and ridiculous given the situation. Just as my excitement to hear back from a stranger had been.

What I had been expecting, I couldn’t say, but it had been more than that.

Maybe Grey was right. Maybe I did read too many romance novels.

I started to crumple the torn out paper, but stopped and placed it inside my notebook instead. After closing it up, I placed the notebook inside my waist-apron pocket behind the check holders, and got to work.

FIVE HOURS INTO my shift, on one of the many journeys up to the front of Mama’s Café to greet newcomers, something caught my eye.

A napkin on the greeter’s desk with a familiar scrawl on it, and the words:

Where’d you go? I’ll come back for you.