Chapter 6 Arrow
ARROW
It’s nearly five o’clock by the time Annie and I leave campus.
Her studio was untouched, so she grabbed her laptop while I looked around.
I inspected the doors and couldn’t see anything unusual.
The airflow gap between the floor and the door was more than wide enough for someone to shove a letter underneath without much effort at all.
At most, someone would have to slow down and slouch and bam… slide the note and disappear.
We’re both quiet as she drives back toward the strip mall, but I’m sure it’s for very different reasons. She’s got a small suitcase in the back seat containing maybe a week’s worth of clothes and toiletries.
“Are there any friends you can stay with?” When I finally break the silence, my question seems to startle her. She jumps a bit but then eases back in the driver’s seat.
“Yes, but no,” she says. She peeks up in the rearview again. I notice it because I’ve been doing the same ever since we left campus.
“No one’s following us. I’ve been watching,” I tell her.
“You’re probably right,” she sighs and shakes her head. “I can’t bring that kind of danger around my friends. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Annie…” I rub the slight headache forming behind my eyebrows. “Your father should know what’s going on with you. Have you thought about—”
We’re approaching a red light, but she jams her foot on the brake a little too hard. We both lurch forward against our seat belts.
“No,” she says quietly. “Not yet. Not now. You don’t know what he’s going through, Josh. I can’t…I can’t. Not now.”
The tension pouring from Annie is something different, new. She’s angry, defeated. And I can’t say I blame her. But every time I bring up her father, she shuts down hard.
If my years of discovering people’s secrets have taught me anything, it’s that strong emotions are signals. There is more to the story than what she’s telling me, you don’t have to be a PI to get that.
But whether her reaction every time I bring up her father has anything to do with the letters she’s receiving…I have a lot of digging to do. And I just hope she’s ready for whatever I might uncover.
A loud rumble from her stomach lightens the mood a bit.
“Same,” I say, chuckling. “You want to grab something on the way back to my office? My treat. You’ve spent enough of your money for one day.”
She doesn’t respond but gives me a look that I can’t interpret. Her eyes are on the road, but for that split second, she glances over at me with something I swear is playful, which reminds me that we’re supposed to be together.
“I don’t know how I can fake-date you if I don’t even know what you eat,” I remind her. I adjust my legs as best I can in the small sedan and start listing off cuisine. “Vegan burritos?” I don’t wait for her to comment. I just keep talking. “No, you’re more of a pizza girl.”
My stomach grumbles at the thought of gooey cheese, and I point to my stomach. “That’s one vote for pizza, but I’m not picky.”
She’s grinning now, her cheeks flushed and her shoulders relaxed. “There is a place,” she says. “It’s my happy place. My favorite restaurant. If you really want to treat me, though, I feel like you should pick the food.”
“Hell no,” I say, leaning my head back against the seat. “Take me to your happy place.”
She laughs then, an almost nervous burst of laughter, and I realize how that might have sounded.
Truth is, I don’t give a fuck. Annie is sweet, hot, and we have this physical connection that’s already something.
We’ve only known each other for a few hours, and while I’m working for her, I won’t do anything that we both might regret.
But that doesn’t mean I’m above teasing her.
And touching her—within reason. My mind goes back to holding her in my arms back in her dorm room.
She’s so goddamn soft, and up close, I could smell the hint of coconut and berry in her hair.
It’s been too long since I got laid and even longer since I dated anybody, so I’m going to chalk up my body’s reaction to pure need. But there’s something about Annie that I like. And I don’t like many people.
“So, where you taking me?” I ask, expecting anything from her—a seafood buffet, hole-in-the-wall taco joint. Hell, I’d eat a salad if that’s what she wants.
But when we pull into the parking lot of a nearly empty restaurant a few minutes later, I realize there is nothing predictable about this woman.
“You’re kidding me,” I say, eyeing the sign. “Pancake Circus?”
She turns off the engine and claps her hands. “Yes,” she croons. “This is my happy place.” She unbuckles the belt and practically leaps out of the car. “And after the day I’ve had, I need this. Come on.”
Pancake Circus looks more like a carnival nightmare than a comfort eatery.
The once bright and colorful sign has faded, thanks to God knows how many years baking in the Florida sun.
The garish smiles of the circus clowns have mostly melted off, oddly leaving just the dark eyes to stare down at customers as they walk across the pitted asphalt of a parking lot large enough to host a three-ring circus.
With real estate as expensive as it is, this place must do good business.
I can’t imagine how many pancakes they have to sell just to cover the taxes.
But what I can’t look away from as we approach the restaurant is Annie. She’s bouncing on her flip-flops, her dark-blond braid over one shoulder, her long legs flexing with every step. She’s so excited, it’s hard not to crack a grin. I almost break into a jog just to keep up.
“Come on,” she calls again, yanking open the glass door.
I shake my head as a blast of ice-cold air conditioning hits me, followed by an assault of smells so good, I have to rethink my previous opinion of the place.
It smells nothing like stale peanuts and carnie sweat in here like I’d envisioned.
Fruit sauces, vanilla, and sizzling bacon hit my nose, and my mouth starts to water before we even hit the hostess stand.
“Mmm, I love it,” Annie moans and fans the air in front of her face to take in more of the food smells.
She closes her eyes for just a second, and a dreamy look comes over her face until a waitress in exactly the type of kitschy uniform I’d expect from a place like this comes back around from seating another couple.
“Annie.” The woman shoves a pair of red plastic glasses up on her nose and grabs two menus so big, the Bible could be printed inside. “Table or booth, my sweet gal?”
“Booth, please,” Annie says, a huge grin on her face. “Thank you, Carlene.”
Carlene? Clearly, Annie wasn’t lying when she said it’s her favorite place. She’s on a first-name basis with the server, which is more than I can say for myself at any restaurant in the country.
The woman checks a table map of the restaurant, marks off a space with a dry erase marker, and then looks up at me. “Well, holy hell, kid,” she barks, lifting perfectly painted-on black brows at me. “Where you been hiding him?”
Annie flushes and steps a little closer to me. She lightly rests her hand in the crook of my arm. “Carlene, this is Josh.”
Carlene turns to me, all five-feet-nothing of her, and looks me up and down. “Oh honey, he’s tastier than the Big Top Special…”
I can’t help but grin at that and casually lace my fingers through Annie’s as we follow Carlene to a booth. Can’t hurt to keep the lie going, even here, right? At least that’s what I tell myself as Carlene looks back at us, shaking her head and grinning from ear to ear.
She drops the menus on the table and watches as I wait for Annie to sit, then slide into the red leather seat across from her.
“You sure you want to do that?” Carlene asks me.
“I’m sorry?” I say, not sure what she means.
Carlene leans down, and I get a whiff of perfume and hair spray. “Annie’s a catch,” she tells me. “And if she’s with you, you are too. I wouldn’t sit across from her when you can get right up close there, Josh.”
She gives me a friendly squeeze on the shoulder, and I laugh.
“Be back with waters for the table, kids,” she calls, then heads out across brightly patterned carpet.
Once we’re alone, Annie pushes a menu at me across the table. “Now,” she says, her voice light and excited, “I’m not going to tell you what to get, but I will make very strongly worded suggestions based on what you like.”
She cracks open the menu—literally cracks because the thing is huge, and the brittle plastic that holds the paper inserts in place is so old and faded, it is breaking in parts.
“Okay,” she says, not looking at me but skimming the menu.
“Are you a breakfast for dinner guy? Or should I look at the entrees?”
As I watch Annie get this enthusiastic about ordering a meal, I can feel a stupid smile crawl across my face. I can’t help it. She’s fucking gorgeous, and when she’s not in fear for her life, she’s as light as the Florida sun.
“What are you having?” I ask. To be perfectly honest, I don’t care whether I eat a burger or a breakfast burrito. I just want to go along with whatever Annie’s doing.
“Okay, okay,” she says, pursing her lips into a little bow. “I am normally a breakfast girl, but tonight, I’m… No, no, who am I kidding? We’re doing breakfast.” She holds up a finger. “First question. Bacon or sausage?”
“Love ’em both,” I tell her. “But if I had to pick, bacon.”
“Okay, okay,” she says again. “Now this is a tough one…fried chicken or bacon?”
“Fuck,” I say. “That’s a tough one. Both?”
She claps her hands and laughs. “Yes. I knew I liked you. Okay, so let me do the ordering. Do you have any allergies? Any absolute yucks?”
“Absolute yucks…” I echo her words because I can’t believe anyone actually talks like that. But coming from her, it’s fucking adorable. “No,” I tell her. “Maybe shrimp.”