2. Tessa
2
TESSA
M y supervisor thought he was just “doing his job”, but it came across more like he wanted to hold me hostage. I deadpanned at him as he flirted with my coworker, another waitress at the sports bar I’d picked up as a second job. The Hound and Tea was still my first job, but to make ends meet—or, in other words, to hand over money to my lazy father who claimed he couldn’t work—I recently started waitressing at the bar on the edge of town. Waitressing was a universal service, and I appreciated the ease of being able to land another part-time job.
But this supervisor’s policy to keep me waiting until he checked my section and approved my end-of-the-shift tasks was bullshit. If he’d stop flirting with my coworker and just check off the crap on my list, I could’ve left a half hour ago.
But noooo. He’s gotta take his sweet-ass time trying to get in her pants and waste the rest of my night.
I sat up, frowning at my phone. It no longer was night. Nearing one thirty in the morning, it was way too late to be stuck here, waiting for permission to leave. He made me clock out already. I wasn’t waiting and getting paid for my time, but I wasn’t okayed to go.
As if I summoned the device to buzz, my phone rang before I could stick it back into my pocket. Spotting my father’s name on the caller ID didn’t make me smile. I grimaced. Then I considered letting it go to voicemail. When it did, I sighed in relief. Speaking with my parents was always a trying endeavor, and I preferred to avoid them as much as I could. With the many hours I worked, it wasn’t too hard. They slept in, and I went to work. Rinse and repeat.
He called again, and I growled as I answered. “Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?”
I pulled my lips in, bottling in a scream of frustration. He knew damn well where I was. Where I always was. I had no life—social or otherwise. I was stuck in this hamster-wheel race of life, always slaving away for crappy pay and never getting ahead. “I haven’t gotten off work yet.”
Spying my supervisor leaning in toward the smiling waitress, I sighed and wondered if I should just leave and excuse my disobedience of not waiting for his dismissal for wanting to give them privacy.
“I need the car. You know this.”
I rolled my eyes, then zoned out at the dark ceiling. They’d painted it black to make the bar look dimmer, but it looked tacky with chips and marks showing the white drywall underneath.
“You’re getting really spoiled, you know that?” he snarled.
I laughed, choking on the irony of what he claimed. “Me? Spoiled ?”
“Yes. You’re a spoiled brat, expecting to just go where you please whenever you want, using my car.”
“Oh.” Anger rose up swiftly. “You mean your car that I use to go to work, both the jobs I hold down to give you my money? Because you’re”—I cleared my throat—“fucking lazy, claiming you’re too disabled to hold down a job?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
I shook my head, not feeling guilty in the slightest. “You sprained the joint of your pinky. Your pinky finger! Ten years ago!” It was the lamest excuse for disability ever, and his so-called handicap status was a goddamn lie because he was fully capable of playing his video games, drinking and smoking, and doing everything anyone with ten working fingers could manage as a fully functioning adult. He’d only realized that I could work for him, and that was the start of his stay-at-home, do-nothing existence.
“I need the car back so Joey and I can go to the fishing and hunting store tomorrow, right when they open, so we get the door buster deals.”
“I’m sure I’ll be home before then.”
“Did you get good tips tonight?”
I scowled, fisting my free hand and wishing I could reach through the call and punch him. How could he call himself a parent, only caring about me for the purpose of taking my money?
“I don’t understand why you ever put up with those jobs.” His raspy chuckle, dry from all the years of smoking, grated on my nerves.
It was a no-win situation. I worked and worked and worked, knowing he’d demand a steep cut of my income because he and my mom were so generous as to let me live with them. And I worked and worked and worked because I refused to consider the alternative that he was hinting at right now.
“If you just stopped and thought about it, you could’ve been married already. And none of us would have to work.”
My patience and goodwill snapped. “You don’t work!”
“And you wouldn’t have to either if you just married Elliot already.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. I’d oppose that scenario until my dying breath.
“It’s your own fault you have to work all these long hours,” he taunted.
No, it wasn’t. He was at fault for the shitty life I had. He insisted that I pay him a steep “rent” to let me live with them. If I could make money and keep it, I’d move out. I’d strike out on my own.
The only way he’d let me out of that agreement was if I moved out—after marrying Elliot.
Hell no. Over my dead body will I ever give that guy hope.
Elliot Hines was a creep. A pervert. An ugly man with, I was now convinced, an even uglier soul. My parents were old friends with his parents, and in some weird, twisted connection as long-standing acquaintances, they’d all gotten it into their heads that I should marry Elliot.
They’d concocted the pairing when we were young. He was hideous and cruel then, the mean bully of a kid no one wanted to be friends with. He never dated because no women wanted to put up with him. But my parents would never quit pressuring me to become his wife.
“He’s loaded, Tessa,” my dad reminded me unnecessarily. “He’s making millions, and you can’t get over yourself long enough to realize how easy life could be if you just married him.”
Easy? Selling myself, selling my soul, would be easy?
“No. I’ve told you and Mom a thousand times that I don’t want to marry him, and I’ll tell you a thousand times more. I am not marrying Elliot.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“I don’t like him.” That should’ve been the simplest reason to adhere to. Why should I be pressured to marry someone I had no connection with?
“Tough shit. You think I ‘liked’ your mother when we met?”
Covering my face with my hand, I rubbed and held in a groan. I don’t want to hear this.
“She was a nagging, whiny bitch. But hey, she gave decent head and?—”
“Stop.” I cringed. “Stop talking.”
“Not liking Elliot is a stupid excuse. You don’t have to like him. Just marry him so we can get easy money. Roll over and let him have his way, put up with it, and get over it.”
Staring at the floor, I wondered what happened to him to make him such a terrible parent, such an awful man and an intolerable human. This was ridiculous.
“What’s not to like about him, anyway? He’s more successful than anyone you’d ever meet on your own,” he scolded.
“Money isn’t everything,” I argued. “Just because he’s a lawyer and makes a ton of money doesn’t mean he’s actually successful.” The last time I talked about Elliot with my best friend, Nina, we read over the recent news about Elliot’s win in court. He seemed corrupt, likely a bad seed in the legal system. But then again, the legal system is crooked anyway, right?
“Money isn’t everything?” He cracked up, laughing so hard I couldn’t hear the late-night talk show in the background on his end of the call. “Oh, sure. Money isn’t everything according to the spoiled young woman who knows nothing about life. If it’s not everything, Little Miss Independent, why are you still living at home with me and your mom?”
“Because ever since you realized I can make money, since I got my first job when I was sixteen, you demanded that I give most of it to you.” He was a world-class asshole and an expert at using guilt to force me to pony up. No teenager should ever have to pay for a household, but he’d insisted upon it.
“You don’t like my rules, then move out,” he snarled.
I wanted to, so badly. Nina and I used to dream big and talk about leaving our shitty lives. She was stuck living with her good-for-nothing brother, Ricky. I was stuck at home with my parents. But during the slow moments of waitressing together at the Hound and Tea, we talked about saving up to move in together, to be roommates and really be conservative with our money to splurge on a vacation someday.
I hadn’t heard from her for a month now, though, and I missed her terribly. I couldn’t fault her for pretending to date Dante Constella, the wealthy crime lord she’d run into the night Ricky lost her in a bet to the notorious motorcycle gang.
Based on her last call, when she admitted that things were really getting heated up between her and Dante, I assumed all was well. Her phone no longer worked, though, and I wasn’t sure whether she’d changed her number or not. Maybe living the easy life as the kept woman of a rich man had her wanting to shed her old identity completely.
No. That can’t be it. Nina and I were best friends. She’d reach out sooner or later. This call with my dad was souring my mood so much that I was thinking negatively.
Nina would contact me. I counted on it. Until she did, though, I would continue to wish that she could rub a little of her luck on me. It would be a miracle if I could meet a man I’d actually be attracted to. A normal, good, and decent man who’d encourage me to get close and maybe lose my virginity.
The pause in my dad’s rambling rant jarred me. I’d tuned him out, thinking about Nina and missing her fiercely. Now that he’d stopped to catch his breath, I realized it was dumb to sit here and let him shout into the void.
“I’ll have the car back before you go to the fishing store with Joey,” I said, dull and deadpan, before I hung up.
Never mind his caring whether I got sleep. Never mind his concern about his twenty-two-year-old daughter getting home and relaxing after her long double shift of work. He was selfish to the core, and I knew better than to think highly of him.
Finally! I shot up from the stool I was waiting on while my supervisor watched my coworker. She strode toward the bathroom, winking at him over her shoulder. This was my chance. I tapped his back and cleared my throat. “Hey, can I go home now?”
He frowned at me. “Jeez. Being patient wouldn’t kill ya, you know?”
My anger boiled hotter. Fuck you. I smiled, forcing this polite expression, and pointed at the checklist he still held. “Sorry to interrupt.” Not. “But I’m expected at home.”
Rolling his eyes, he went through the list. Everything was done. Of course, it was. I might hate my jobs, but I did them well, trained for too long to be a perfectionist and people pleaser. The more perfectly I behaved, the more likely I wouldn’t annoy men—that was the unspoken lesson my parents taught me.
I exhaled in relief as I strode out of the bar.
Walking through this area of the city at almost two in the morning wasn’t a bright idea. I liked to think I had a decent amount of street smarts, but I wasn’t aware of my surroundings.
My feet ached, and my back was sore. In my mind, I calculated the tips I’d gotten today and I figured out how much I could try to keep and hide from my dad. Stuck in my head, I made the biggest mistake of all.
I didn’t notice the group of three men following me toward my car until it was too late. A sixth sense of feeling like I was being watched prompted me to look back, glancing over my shoulder.
They made eye contact, smiling with a predatory glee. Then as one, they ran after me.
“No!” I screamed it, terrified as I tried to sprint to my car. In my haste, I tripped and fell. Coins scattered from my apron as I dropped. Dollar bills sprayed out over the pavement.
Before I could register the burn and pain from tripping and falling, their hands were on me. Dragged off and silenced with a dirty hand over my mouth, I panicked.
Forget hating my life and feeling like I had no way out of it.
I had to suffer an even worse fate now.