5. Leo
Leo
“What’s wrong?” Blake asks. When I don’t say anything, he looks over to where I’m staring. “Do you know her?”
I clear my throat. “No. Uh, kind of.”
He just chuckles. “Okay.” He looks over at her. “Why is she death-glaring at you?”
I tug at the collar of my jacket, suddenly feeling hot. “She’s a barista at the coffee shop where I met my dad this morning. She messed up my order, and when I complained about it, the manager started yelling at her.”
Blake’s smile drops. Both Nick and Travis turn to look at me.
“Damn, really?” Travis says. I nod.
“You should go apologize to her,” Nick says.
“Yeah, that was kind of a dick move,” Travis says.
I tug a hand through my hair. “You really think it’s a good idea for me to go over there and talk to her?”
They all nod.
“We have to walk by her to leave, and she looks like she wants to kill you,” Nick says. “Can you make nice with her so she doesn’t kill us too for being with you?”
I let out a heavy breath. “Yeah, okay.”
I make my way over to her right as the server she’s talking to hands her a sheet of paper and walks off.
“Hey.”
Her glare sharpens. “What do you want?”
I lean back at the hardness in her tone. For someone as small as she is, she’s got a hell of a bite. She barely comes up to my shoulder, but she’s got the feisty energy of a caged animal.
My instinct is to walk away, but I make myself stay. I need to tell her I’m sorry.
“I just wanna say that I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean for you to get yelled at.”
She crosses her arms as she stares up at me. That hard, angry expression doesn’t buzz.
“Your sorry doesn’t mean shit.”
I lean back again, shocked at the bluntness of her words. “Excuse me?”
She leans forward. “Your sorry doesn’t mean shit,” she repeats. Except she says it much slower this time. Like I’m an idiot.
“What’s your problem?” I ask, confused and a little annoyed.
Her lips purse like she’s tasting something bitter. “Unbelievable,” she mutters. She folds up the piece of paper and slips it into the big leather bag hanging over her shoulder.
“Look, I was just trying to be polite,” I say. “I really didn’t mean to get you into trouble this morning.”
She looks up at me. “Well, you did. So good job. You must be so proud of yourself,” she says sarcastically before flashing an equally sarcastic thumbs-up.
“Hang on, you think I like that you got yelled at by your boss?”
She pins me with that hard stare once more. Damn. Her eyes are really blue. Like sapphires. I notice they’re a little puffy and red. Was she crying?
“I think you don’t really care what happened to me,” she says. “I think you just wanted to feel big and important, and that’s why you complained about your drink.”
“No, that’s not…Look, you’re the one who put rotten milk in my coffee. Do you really think I wouldn’t complain about that?”
She rolls her eyes.
“And when he started to yell at you, I told him to stop.”
“He didn’t stop,” she snaps. “He kept yelling at me. But you left, so you wouldn’t know.”
“Shit, I didn’t realize…I’m sorry.”
She lets out a bitter laugh and shakes her head. “Quit with the ‘I’m sorries,’ okay? They don’t mean shit. Especially now that I don’t have a job anymore.”
She spins around and walks out of the diner. Wait, she got fired? Because of me?
Guilt punches through my gut. I run after her in the parking lot
“Hey!” I realize I don’t even know her name. “Hey, wait. Hang on.”
She speedwalks away from me, ignoring me. But since I’m more than a foot taller than her, I catch up to her easily.
“Wait, I’m—” I stop myself from saying sorry again. She just said she doesn’t want that. It’ll just piss her off even more.
I step in front of her. She stops and looks up at me. “Get out of my way.”
“Will you just let me make this right? I really didn’t mean for you to get fired, okay?”
Pain flashes in those big, sapphire eyes. But a second later, she blinks, and it’s gone. That hard stare is back.
“I’ll talk to your boss and make him hire you back.”
She lets out another bitter laugh. “Yeah, okay. Brilliant idea.” She rolls her eyes and steps around me.
“I’m serious,” I say as I catch up to her again. “It’s not cool that he fired you. And it’s my fault, so I’ll convince him to take you back.”
“He won’t,” she says without looking at me as she walks to a rundown gray Honda at the edge of the parking lot. “Believe me, you could offer him a million bucks to hire me back, and he wouldn’t. He didn’t like me.”
She stops at the driver’s side door and digs into her purse, probably for her keys.
My head spins. I can’t just let her leave knowing that she lost her job because of me. I need to do something to help her.
I grab my wallet out of my jacket pocket and pull out a wad of cash. “Here.”
Her eyebrows crinkle together as she stares at the money. She looks disgusted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Take this. It’s the least I could do for getting you fired.”
She looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “No.”
“Come on. Seriously. Take it. I was an asshole this morning. I got you fired. The least I can do is give you some money.”
Her mouth turns into a straight line. That fiery, angry look flickers in her eyes again. “I don’t want your fucking money.”
She pushes my hand away, opens her car door, and climbs in.
I glance down at the beat-up sedan. It’s packed to the brim with boxes, a couple of suitcases, two stuffed-to-the-max garbage bags, a small cooler, a folded-up blanket, and a pillow.
Why does she have so much stuff? Is she in the middle of moving?
The engine fires up, and I step back. I stand there and watch her peel out of the parking lot, feeling like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.
That girl lost her job because of me.
I walk back to the front of the diner right as the guys walk out of the entrance.
“How’d it go?” Blake asks.
“Not good.” I swallow hard. “She got fired because of me.”
They all stare at me.
“Shit, really?” Nick says. I nod.
“Oh, fuck,” Travis says.
That guilty feeling squeezes through my chest. I need to make this right with her.
Except I don’t know how. I don’t even know her name.