5. Kennedy
A lot of late nights filled with tears, venting to friends… and more than a few years later.
Before salsa slips off my taco, I shove the entire thing in my mouth and groan with pleasure.
It’s better than sex. Almost.
Dishes clang together, cooks holler, and waitresses talk shit about the people treating them like crap, and I can’t think of a better way to end my shitty-ass day than to stuff my face with tacos. Especially the delicious tacos that my best friend’s restaurant serves.
Lucy’s is busy as hell, but I get to sit right next to the kitchen, away from the crowds, and eat as much as I want to without the judging stares from people who think I’m depressed. They just don’t understand that I have a deep and wonderful relationship with tacos.
“Hey, Kennedy.” Violet Ortiz appears at the side of my table with an empty tray in her hand. “You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah, Vi.” I smile at her before taking another bite of the never-ending taco plate I ordered. “Just got off shift; you know how that goes.”
Vi cracks a smile before shaking her head. We went to school together, even started training to be dispatchers together before she decided she’d rather go to medical school to try and save lives or some shit like that.
“Holler if you run out of tacos.” She walks away with a small wave over her shoulder, and my entire day is made just a little bit better.
There actually isn’t anything on Lucy’s menu about never-ending tacos. But one of my best friends is the manager, and I like tacos. So, she hooks me up with a killer deal, and I make sure to tip the cook and waitstaff who bring them to me, too.
Everything is going great. My tacos are hot; no one watches me eat, and I get to unwind after a particularly aggravating shift answering 911 calls. Until a shadow appears on the edge of my table.
“You’re going to get fat, Kennedy. You should stop eating.”
Royal fucking Prince. Prick. Ex-fiancé. Asshole. Everything under the sun. I hate his voice more than almost anything. Except maybe for the sharp pang of terror that it sends down my spine as I remember every single thing he ever did to hurt me.
I don’t even know how he managed to find me, but honestly, I’m not surprised when I look up from my plate to see him sneering, with a pretty blonde at his side. The exact opposite of me, I may add. She has to be at least five six, and she is thin enough that I’d be able to blow at her and she’d fall over. She is also a complete and utter bitch, which I know from experience. She is a nurse, but more like Nurse Ratched than anything else. I almost feel bad for her, but not quite. She’s done more than enough in the time that I’ve known her to prove just how malicious and terrible she really is.
“Wow, Mallory.” I smile at her even though my stomach is turning sour just being in her presence, and the chances of me keeping my food down grow slimmer with every passing second. “I didn’t think you’d lower your standards to sleep with a lawyer.” Completely ignoring the fact that I slept with him, too, I keep the smile on my face even when my skin feels like it would shatter into a thousand pieces.
Mallory sniffs and then raises an eyebrow at me with a cocky expression on her face, smiling with her lips pressed together so she looks like a constipated duck.
Before she can say whatever toxic bullshit she creates in her head, I hold up a hand to silence her and try to ignore the slight tremble as I do so.
“I don’t give a shit what you have to say. You’re interrupting my lunch, and I’ve had a long day. Go away and take Royal with you.” I gag on his name, remembering the wasted year of my life I spent with him.
Royal glares at me, using the same expression he mastered during our time together, when he tried to change me into the perfect wife. Clearly, he failed. And I’m left avoiding the disappointment I can literally feel burning into my skin with his gaze.
“I just thought you should know.” He finally breaks the tension. “Mallory and I are getting married.”
She holds out her hand, sticking it directly in front of my face, and I snort at the small diamond she sports. “You’re an idiot.” I’m not sure which one of them I’m talking to, though, because they are both stupid. Her for getting with someone who abused me for a year, and him for being born. “I hope you’re happy together, but can you leave me to my tacos?” The slight waver in my voice is from hunger and irritation instead of fear, at least that’s what I tell myself.
Neither person moves, and I start to weigh the option of leaving before I’ve finished eating or having to deal with them standing over me, turning everything I eat into a nightmare.
“I’m not leaving,” Mallory bites out snidely. “We came to eat, and you don’t have a monopoly on the places in this town just because of your family.”
My heart kicks up a beat, and my palms start to sweat. The knife sitting on the table in front of me calls out silently, beckoning for me to use it.
“You’re right. I don’t, but I sure as fuck have a monopoly on this table.”
The knife is still there, waiting for me.
I pick it up, clearly losing my mind, and start tapping it against the table idly. Every single click of metal hitting the wooden tabletop, I picture it stabbing Mallory in the eyeball, drawing out her pain and agony, without an end in sight. There isn’t anything left to say. I’ve already asked them to leave, and they aren’t going anywhere.
I grab my purse from the bench at my side and try to get out, but Royal is there. Too close, like always. My mouth dries up, leaving nothing but ash as I start to panic. Royal smiles down at me.
“Move,” I croak, my throat convulsing on the word, making it impossible to say anything else.
Royal knows every single button to push in order to get me to react, and the proof is in my heart continuing to pound in an out-of-sync rhythm against my aching chest. Time slows, and I feel everything in my past come running back with a vengeance. Things Royal fucking knows about, and yet he still thinks it’s okay to treat me like shit.
“We’re not done talking.” Royal sneers. “I didn’t say you could leave, Kennedy. There are things we need to discuss.”
My day can’t possibly get any worse at this point, so I close my eyes and prepare for whatever he is about to say to ruin my week. Royal scares me, and my pulse hammers, echoing in my head and drowning out the background noise of the people going about their lives around us, completely oblivious to the fact that I am falling apart.
I have nowhere else to go with Royal blocking my only exit, so I do the only thing I can think of. I call my big brother for help. I should have called him as soon as Royal appeared, but I froze. Before Royal can stop me, I pull my phone from my pocket and dial.
“Remy,” I say into the phone as soon as he answers. “I need help.”
“Shit,” he gasps on the other end. “I just arrested someone, Kenny.”
Tears sting my eyes, and I try to ignore the way Royal snickers in front of me, even when I’m staring at the ground.
“It’s Royal,” I whisper.
Remy curses in the background. He doesn’t know the entire story with Royal or what happened to me. But he knows that I don’t want to be around him, and I hate physical confrontation more than anything else in the entire world.
“I’ll take care of it,” he mutters and hangs up on me.
Perfect.
Exhaustion from working a twelve-hour shift had already started to kick in before I even sat down to eat, and now it is in full force.
“I just want to talk to you.” Royal changes tactics, his voice immediately softening from the acidic spew that he’d just been spitting in my direction. “Why don’t you go sit down, Mallory? I’ll be right there.” Dismissing her is a surefire way to piss her off even more, and to paint a target on my back.
My eyes are still on the ground, but I would bet a hundred dollars that Mallory is glaring at me like she wants me dead.
“Why don’t you both leave?” My throat hurts from saying anything. “I don’t want to talk to you, Royal.”
“Too bad,” he insists, and while I try to back up to get away from him, the back of my knees hit the bench and I wobble.
He grabs my arm, no doubt to keep me from falling, but that only makes things worse. I yank it out of his grip with a whimper and crouch in on myself, needing to get as far away from him as possible.
“Royal,” Mallory cuts into my panic, her voice making me feel like I should stab a knife into my ear to stop the sound. “I think we should go. There’s something wrong with her.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” he snaps at her. “She’s throwing a fuckin’ fit. Just like she always does when she doesn’t get what she wants.” I feel the booth flex as he slides into it, effectively cornering me. “News flash, Kennedy. The world doesn’t revolve around you. When a man wants to talk to you, you give him the time. It’s called being polite.”
“No. It’s called being a jackass. Now leave. Before I make you.”
My eyes flash open, and even through the tears I know it’s him.
“Mind your own business, Lincoln,” Royal says, exaggerating his name. “You’re interrupting a private conversation.”
“Do you want to die today, Royal?” Linc doesn’t budge, and his eyes never meet mine, even though I’m silently begging him to. “Because I’ve got nothing going on. I’m sure I could make that happen if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now.”
Royal stiffens, but Mallory moves between the two men like the idiot she is. “Come on, Royal; don’t waste your time on him.”
Royal, apparently, grows a few brain cells in that moment, because he slides out of the booth without saying anything else to Linc. That doesn’t stop him from staring at me with the same hard, lifeless eyes that he turned on me during our entire relationship.
“We’re going to talk about this, Kennedy. Whether you want to or not.”
“We have nothing to talk about, Royal,” I whisper. “Congratulations on your engagement to Mallory. Please leave me alone.”
Royal can’t say anything else. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because Linc steps between us and says something under his breath. Something only Royal can hear that turns his face bright red, and his mouth quivers with either rage or fear.
“Leave.” The low timbre of Linc’s voice never wavers in pitch, but danger rolls off him in waves.
If it were anyone, anyone else other than Royal, I’d feel bad for them. But not him. Not after everything he did in the last year to make my life a living hell. No. He definitely deserves to feel every ounce of Linc’s aggression aimed at him.
When he grabs Mallory by the arm and yanks her away, I flinch. Memories flood my mind of the last time he did it to me. Instinctively, I rub my arms and grimace, fighting off the same helpless feeling I’ve learned to live with.
Linc stands there, with his back turned toward me, watching Royal and Mallory walk in the opposite direction.
I take the rare opportunity to stare at him. The way he holds himself hasn’t changed, at least not enough that anyone else would know. I see the rigid tension in his shoulders that never existed before. The muscles in his neck twitch as he keeps his eyes locked on Royal’s retreating back.
His arms are crossed over his chest, and I watch the way the muscles in his biceps flex under the edge of his shirt. He shifts, and I get just a glimpse of a black tattoo on the backside of his right biceps before he turns and his eyes lock on mine.
I see Linc every single day. Every day since he came back from the Marine Corps. And every single time I see him, the fire that lives in my heart for him flares to life, consuming everything in its path.
A fraction of a second passes while we stare at each other, and every year that passed melts away. The pain, the loss, the years spent without him by my side fades until we are back in that moment. The one when everything feels perfect. When I think we have forever. When Linc is the first and last man I ever want to be with. In that moment, I see the hunger in his eyes. I see the passion for life that he used to have. I see Linc.
He blinks, and the mask of indifference he carries slips into place. Linc is gone again, and in his place a stranger stares back at me. One who knows everything about me and holds my heart in his hands.
Tears pool in my eyes. It isn’t the first time and definitely won’t be the last time that I’ll cry over Lincoln Hayes.
Before he sees me embarrass myself any further, I scoot out of the booth and run away. At least at home, I can hide under the blankets and pretend that my life isn’t a complete wreck.
Maybe once I get there, I won’t feel like dying all over again.