Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Hattie Lynn
When I walked into Dottie’s Diner, the smell of fried chicken and homemade cinnamon rolls wrapped around me.
Yum.
“Hattie!” Rodney called out, standing from the booth near the window where he was sitting.
“Hey!” I waved, weaving through the lunch crowd to reach him.
Rodney was in jeans and a gray henley instead of his usual cardigan, which struck me as vaguely off, like seeing your gynecologist at the beach. It was out of place.
“Hey, Rod.” I slid into the booth across from him. “Long time no see.” I teased. I’d literally seen him just a few days ago in Chicago.
“Three days and ten hours,” he said.
“Ha. Somebody’s counting.”
He laughed awkwardly, and it caught me as odd. “Tour brain. You know how it is. Everything’s a countdown.”
Actually, I didn’t really know. That’s what I had Sondra for. She kept my life moving like a well-oiled machine. Thinking of Sondra, I needed to call and check in. See how her day date was going with City.
The waitress came by, and I ordered a sweet tea and a club sandwich. Rodney ordered black coffee but didn’t order anything to eat.
“You’re not eating?” I asked.
“I ate earlier.” His knee was bouncing under the table. I could feel the vibration through the linoleum. “So. Odin. This is where you’re from, huh? The famous mystery hometown.”
“Guilty.” I smiled. “The Murfreesboro thing was the label’s idea. Sorry for the fib.”
“No, no, I get it. Image is everything.” He turned his coffee cup in a slow circle on the table. Once. Twice. “I saw the news. About Shawn.”
My smile flattened. “Yeah, well. It is what it is.”
“He never deserved you.” Rodney’s eyes came up to mine, and there was something in them that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Anyone with eyes could see it. The way he looked at you—like you were an accessory. A prop. You deserve someone who sees you, Hattie. The real you.”
My brows went up.
O-kay. That was... a lot.
“That’s sweet, Rod,” I said carefully, and thank the Gods the waitress showed up with my tea, because it gave me a second to regroup.
As our lunch went on, things started getting weirder.
He knew things. Little things.
Like that I loved sunflower shampoo. He asked about my grandparents’ farmhouse.
He asked if my grandmother still made cherry pie.
I’d never told anyone on my crew about Granny Jean’s cherry pie.
As he mentioned things, it hit me. How the hell had he found out about Odin? Nobody knew this was where I was from.
Weston’s voice floated through my head.
You feel even a little bit off, about anything, you call me.
Things were officially feeling one hundred percent off.
“You know what,” I said, reaching for my purse, “I have got to run to the ladies’ room. Order me a slice of pie if she comes back?”
“Cherry?” he asked.
Ice slid down my spine. “Sure. Cherry.”
I stood on legs that felt like they belonged to somebody else and walked toward the back hallway where the restrooms were, my heart drumming against my ribs. The second I turned the corner and was out of his line of sight, I yanked my phone out of my purse.
The hallway dead-ended at the bathrooms, and a door marked EXIT was propped open with a mop bucket, letting the kitchen heat bleed out into the alley behind the building.
I stepped around the bucket and started scrolling through my contacts. I needed to hear Weston’s voice.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
I spun.
Rodney was standing in the alley behind me.
He must have gone out the front and circled around.
“Rod.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. My thumb pressed the call button blind, praying. “What are you doing back here?”
“You were going to call him.” His head tilted, and the last of the forgettable, cardigan-wearing drummer drained out of his face, leaving something else behind.
“What?”
“The biker. You spent the night with him. I sat outside that house all night, Hattie. All night. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
Oh God.
Everything suddenly added up. The letters. The calls. “It’s been you this whole time.”
“They weren’t threats.” He took a step toward me, and I took one back, my shoulder blades hitting the brick wall behind me.
Somewhere a thousand miles away, I heard the tinny sound of a voicemail greeting from the phone in my hand.
“They were love letters. I told you how radiant you were. How compassionate. Four years, I’ve been right behind you—every stage, every city—and you never saw me.
But that’s okay. That’s okay, angel. I forgive you. Because now—”
“Stay back.” I put my hand out. “Rodney, I swear to God—”
“—now we’ve got nothing but time.”
He moved fast.
I got half a scream out, and then his hand clamped over my mouth.
I clawed at his wrist as I kicked and fought, but it was no use.
“You’ll see, Angel. We were meant to be together.”
And the alley folded in on itself and went dark.