Chapter 1 #2
“Amen to that.” Riley stifled a yawn. “Though sometimes I wonder if being a terrible person is a prerequisite for having that much money. I mean, between the Hayes sisters, Nash Sullivan, and half the guests at my hotel…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“Let’s just say the thread count of their sheets is inversely proportional to their basic human decency. ”
The bus wheezed to a stop, and Riley gathered her things.
“That’s me. Try not to let the rich people win tomorrow,” she said with a tired smile, tucking her book into her practical backpack.
As she walked away, her posture remained perfectly straight despite her exhaustion. Always the soldier, even at midnight.
Alone now, my muscles sang a symphony of complaints. How long could I keep this up? The thought of another decade in the service industry made me want to offer myself as an appetizer to the next table of hangry customers.
As we crawled past The Regal Rooster—because nothing says luxury like poultry with delusions of grandeur—I caught a glimpse of how the other half lived.
A woman emerged from a limo in a dress that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, tax returns, and organs combined.
Her companion wore a watch that could’ve paid off my student loans with enough left over for a down payment on a cardboard box in a trendy neighborhood.
I leaned my forehead against the cool glass, indulging in a moment of what-if.” What if I could worry about first-world problems like which caviar paired best with my midlife crisis? What if my biggest concern was whether my solid gold toilet paper holder clashed with my marble bathroom?
My reflection stared back, a silent biographer of unpaid bills and deferred dreams. I’d grown up in an apartment where “vintage” was a polite way of saying “one strong breeze away from collapsing.” Mom had worked herself to the bone after Dad decided parenting cramped his style.
We never had much, but her love filled the void—until cancer decided to be the ultimate party pooper.
Now, with Mom gone and debts that multiplied faster than rabbits on espresso, that dream future seemed further away than my next day off.
But hey, at least I had my books. In stolen moments between refills and “yes, sir, I’ll check on your well-done steak for the fifteenth time,” I escaped into worlds where sassy heroines traded quips with billionaires who had washboard abs and emotional baggage to match.
As the bus lurched toward my stop like a drunk giraffe, I couldn’t help but smile.
Maybe one day I’d write my own story, full of banter and romance.
But for now, I had bills to pay and creeps to fend off.
Just another day in the life of Zoe Mitchell, waitress extraordinaire and reluctant knight in shining polyester.
The bus wheezed to a halt, doors creaking open with all the enthusiasm of a teenager asked to clean their room. I hauled myself up, my body protesting every movement like it was staging a sit-in.
I stumbled off the bus, my feet performing a tragic opera of blisters and regret. The night air was thick with the city’s lullaby—a din of honking cars and sirens that would make a banshee reach for earplugs.
I trudged the familiar path to my apartment complex, a building that wore its age like a badge of honor.
Its walls, etched with the graffiti tags of aspiring artists and lovers long gone, whispered tales of better days.
The flickering neon sign read Edgewater Apartments, a comical misnomer for a place that hadn’t seen water—or an edge—since the city paved over the nearby creek decades ago.
My apartment was a love letter to cramped living, where square footage was apparently measured in thimbles.
I closed the door behind me and collapsed onto the bed with a groan that echoed off peeling wallpaper.
My legs had voted unanimously for a strike after today’s shift, and I swear I heard them chanting protest slogans.
Despite the siren call of my mattress begging me to succumb to sleep’s sweet embrace, my inner clean freak staged a coup that would make banana republics proud.
With Herculean effort, I peeled myself off the bed and crawled to the bathroom, muscles staging a silent protest that would put mime performers to shame.
I twisted the shower knob, and water cascaded down in an uneven rhythm, like a jazz musician playing by ear after one too many cocktails.
The shower, my steamy oasis in a desert of exhaustion, welcomed me like an old friend—albeit one with questionable water pressure and a tendency to fluctuate between arctic and lava temperatures without warning.
The hot stream worked magic on my tired limbs, unknotting tension with invisible fingers.
Feeling slightly more human and marginally less like roadkill that had been reanimated for a B-grade zombie flick, I wrapped myself in a towel that had the fluffiness of sandpaper and the absorbency of a sieve.
I shuffled back to my living space slash dining room slash library—a multifunctional area that would make minimalist design magazines weep with envy.
Dinner was a gourmet feast of leftover Chinese takeout—General Tso’s chicken that had waved the white flag of surrender to both time and refrigeration.
As I wrestled with a particularly stubborn piece, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to my life: chewy, cold, and leaving a weird aftertaste. Bon appétit, indeed.
Belly full and body clean, I flopped back onto my bed with the grace of a beached whale.
My book—a well-loved paperback with more creases than a shar-pei—beckoned from the nightstand.
Its title, The CEO’s Bargain, promised steamy escapism and a heroine with better luck in the love department than yours truly.
As I opened the familiar pages, it was like slipping into a conversation with an old friend. Chapter one: the infamous coffee spill. Sophia, our plucky protagonist, had the misfortune of dousing Jason, the stoic billionaire with a penchant for tailored suits and scowls, with her latte.
“Ah, the classic meet-cute turned wet suit fantasy,” I mused aloud. “If only my clumsiness resulted in a date rather than a dry-cleaning bill.”
The divorce drama unfolded next, Jason’s wife, Victoria’s icy demeanor and venomous threats juicier than the latest celebrity gossip. “Nothing like corporate espionage to spice up your love life.” I sighed.
As Jason and Sophia worked together, resisting their obvious attraction, I couldn’t help but chuckle at their futile efforts. “Because nothing says I’m professional like googly eyes over spreadsheets.”
The first kiss was a doozy, the kind that made my heart flutter and my toes curl. “And there it is—the caffeine-fueled lip-lock,” I narrated with amusement.
Victoria’s accusation of Sophia gold-digging was as predictable as my mom’s meatloaf recipe. “Because when you can’t beat ’em, slander ’em,” I said wryly.
Jason’s grand gesture was straight out of Billionaire Romance 101: find girl, declare love, propose business-pleasure merger. “Every girl’s dream: getting chased down by your billionaire boss who can’t take no for an answer.”
And finally, the happily ever after, complete with a wedding that probably cost more than my entire life. Jason and Sophia, now partners in every sense of the word, had gone from overworked assistant and stoic boss to queen and king of the castle.
I closed the book with a satisfied smile, the familiar words a comforting balm to my weary soul. “Well, Zoe,” I said to the empty room, “looks like you’ve got another night of living vicariously through fictional characters whose biggest problem is choosing between a Rolls Royce and a Lamborghini.”
As I drifted off to sleep, the lines between reality and fantasy blurred.
Tomorrow, I’d be back to juggling orders and dodging creepy customers.
But in my dreams, I’d be sipping champagne on a private jet while trading quips with a handsome billionaire who appreciated a good book—and a sharp-tongued waitress.
* * *
The morning light was an unwelcome intruder, poking at my eyelids with all the subtlety of a jackhammer.
I groaned, my body a patchwork quilt of aches and pains, each square a souvenir from yesterday’s marathon shift.
The alarm clock blared in my skull like a one-woman show where I played both the exhausted waitress and the demanding customer, each note a reminder of the mountain of dishes I’d conquered.
I mentally cataloged the day’s to-do list: schmooze Mr. Martinez who only ordered coffee but left a two percent tip if he was feeling generous, referee table seven’s breakup drama without spilling the soup, and somehow convince Lisa that yes, sometimes customers really were that terrible.
Not to mention the endless demands for refills that tasted like flat soda and the symphony of complaints—“This isn’t what I ordered,” “Can you make it quick? We’re in a hurry,”—each one chipping away at my soul like a sculptor creating a masterpiece of misery.
With a mental pep talk worthy of a locker room coach, I rolled over, expecting my feet to collide with the floor. But they didn’t. Confused, I rolled again, still hovering midair. Once more I tried and finally sat up with a start.
Blinking in disbelief, I surveyed the bed—a king-sized cloud that could probably host a family reunion without anyone touching.
My hands grazed over the silk sheets that whispered promises of royalty and riches.
This was no single bed in a cramped apartment; this was something plucked from a glossy magazine spread.
“This has got to be some kind of dream,” I muttered to myself.
I reached down and pinched the skin on my forearm, twisting it hard enough to leave a mark.
“Ow!” I yelped, staring at the angry red welt forming on my arm.
Dreams weren’t supposed to hurt like that.
The pain was real, which meant… this was real?