Chapter One
Ayda
“Ayda? Where are all my jeans?”
The moment the question fell from his lips, I froze midway between the bathroom and bedroom, wearing nothing but my towel.
My brother Tate was fifteen and ten years my junior.
Our parents had met in high school, and three weeks after Mom’s sixteenth birthday, I was born.
By some miracle, the two of them stayed together and decided, almost a decade later, that they were going to have another.
Along came Tate.
Mom said the first time I saw him I scowled and mentioned how I didn’t know how to deal with a boy so she should exchange him for a girl.
The honest to God’s truth was that I still didn’t know what to do with him most of the time.
He was a good kid, but what the hell did I know about a hormonal teenage boy?
A big, fat nothing, that’s what.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really have much choice.
When he was twelve, our parents were killed in a bank robbery gone wrong.
They’d been in there trying to get financing for my college.
They hadn’t wanted me to take out loans with an astronomical APR when they could get one cheaper and not cheat me with an excessive rate, due to my partial scholarship being pulled in my final year.
It had ultimately cost them their lives and, as selfish as it sounded, it had cost me mine, too.
I'd had to give up the college they’d been trying to pay for and get three jobs to support the two of us at the tender age of twenty-two.
That was three years earlier, and things had yet to improve much.
“I’m so sorry, Tate. I forgot to do laundry. I did an extra shift last night and just crashed when I got in. Do you have anything you can wear today? I’ll get them done for tomorrow, I promise.”
“A domestic goddess you are not, Ayda,” he said, sticking his head around the bedroom door and laughing.
At least he had a sense of humor about my epic fails in life, which was more than could be said for me most of the time.
I just wanted to crawl into bed, cry myself to sleep and stay there for a week.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a full eight hours.
“Don’t worry about it, sis. I’ll figure it out. If you’d show me how to use the fucking thing, I could do it myself.”
“Language, Tate. Anyone would think I’d fucking dragged you up.”
“You did.” He grinned, patting me on the head. He may have been ten years younger but he was built like a brick shit house and towered over my five foot four frame. I swear it looked like he was the one taking care of me sometimes.
“The world doesn’t need to know that,” I said, flipping him off with a genuine smile. Grabbing the front of my towel, I headed to my room to dress for job one of three.
The first was the morning shift at Rusty’s diner, where I worked for minimum wage and tips.
The second job was lunch and dinner at the local fast food drive-in, where I got to roll around on skates for the afternoon, balancing a tray on my hand while I fought a constant battle against gravity.
Finally, there was job number three, working the close at the local food mart, where I played enabler to old Mrs. Bridgefort’s ice cream addiction before I locked up at ten and headed home to eat, if I remembered, then fell into bed.
Some nights, for a little overtime, I went back to the fast food place and worked until two am.
It really wasn't much of a life. I couldn't have told you what had been on television for the past three years, other than crappy made-for-TV movies that kept me company when I couldn't sleep.
I hadn't seen a mall since Christmas when I'd almost broken us to buy some new cleats for Tate.
My hair hadn't been cut in years and always ended up pulled into a tail at the back of my head, and men.
.. Well, who the hell had time for them?
I was tired. At twenty-five, I was exhausted and bone weary.
Tate did what he could to help, but he was running back on the school’s football team, which meant practice every night.
Then he'd go and see his tutor, who was worth every penny now that he was passing algebra, before coming home and studying.
School was one of the only things I got on his ass about, which was why I picked up the slack everywhere else.
Lucky me!
Wearing the ugly brown dress for Rusty’s, I was almost trampled to death by Tate’s big form as he rushed down the hall to the kitchen, while I went back to the bathroom to put on some make-up to cover the dark circles under my eyes.
I didn’t want to look like the walking dead as I served Belgian waffles and bacon to the hungry masses of Babylon, Texas.
I’d barely made it two steps into the room when another shout met me from the general direction of the kitchen, my own colorful roll of expletives conveniently covering the question I already knew was coming.
I hadn’t just forgotten the laundry. I’d forgotten to food shop, too. The kid probably had a choice of month old leftovers or moldy asparagus to choose from… if asparagus even went moldy. Those were now life's hard-hitting questions for me.
“Take some money out of my purse for lunch, Tate. I’m so sorry, buddy.”
I stuck my head around the door frame and gave an apologetic smile as he swung around the wall at the end of the hall that led to the front of our little house.
“Don’t sweat it, sis. I don’t need money. I’ll share Sloane’s lunch.”
Sloane was his vapid, whiney little girlfriend, who just happened to be the daughter of our town’s police chief. Lucky me, again. They’d only been together for a few months but she was besotted with him.
“Don’t do that,” I said, just before pushing the toothbrush into my mouth.
“Do what?”
I rolled my eyes, leaned back into the bathroom to spit out the excess, and returned to where I had been. “Depend on a girl, or worse, appear like a charity case. It’s unattractive and makes me feel like a complete asshole. I can feed you, Tate.”
“Relax, A. She always offers anyway. I normally eat my sandwiches on the way home from practice. Don’t sweat your make-up off.”
“Smartass. Go find yourself something for breakfast or you’ll be walking to school.”
Putting his hands up in surrender, he shrugged before he disappeared again, leaving me in peace to bang my head against the wall in frustration.
My daily curses at the world started early, and they didn’t stop again until I’d dropped Tate off. Then I hit the road to drive my usual ten miles out to the freeway, the one that passed around the edge of town and was home to Rusty’s diner.
“Ayda, you’re late again,” the gruff voice of my boss rasped as I slid inside, the screen door slapping closed behind me.
Looking up at the clock, I saw he was right. I was a whole thirty seconds late. Rolling my eyes, I pulled on my apron and pushed my order book and pen into the front pocket before starting on a fresh pot of coffee in silence.
“Sorry, Rusty, had to stop for gas.” I hadn’t, but I always gave him some kind of excuse that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass. He asked me for a receipt once, and I stared at him dumbfounded until he rolled his eyes and waved a spatula at me.
“Sorry. Not my problem, kid. I make enough allowances for you. You’re the only one who isn’t flexible, you know. You have fixed hours that never deviate—”
“And I’m damn lucky that you respect my work ethics or I’d be out on my young, smart ass,” I finished for him with a grin. He was already mumbling and waving the spoon for the grits around in the air.
“Leave the girl alone, Rusty. She works three jobs and is a full-time parent. You can cut her some slack,” said a voice from behind me.
“Is that right?” Rusty asked, spinning on his heel and staring her down.
Janette looked over at me and made an exasperated face.
She’d been married to Rusty for almost thirty years.
He liked to act as though he was in control, but it was easy to see who held the reins in their relationship.
She could correct him with one simple look.
I loved them both. No matter how many times I rolled my eyes at them.
This was the first job I managed to get after my parents died, and Rusty and Janette had done everything short of adopting us.
“You’re an old fool. Don’t let him get to you, Ayda.”
I gave her a sly grin before putting all the napkins and condiments on the tables.
We had ten minutes before things got busy and, as though on cue, the bell rang over the door as the coffee finished brewing and the first of our regulars filtered in.
I knew most of the faces in the place. They came in every day, ordered the same things and spoke about football, baseball or anything new that happened in town, which was, admittedly, rare.
The regulars were followed closely by a group I only saw on occasion.
The Motorcycle Club from town had rolled in.
It was normally too early for them to be out and about.
They were generally nocturnal. I only ever saw them at night when they rode through Babylon, the sound of their bikes giving them away as they passed.
They were always polite and respectful when I saw them, so I had nothing against them, but I didn’t miss the murmur from the regulars as they seated themselves in a booth at the back of the diner.
It wasn’t difficult to see the divide in the place.
Even if they hadn’t been wearing their leather vests with the club name emblazoned over every inch, their style would have given them away.
They were, for lack of a better term, organized chaos.
Their hair was windblown and their skin weatherworn.
Black ink crept from under their sleeves and covered most of the skin that sat exposed.
If that wasn’t enough, they looked in control, all of them leaders filled with confidence as they draped themselves over the plastic-covered seats, their laughter a mixture of depravity and humor.
Approaching their table and offering a smile, I pulled the pad from my apron, one foot crossing the other and resting on the toe as I waited for them to acknowledge me.
“Hey, sweetheart. Six coffees for now. Regular, not decaf. We need to keep our asses awake.”
“You got it,” I said lightly, turning my foot to spin me away from them. Coffee was easy, and I made the best brew around, or so I'd been told.
“Hey, wait. Didn’t I see you down at Roller Freeze the other night?” the youngest of the group asked.
There was something about him that reminded me so much of Tate, I found myself genuinely smiling as I responded. “Yeah, I work lunch through dinner and close sometimes.”
I turned to go get the coffees, but their laughter threw me off, forcing me to look over my shoulder at them.
The word ‘what?’ sat on the very tip of my tongue, but was swallowed back down as the young one raised his strange zigzag eyebrow at me.
I honestly didn’t want to get into a conversation with these guys about my personal life, so I took off and got them coffees, before I took care of everyone else, falling easily into my routine.