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He was right in my face, leaning down to me.
I met him glare for glare.
"Why do you always have to push it? I don't sleep at night, worrying about you since the attack. And now you want to go off on your own, for hours a day, and for what?"
That softened me a bit. "He's dead, Dante. He can't bother me or anyone else ever again."
"And what about that fucking cop? If he gets wind of you working as a waitress, he'll bother you every day."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Now there he had a point. "I'm sorry you're worried, but I'm not quitting. I can't live my life in fear of what ifs, and I can't be a Durant charity case for the rest of it either. I need to be more independent."
"What? What the hell is that supposed mean?"
"It means I'm a loser. I don't do anything. I don't contribute. I'm living here, in a mansion, and I've done nothing to earn it."
"That's bullshit. You're a high school student. That's your job right now."
That was laughable. I was a C student on a good day, when I was actually trying.
Most days I didn't even try. My mind tended to wander as soon as a teacher started talking.
"I don't deserve any of this, Dante. I don't deserve to be here."
"Deserve? What does that even mean? And if you don't deserve to be here, I don't either."
It was so outrageous I almost felt slighted by it. Insulted. "Please. Look at you, with your perfect GPA, your scholarships, your college applications, your SAT scores, your popularity, your football, your perfect everything. You belong here, in a house like this, in a life like this. The only thing about you that doesn't fit in here is that, for some reason, you want to be with me."
That got to him. I'd been bringing up a sore spot of mine, but I saw I'd rubbed us both wrong. His voice when he spoke was derisive. Offended. "None of that's for me. You think I enjoy any of it? And do you think I have a choice? Those things are the bare minimum that's expected of me, the Durant heir, and even that is not enough. And you're not a fucking Durant charity case. You might as well be a Durant. You will be someday, because you're never leaving me. Not happening."
That did something to me, played havoc with my heartstrings, made me become more agitated and go soft. It was nothing so much as a hostile, backhanded proposal of marriage, but sucker that I was, it still made me melt.
I was flushing as I tried to get back on topic. "I'm keeping the job."
His lips curled. He looked like he wanted to punch a wall. "Fine," he bit out. "But I'll drive you to and from."
I didn't argue the logistics of it with him. I'd won. It was enough. I didn't need to rub it in his face.
All that fussing aside, talking about having a job and the reality of it were two different things. After four days waiting tables, I wanted to quit. Pure stubbornness was all that kept me from it.
People were rude, men were gross, and the manager was a lech.
It was an old-fashioned diner with a pretty simple menu, but it seemed like I did nothing but screw orders up for at least the first week.
And worse, much worse than any of that, five days into the job Harris found me.
He didn't do anything I could take real exception to at first. He just occupied a booth in the corner, ordered cup after cup of coffee, pretended to work on a laptop, and watched me.
For hours.
I tried my best to serve and then ignore him, but the barest amount of small talk was required for the job, even for him.
"Do you bring your work here often?" I asked him begrudgingly the first day he did this.
He smiled warmly. "Every day."
Oh joy.
I asked my manager, Brett, about that at the end of the shift. He was an overweight, middle-aged man that I was 100% sure had hired me because he thought I was attractive and he liked having eye candy around.
