Page 13 of Fated to the Gargoyle

“You’re behaving strangely, little brother,” he says.

He isn’t wrong, and I don’t bother arguing it. I gouged my mark into two of this town’s buildings over one waitress. She’s asleep believing no one ever came for her, and the male fate built for her is standing on a diner roof with empty hands.

That changes tomorrow.

7

TREASURE

I’m dressed for my shift with time to spare, so I give the place the once-over I’ve been avoiding. The walls are as bare as the day I moved in. I quit filling the bookshelf halfway through unpacking, and I’ve stepped around that moving box so many times I nearly set a plant on it. This is the apartment of a woman with one foot out the door, and I have news for her. She’s staying.

I count out last night’s tips on the kitchen table. It comes to forty-seven dollars and change, which is not bad for a Tuesday night in a town this size. All of it goes in a jelly jar under the kitchen sink, back behind the bleach where no one with sense would look. A girl learns a few things living in the city.

That jar is my decorating fund. My life is starting over in this place, and it ought to look like someone lives here.

The clouds are sitting low on the ridge, and thunder keeps clearing its throat somewhere behind them. I’m not due at the diner for a while, but I didn’t move to a new town to get acquainted with my own sofa. If the flyers by Andy’s register are any clue, Shadow Wolf Creek will throw a festival over just about anything. I can’t wait on one, so the shopping center will have to do. Someone out here is bound to get nosy and talk to me.

I park my hatchback in front of Stanley’s and gather my apron and purse off the passenger seat. That sky is about to open up on someone. I look up and check the diner roof. It’s still nothing but shingles and gutter up there.

“I know I’m not going crazy,” I tell the roofline. “It was there.”

I groan at myself and head for the sidewalk, and I fish out my phone on the way, because idle hands and all. My old roommates are posted up in someone’s section with their drinks in the air, filming like rent is paid.

“Y’all sure are having a good time now that I’m not there,” I murmur.

My stomach sours watching them, and I hate that it does. I put the phone away before it makes me any dumber. You left that city on purpose, Treasure. Pouting over a club you never even liked is a sorry way to spend a Wednesday.

Across the street, a man props open the door at a place called Shadow Bar and starts flipping chairs down off the tables. Now that might be worth an off day.

I reach the sidewalk and stop walking.

What the hell is this?

The statue is back, and it skipped the roof this time. It’s sitting on the ground against the diner’s brick wall, right up by the front door like someone’s enormous guard dog. It’s my statue from the roof, down to the curl of its claws.

I walk up slow and give it a good long look.

I keep my voice quiet and friendly. “I know you were on the roof. Now you’re down here.”

A man strolls past with his coffee and pays no attention to me or the enormous stone monster I’m talking to. I still check the sidewalk both ways. If someone catches the new girl counseling a statue, that follows me in this town for good.

I’m mid-groan when the diner door swings open and Lamar comes out with it, dish rag over one shoulder and his apron testifying about the lunch rush. He smiles at me anyway.

“So do you always work doubles?” I ask him.

“Not really. Just till Andy hires someone.” He wipes his hands on the rag, watching me the whole while. I pretend I don’t clock it. “Plus I’m saving up to renovate my house. My mother passed it down to me.”

The question is out before I can dress it up nice. “And where’s your mother?”

His smile goes quiet. “She died a few months after my twentieth birthday.”

That knocks the play right out of me. “Oh, Lamar. I’m so sorry.”

“No need to apologize. She’s with me in spirit.” He says it easy, then leans a shoulder on the doorframe. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about settling down. Starting a family of my own.”

I stiffen up quick and hope my face doesn’t tell on me. Damn, this dude is too straightforward. He might as well pull out his house keys and hand them over while he’s at it.

I put on the smile I keep for customers halfway through a fantasy football story. “That’s awesome, Lamar.”