by Wendy Silk
When You Came Home With Me
(A Blue Shore Novel)
By Wendy Silk
Text Copyright © 2019 Wendy Silk
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Part One: Two Years Ago
Chapter 1: Cici
Chapter 2: Tim
Chapter 3: Cici
Chapter 4: Tim
Chapter 5: Cici
Part Two: Present Day
Chapter 6: Cici
Chapter 7: Tim
Chapter 8: Cici
Chapter 9: Tim
Chapter 10: Cici
Chapter 11: Tim
Chapter 12: Cici
Chapter 13: Tim
Chapter 14: Cici
Chapter 15: Tim
Chapter 16: Cici
Chapter 17: Tim
Chapter 18: Cici
Chapter 19: Tim
Chapter 20: Cici
Chapter 21: Tim
Part One: Two Years Ago
Chapter 1: Cici
I lunged forward, trying to grab the tray of drinks before it crashed to the ground.
Shit! This was not what I needed tonight, not at all.
My tired fingers slipped against the slimy rim of the cork-lined tray and I lost my battle with the drinks. Instead of saving them from falling to the floor, I somehow managed to flip them, giving them new momentum as they slammed into the wall near the kitchen door. I was in on of the highest traffic areas of the restaurant, so I got to enjoy a spate of clapping and hooting from the customers around me. I looked up at the guys who were watching me, and I performed a little curtsy. My cheeks were pink with a mix of embarrassment and irritation, but that was how we were supposed to play it.
It was a bit of a stretch to call this hole in the wall a restaurant at all, but that was what Billy, the owner, insisted we do. More like a dank drinking hole off the Texas interstate, I thought to myself as I went for the broom. The wooden handle was stickier than I expected, and I didn’t want to stop to think how that had happened. Instead, I got down on the vinyl floor and cleaned up my mess as quickly as I could.
“Cici, you ok?” Kelly brushed past me on her way to her tables. Her concern was genuine, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She knew I could handle it. This kind of thing was routine. That was the glamorous life we were leading as overworked cocktail waitresses at a place where men visited mostly to stare at our asses in the denim cut-off shorts that made up our mandatory uniform. I put the broom back in its corner and smoothed my tight black shirt as I headed back to get more drinks before my tables got too restless.
The guys that came in here liked to see the cotton fabric of the t-shirt stretched tightly across my breasts. That was the kind of place this was. It was a bar off a highway, with a sign made up of bright, blinking lights. It attracted a certain type of men. After they’d done their drinking, the guys always found the darkest corners of our parking lot, too, to try to pull the girls into the shadows for a quickie.
Boy, that was not my style.
I worked here, and I knew I had no right to think I was too good for that kind of behavior. I just liked the tips. The surprisingly good money let some of us build up our savings accounts as we prepared for the next step in our lives. Sure, some of the women I worked with made a ton of money doing things I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, and they still didn’t have anything to show for it. If you snorted all your cash right up your nose in the bathroom before your shift, then you were sure as hell not ever getting out of here.
That wasn’t my style either.
As Kelly and I briefly stood next to each other, loading tortilla chips into baskets for our customers, I had to ask her. She’d heard the same question a thousand times from me, but she always knew it would come again.
“Kelly, when are we getting out of here?” I was at the peak of the energetic high that came from doing a long shift and doing it well. I needed to channel that energy into wanting something other than this.
“Cici, you ask me that almost every night,” she answered. “We’re getting out of here when we’ve saved what we need to move on. We sure as hell can’t start our own business on smiles and promises.” She twinkled her blue eyes at me. “Well, we could branch out into a different kind of work with all that, but it’s not what I have in mind.”
I laughed out loud with her. “No, you’re right. No blow jobs in the parking lot, thank you very much. Does that actually count as a business? Do they pay taxes on that?”
As I loaded up my tray, another waitress came up behind me and overheard. “Nope, it’s tax-free income, baby. You should give it a try.”
“Ick, Lori.” I managed to pretend-slap her shoulder as I passed her, but I wasn’t kidding. She wasn’t either. I frowned to myself as I strode out to the noisy restaurant floor. I was never going to be her. Never in a million years.
As I was in the midst of dashing around, setting down my drinks and taking orders for more, I saw Billy beckon me to him. He was smiling, which was never a good sign. Billy was a giant of an ex-Marine whose bald head shone under the kitchen lights like a beacon, and whose Texas drawl made him sound dumber than he was. He was a keen judge of character who was anything but stupid. Billy had built this place up from nothing by the sheer force of his personality. He could kick the asses of any three customers that came in, and they all knew it.
“Billy, what’s up?” I was a little out of breath as I reached him. When he beckoned, we all hurried. It wasn’t just me.
“Cici, I don’t want to have to tell you this again.” He was still smiling at me, which made me nervous. “You keep dropping dishes, and I’m gonna let you go.”
“I know, I’m so sorry. I swear it won’t happen again. I just got a little flustered, you know, and I…” My voice trailed off, as I realized there was no point in continuing. I didn’t have an excuse, and he didn’t want to hear one. We both knew that I was a crappy waitress.
“Just don’t get nervous, and you’ll be fine. Cici, you know I’m not keeping you on here for your skills in handling a tray.” Billy’s smile was no longer menacing. He had relented, allowing his affection for me to shine through even as he chastised me. “I can’t explain it, but I always hear the same thing from the guys. ‘Who’s that girl with the pink cheeks? With the ass that won’t quit?’ Every damn night, I have somebody ask me that. Like it matters. They don’t need your phone number or your life story, they just need you to get them a drink without it landing on the floor. Got it?”
I couldn’t help but grin back at him. His words were harsh, but I didn’t need to worry about getting fired. Maybe not tonight, anyway.. Billy was a good guy and he knew I was saving every penny I made at his restaurant. He didn’t want to admit it, but I was his favorite girl here, and it wasn’t for the same reason that the customers liked me. Billy might notice that I had a nice rack, but boobs in general weren’t his style.
“Thanks, Billy. I’ll work on it. I promise.” I sent the words over my shoulder at him as I walked away as quickly as I could without slipping on the floor. These heels were too tall for this work. I could be working at a family restaurant, wearing long black pants and sneakers. Sure, I could, but it would take me twice as long to save the money that Kelly and I needed to open our catering business.
So this was it. Another night, and another apron full of wadded up cash. Not really such a bad deal, after all. If Kelly and I could hold out against the monotony that gripped all the waitresses here, we could make it out of this town.
I already knew all about leaving small towns that weren’t for me. I wasn’t born here in this roadstop community just south of Dallas. I’d ended up here by choice.
It hadn’t actually been my choice. It was more that I’d followed a loser guy out here from LA and gotten stranded. Literally left behind. I’d popped into the restaurant with a twenty dollar bill in my hand, tasked with the mission of picking up some chips and salsa for him to eat while we drove. While I was paying for the food, I happened to notice that he was pulling out of the parking lot. By the time I made it out the door, he was already picking up speed on the highway, with all my belongings in his car.
Kelly had taken me in and helped me get this job. We were roommates first, then best friends. She was the person I trusted most in the world. All that was true, but I still didn’t feel that I knew her well enough to tell her about the disaster that had been my life in my small hometown in Washington. Every morning when I woke up, it still hit me hard, even after all these years. That town was a place I could never go back to, nor could I do anything that would bring my dad and my sister back. Even if I wished it as hard as I could every night when I went to bed, there would never be another morning with them.
What I did have, though, was a job and a roof over my head. And the best friend I’d ever had in my whole life, besides my sister. Kelly and I were going to do whatever we needed to to make our lives better from here on out. We had a business plan and a life plan. Nothing was going to get in the way of that.
The most important thing was keeping ourselves from getting involved with the customers. All it took was one flirtation with a trucker or a skeezy single dad, and wham, there you were, stuck forever in a tiny apartment with the television blaring 24//7 while you cooked, cleaned, and wiped your kids’ dirty faces.
That wasn’t going to happen to me.
Chapter 2: Tim
This was going to be another late night. I could tell already that this meeting was going to take longer than it should and be way more of a pain in the ass than it needed to be. My business partner, Aaron, was already off and running, ordering a second pitcher for our table. His eyes were following the waitress’s ass like he’d never seen a woman before.
His behavior didn’t have to affect me. I resolved to act the way I wanted to, no matter how hard he tried to rope me in to his stupid crap. We were here to try to close this deal, and that’s what I was going to do. I knew that Aaron thought it was necessary to act like some kind of county fair stud in front of our customers to impress them. My approach was a little different. I was going to go the route of actually appearing competent at our jobs.
“Let’s check out these numbers,” I urged the two older men who sat across from us. “You’ve got twelve ground floor apartments in that building. Take a look at this column of figures. We can rebuild all the porches and still stay within your budget.”
Aaron butted in. “Well, you gotta remember we have to get in there and rip out the existing porches first. You’ll see that there’s a clause in the contract that says we can’t guarantee the bid. If we find dry rot or termite damage in what you’ve already got up, it’s gonna be more to rebuild.”
I shot him a dirty look. What the hell? “Yes, gentlemen, you’ll see that section here. But please keep in mind that we’ve already done a preliminary check on all that existing construction before preparing this bid. It’s very likely that nothing of that sort will come up.” Dammit, I needed to talk to Aaron in private about shooting his mouth off like that. The trick was to get their attention with the positive aspects of our offer, not to draw their eyes to the fine print.
The man with the silver hair and the cowboy hat frowned at me. He hadn’t even bothered to take his hat off when he came indoors, but this was Texas. Nobody blinked an eye at that. He was only one among many men in this room with their hats still on their heads. I’d lived here all my life. You’d think I wouldn’t notice something like that anymore, but it always got my attention. Before my mom took up with my nightmare of a stepfather, she taught me better manners than that. After my stepfather moved in, well, she was too busy trying to keep his fists from landing on her face to worry about niceties like that.
Cowboy Hat punched his fat, wrinkled fingers at the contract. “I don’t know, boys. I see that you’ve got to cover your asses, but it looks to me like you’re leaving the door open to screw us over with that section. I can’t allow for that kind of cost overrun. Let’s just take it out.”
“Really,, I assure you…” I began to try to backpedal us out of the problem, wishing that I’d arranged to meet with them without Aaron. He was a good buddy when it came to actually building stuff together, but he had a terrible head for business.
For once, he was actually paying attention to the conversation, instead of undressing the waitresses with his eyes. “Yeah, Tim,” he said. “What do you say we just strike that clause out?” He scratched his head as he looked at me, then over at the two potential clients.
“Aaron, can I speak with you in private for a moment? Please excuse us,” I nodded to our tablemates. I shoved Aaron over toward the bar with a rougher hand than I’d intended. He stumbled, dragging the tip of his brown boot on the floor. “Dude, are you already having trouble walking?” I was starting to get irritated with him for real. “We only just got here. You have to remember, we’re at this meeting to close a deal. You know, an actual contract that will pay our bills.”
“Yeah, well maybe I had a few beers before you picked me up. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Aaron, there is a lot wrong with that. I’ve been busting my ass trying to make this partnership work, but I’m getting tired of carrying you. You’re just not taking it seriously. For God’s sake, look at our company name. ‘T&A Construction?’ You think this is some kind of joke?”
He snickered, leaning his tall frame against the edge of the bar and grinning at me. “Come on, that’s a great name for a construction company. Tits and Ass, get it? You’re just mad that you didn’t think of it first.”
“Of course I get it, you moron. And no, really I’m not.” I could tell that my annoyance with him made no difference to his mood whatsoever. Finally, I couldn’t help myself, and I had to let a smile creep across my face. “OK. I can’t stay mad at you no matter how much you’re pissing me off right now. You’re my oldest friend. But if we don’t get this contract, we’ve got some serious cash-flow problems coming up. You need to get with the program.”
He nodded blithely at me and sprang forward, heading back to our table. As he shouldered past me, I wished for the thousandth time that we hadn’t decided to go into business together. I knew he wasn’t listening, but I hissed at him anyway. “Just let me do the talking!”
When we were seated with our two potential clients again, we followed their lead in letting the contract talk die down for the moment. Instead, we turned to the ever-present topic of sports to smooth the moment.
“Did you see the Cowboys game?” The rougher looking man leaned across to me. “What did you think about that third-quarter sack? That was bullshit, wasn’t it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but a piercing catcall from Aaron interrupted me. I faced him and blurted out, “Shit, that was loud. What, are you trying to break my eardrums?”
He ignored me. His attention was fixed on the waitress who was coming our way. She was hot, that was for sure. I wasn’t going to whistle at her like Aaron had, but I understood what he was thinking. Something about her was different from the other girls we’d seen here. Her hair was long and caramel colored, and it brushed the tops of her perky tits. I let my eyes travel down the rest of her because that was the kind of place we were in. If she didn’t like it, she shouldn’t have signed up to work in that class of bar. Seemed fair to me.
When she got to our table, she addressed us in a voice that was too quiet, but at the same time, she somehow commanded our total attention.
“Hi guys, sorry it took me a few minutes to get
here. You may have seen my disaster with a tray full of dishes a few minutes ago. If you missed it, no worries. I’m sure I’ll manage to do it again soon. Anyway, I know that Lori brought you a couple of pitchers while I was on clean-up duty. What else do you need tonight?” Her movements were deft as she laid out napkins and condiments on our table. She leaned low across the table, giving us all a glimpse of the tops of her breasts where they swelled up against the neckline of her tight black t-shirt. Shit, this was a woman I wouldn’t mind holding in my arms all night.
While I was covertly admiring her figure and appreciating her sweet voice, the two clients across the table were downright staring at her tits and practically drooling. “Yeah, there’s something I need tonight,” growled out the man who had just been talking football with me. He grabbed her rounded ass with a weathered hand, squeezing hard enough that I could see the fabric of her denim shorts twisting in his grip. “I need you sitting on my cock tonight, baby. What do you think about that?”
Our waitress drew in her breath quickly and moved slightly around the edge of the table, so that his hand could no longer reach her. Her cheeks flushed pink and she tried to fight off an anxious frown.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but customers aren’t allowed to touch the waitresses here. It’s not that kind of place.”
“Hell yeah, it is,” he answered. “Everybody in town knows what kind of place this is. Are you new? Do you need me to show you what goes on here?”
The silver haired guy in the hat chimed in. “Yeah, I’ll tell you what, we’ll show you together. Know what I’m saying? Can you handle that, little missy? Two guys at once? We’ll fill you up and teach you things you’ve never done before.”
Even Aaron was having a hard time accepting that this was the kind of company we were keeping. He looked down at the table in confusion as the pretty waitress pressed her lips together and chewed the inside of her mouth like a schoolgirl. She looked exactly like she was trying to decide how badly she wanted to be here and whether she could get away with taking off her apron and walking out the door.
