Midnight Magic, page 31
“Here you are.” She set the two plates down.
The couple eyed the food, and the male lifted the burger bun before popping a fried pickle into his mouth. “That’s not our order. I ordered the bacon burger with extra cheese and fries.”
“And I ordered the pasta and side salad,” the female followed up, eyeing the club sandwich. “And can I get another refill on my drink too.”
“Oh, wow, I’m sorry about that.” Maddie immediately picked up the plates. “Sure. What did you order again?”
The female looked slightly annoyed but repeated her drink.
“Coming right up. And I’ll go check on your food order too. Again, sorry about that.”
The couple looked like they’d lost all faith in her.
Jeez, did the female expect her to remember what her drink was as well as everyone else in the fricken place?
Then Maddie cursed to herself, realizing the male had touched the food—not to mention, the patron had also eaten one of the fried pickles… that he hadn’t ordered—which meant that she had to go back to the cooks to prepare another plate.
Another charge deducted from your already tiny paycheck too, Maddie thought and wanted to choke back tears.
She wasn’t cut out for this. Quite frankly, she sucked at waitressing and wasn’t exactly thinking she would be any better at bartending either. This fast-paced, stressful environment just didn’t jibe with her… it never had.
She missed having a mind-healing practice. Missed her patients. Missed helping specians in that way. Missed feeling fulfilled, feeling like she was doing what her heart desired.
But unfortunately, that ship had sailed… permanently.
She’d lost her license. Lost her practice. Lost her life. Lost her way.
Oh, and lost her home and car too. She had to sell her little Putt-Putt to pay back the money owed on the contract. Thankfully, it hadn’t been too much because the rest of the money went toward breaking her condo and office space’s leases and the down payment for her new home.
If she could even call it a home.
She now lived in a tiny studio that was basically four walls and a bed. Oh, and a kitchen that was just a sink, stove, and refrigerator. The latter of which made weird growling noises. No dishwasher or washer/dryer.
Honestly, she was grateful to have found the place for rent. Not to mention, how the bar/restaurant owner seemed to have taken pity on her and hired her even though she had no experience or references. Well, that wasn’t technically true. She hated that she’d lied twice on her application and to her new boss right off the bat. She’d lied about leaving off her job history as a mind healer. Who would want to hire an employee with a stain on their record from her ethical breach?
And she’d also lied about having zero restaurant experience. But she just didn’t want anyone, especially the owner, to know where her minimal experience came from. What if he’d called them?
No, she couldn’t risk it. Sure, she’d lost everything and hit rock bottom, but she’d discovered that she’d apparently still had a shred of pride left in her after all. She was determined to do this on her own and to get back on her feet first before anyone—okay, not anyone, but they—found out about what she was doing now and how she couldn’t practice as a mind healer any longer. Hopefully, they never would...
She blew out a breath.
How had her life come to this?
Living in a place she could barely afford in a notoriously unsafe neighborhood. Clutching pepper spray as she took the long walk from the bar to said neighborhood in the middle of the night after the bar closed down. Not sleeping at night because she was too afraid someone would break-in. Plus, her paper-thin walls did nothing to muffle the violent fights on the other side of the shared walls or outside. She was barely scraping by, paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt. Even without a car payment and her much cheaper rent, she still wasn’t earning enough to make the minimum payments on the mind healer school loan she still owed… despite the fact she’d never be allowed to practice as a mind healer ever again.
Every time she thought of that, it felt like her heart was being freshly stabbed over and over again.
This was her lowest low. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could do this. And she wasn’t sure how’d she get out of this or ever stop drowning in debt.
Since she hadn’t been paying her school loans, would the debt collectors come? Or would the interest just keep on racking up until it was literally impossible to swim out of?
Worst of all, she couldn’t stop thinking of Clyde. His smile. His arm wrapped around her. His kiss…
What was wrong with her? If she could afford it, she’d be going to mind-healing sessions herself at this point. Surely, something was seriously wrong with her to be thinking about the male who’d been a part of her downfall.
And no, she didn’t blame Clyde. She fully blamed herself. She’d been the one to put herself in that position. She’d kissed him back.
“Here you are.” She set the untainted plate down on the correct table in front of one-half of the couple. “And your order will be out in just a minute.” Hoping the cook remade that burger and fried pickle plate with a rush as she asked.
She turned and saw that the specian with the food-toucher-and-fried-pickle-eater was pointedly raising her empty glass in the air with an annoyed face. Maddie smiled and gave the universal signal for Be Right There.
You can do this. Only an hour more of your shift…
She discreetly wiped away the rogue tear that had escaped. She may only have an hour more tonight. But then she'd be back tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. And basically, for the foreseeable future… and doing exactly what she’d said she would never do.
So, yay, only an hour more until she walked home at a breakneck pace and barely got a wink of sleep until her depressing groundhog’s day started up again.
Swinging over to the bar, she picked up the tray holding the massive order of blended swirlberry specials and waited a minute for Casey to quickly make Ms. Impatient’s drink before making her way over to—
Maddie tripped on the corner of a table and tumbled to the floor with the drinks. This time, she didn’t even try to hold back the tears.
CHAPTER 15
Damn, the city was loud.
Sirens blaring every few minutes. Conversations that bordered on yelling. Drunken neighbors and passersby. Parties, honking horns, constant car and foot traffic… It all had Clyde’s lion hissing in dislike.
And that was on top of the fact that both he and his lion were on the knife-edge of losing their shit.
It’d been hours now and with each passing second, he grew infinitely more worried.
Where the hell was Maddie?
And yeah, he now knew without a doubt this was his Maddie’s place too… or that Maddie had been here relatively recently or long enough for her scent to linger. He’d gotten a hit of his favorite drug when he’d knocked on the door. Not like the door responded by shooting out a puff of her scent like a damn Glade PlugIn or some shit. But he could scent her. And then he did a mini walk around the building and picked up on her scent from the cracks in the windows that were so old and decrepit it no longer sealed properly when shut.
And when he’d seen the bars on her window and the broken glass bottles laying on the ground nearby, he had to take several calming breaths. Because it only further reminded him that the neighborhood was clearly dangerous as hell.
Growling, he checked the time. Just after two in the morning. The growling got worse—more frustrated, more lethal. And he didn’t give a damn about the low, menacing sound reverberating into the alley. In fact, good. Maybe it’d have others in the area think twice about being near her door.
Raking his hand through his hair—he’d done it so much over the past few hours that he was surprised he hadn’t gone completely bald—he began pacing in front of her dingy door that had paint peeling off in troves, revealing the previous shades it covered up.
He halted, cocking his head to the side in an animalistic motion and sharpening his shifter hearing. Footsteps. It sounded like one pair of feet. Tennis shoes or boots, perhaps. Coming at a fast clip—not running, but not a casual stroll either. Someone on a mission.
As the sound grew louder, he turned, prepared to face whatever was about to come around the corner in three. Two. One…
A specian about average height for a male all but zipped around the block and promptly froze to the spot.
*.*.*.*.*
* * *
After Maddie’s earlier slip and fall and subsequent emotional breakdown in the middle of the bar’s floor, while laying in a pool of spilled drinks, she’d managed to drag herself to the bathroom and collect herself while using paper towels to soak up as much of her wet shirt and pants as possible.
At least her uniform shirt was black—which was the same as her pants. The dark fabric had kind of helped to hide the stains while she’d finished out the rest of her shift. And she’d clung on to that tiny shred of light while shoving aside the fact that she’d basically lost her entire paycheck tonight to her dumb and embarrassing mistakes.
She’d never messed up so badly as a mind-healer before.
All but running home, her wet tears felt cold as the chilled night air blew by her. But she wasn’t actually running because she didn’t want to look suspicious and like she was sprinting away from something or someone (or her life altogether). Nor did she want to draw attention to herself—hence why she’d bought this huge black parka that basically covered her (and her feminine figure) from head to toe. She’d scored the thing at a hand-me-down shop not too far from here and was almost positive it was a male’s jacket, but like she cared about the intended gender. Since she’d bought it, she’d wear it anytime she left her place and tried not to think about what the hell she would do when the weather started to get warmer. She’d overheat in the thing. Whatever. She’d figure it out when that hurdle came. She had other things to worry about for the next several months anyway.
Doing a quick swipe of her nightly tears, she counted down the blocks until finally, she rounded the last corner to her place and—
She froze. Someone was at her front door. A male by the looks of the height and build. Large shifter male with danger all but rolling off of him.
Heart pounding, her instincts suddenly came on high alert in primal warning,
Oh god. It was a debt collector.
Her mind went to all those mob movies and books she’d devoured in her obsessed-with-the-mob-trope phase. Why had she ever thought those were a good idea to read?
Wait, why would they send a mob assassin after her?
She was being ridiculous. It was probably just a mugger.
A mugger?!
She gripped her pepper spray tighter, wondering if she could just run away—discretion be damned at this point—and maybe find a place to hide and watch for the male to leave. Executing her flee plan, she turned and—
“Maddie?”
Her breath caught. She knew that voice. But why—
“Clyde?” She wheeled back around and wondered if she was far worse off mentally than she’d self-assessed and was now hallucinating.
With shifter speed, he was suddenly in front of her, eyes of golden honey brown slightly aglow and intense as they did a quick once over as if assessing her for injuries.
“What are you doing here?” She quickly swiped at her eyes a couple of times, trying to play it off like she hadn’t been crying. Dimly, she wondered if her remaining mascara had run down her face, making her look like an emo clown. “I mean, how do you know where I live?”
She’d told no one, not even Jen. She’d lied to Jen, in fact. She’d said she’d only moved a couple of blocks from her old place. She felt bad for lying, but she didn’t want Jen to worry about her, and she absolutely wouldn’t ask to borrow money or anything. That could taint a relationship. Not like she didn’t have faith in the strength or depth of her and Jen’s friendship. But she was already in enough debt as it was, and she wouldn’t add to that.
“What are you doing here?” Clyde countered, gesturing to her shady living situation. “And why are you no longer working for SILE?”
Embarrassment crawled into her lap. Clyde and Jen were basically the two specians she really didn’t want to see her like this. Nor did her nosy neighbors need to overhear this and get some glimpse into her pathetic reality TV show. Besides, it was two in the freaking morning. She’d just survived a work shift from hell. And she was utterly exhausted. Not to mention, he was clearly in a mood with his growly intensity and nightglow eyes, all but boring into her.
“Why don’t you come inside? I’ll explain and then you need to leave.”
He growled and was literally prowling behind her as she walked up to her apartment and opened things up. Another palpable wave of shame washed over her at having Clyde see her sad living situation. At least it was clean… there wasn’t much to mess up.
She quickly threw her comforter over her mattress in a haphazard way of “making” her bed and then gathered up a few lingering clothes before throwing them in her hamper in the corner.
“You don’t have to tidy up, Maddie.” His voice sounded like it had a permanent frown.
“I’m not,” she lied, knowing he knew she was lying through her teeth. But he said nothing as she shucked off her coat and hung it up on the very ugly and very cheap free-standing rack that was slightly crooked—because, no, this place didn’t even have a closet.
Oh healer’s hell, how could this possibly get worse? she thought, closing her eyes while her back was facing him. Taking a quiet breath, she turned and plastered that ridiculous fake smile she used while waitressing.
“Would you like some water or swirlberry juice?”
She wished she could offer him something else, but she had nothing else. She’d only gotten the juice because the bar had overstocked in anticipation of the swirlberry special drinks and the owner said the employees could take a jug home if they wanted.
“Maddie.”
“Sorry, I don’t have anything else. But the juice is actually pretty good.” She walked over to the fridge and winced as it started that god-awful rumble sound that was way too fricken loud. “I’ll pour you some so you can try. It’s swirlberry juice cocktail, so it’s a bit sweet. But hey, it’s almost two-thirty, so we can indulge in a sweet treat, right?”
She just kept talking about the damn juice while grabbing two glasses—thank the Healing Heavens she at least had a nice utensil and dinnerware set from her previous place.
“Well, I didn’t have dinner”—she used her comped meal as one of her fuck ups tonight—“and just worked a shift where I absolutely deserve something sweet.”
God, she really needed to stop talking about the stupid juice.
“How much do you want?” she asked, pouring herself a full glass and silently deciding she’d eat the frozen macaroni and cheese once he left. Apparently, she’d regressed to being a youngling—drinking juice and eating macaroni and cheese.
“Maddie.”
“Too much?” she stopped pouring his glass almost halfway. “I’ll drink whatever you—”
“Maddie, for the love of fur, stop.”
She froze and then just felt pissed off. “What?” she snapped, her raw wounds showing through for a split-second. “What, Clyde? And why are you here?”
Damn it. Her voice was unintentionally shaky. She took a sip of the stupid juice that was so sweet she was sure her teeth were getting insta-cavities.
“Why are you here, Maddie?” He bulldozed right over her questions like the dominant male he was. “And what the hell is up with you not working for SILE anymore?”
She took another strategic sip of her juice, testing out different answers in her head. But apparently, he wasn’t done with his interrogation.
“When I first scented that you’re basically a walking liquor cabinet, I thought maybe you’ve turned to the bottle. But I can see that’s not what’s going on here. Especially with your shirt.”
She looked down at her bar-issued uniform shirt with the name Julie Gruley Bar & Restaurant plastered over her chest. She wanted to just crawl into a hole and be far, far away from this conversation.
God, she was tired—beyond tired. But it was clear that Clyde would not let this go.
“Fine,” she said in a defeated breath. “You want to know what happened?” She set down her drink, steeled her spine, and boldly met his eyes and held it. “My mind-healing license was revoked.”
He recoiled so hard she was actually surprised he hadn’t stumbled backward.
When he looked like he might say something, she continued on before he could speak, “After I called you to tell you I’m removing myself from your case…”
Just say this once and do it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“Almost immediately, I got a call from the Shifter Council and then—” She proceeded to give Clyde the CliffsNotes of how she ended up here, going into as little detail and drama as possible. “And now you know why I am here and working at JG’s. Look…” She rubbed her tired eyes, only to silently curse at the tangible reminder she was wearing mascara. Well, kind of. Part of the black stuff had succumbed to her Cry Me a River episode earlier and the other part had apparently banded together into three distinct spikes. Really hot. “It’s getting late, and you really do need to—”
“Who reported you?” Clyde asked. His expression gave away the fact that he was clearly still a bit stunned and processing the influx of unexpected information.
“I…” She opened her mouth and then closed it, thinking about that one. “I can’t remember…” She rubbed her tired eyes only to immediately Whoa Nelly that when she remembered the spiky-mascara-emo-clown situation. “I don’t think I was ever told. It was probably kept anonymous or confidential. I’m not sure. Why does it even matt—”
His phone was out before she could blink. Clearly, he was on a dialing mission all of a sudden.
