I’m just about to close it when something shiny draws my gaze. Black patent leather.
I push the clothes aside and hidden beneath is a pair of stiletto platforms like I’ve never seen. They’re gorgeous, not a smudge or scratch on them. But I know better than to hope they’re my size.
When I lift them and look at the bottom, not only are they my size, but they’re only $6! I’m about to jump for joy, but instead I shove them in my basket, beaming all the way to the checkout line.
Maybe this is meant to be after all.
I’m so nervous. I look up at the seedy bar, and my heart is racing. It looks so grungy. The sign is crooked, and the light above the door keeps flickering in and out.
If I was watching a horror movie, this is the time that I’d be screaming at the character to get out of there while she could.
But I haven’t gotten another interview in six weeks, Kaiden wants me to pay up or get out, and I have no where else to go.
I push up my bra, tugging down the front of the tank top a little and pray for my pushup to do a little bit better of a job tonight. I’m a solid A-cup usually, which is an annoyance on a normal day, but if it costs me a job, that’ll be a whole other thing.
I haven’t seen Kaiden since I got home, which I’m grateful for. The last thing I want to deal with is his questions and smartass comments about how I’m not cut out to be a shot girl. I’ve heard enough of that since I got the call for the interview.
He doesn’t believe I’m cut out for it. I’m too perfect, in his words, though he says it like the word is poison on his tongue.
Little miss perfect.
He just hates that I always got straight A’s in school. A lot of good that does me now, considering everything that has happened.
My interview is in five minutes. I’d gotten here twenty minutes early, and now I’m just waiting for the right time.
I am bright enough to know that showing up early isn’t likely to earn me any brownie points in this place. If the owner is anything like Kaiden, you don’t waste someone’s time by showing up late... or early.
But I watch as the time on my car dashboard slowly clicks down the minutes of my life as my anxiety grows. Maybe I can’t do it. Maybe I’m not good enough.
Maybe I am just too perfect and should just try to apply for some scholarships and go back to school, in a strange place, where I know no one, and no one knows me. Hell, if I leave the state, Kaiden couldn’t even follow me if he wanted, thanks to the conditions of his bail.
There’s a strange sense of enjoyment I take in the thoughts of starting anew, but a part of me doesn’t want to. For all the stuff Kaiden puts me through, he is still the only family I have left.
And I don’t want to lose him again. Even if being near him drives me crazy.
The clock turns six fifty-nine, and I leave the vehicle.
Tugging down my skirt and tank top, I look at myself once more in the rear-view mirror. I can hardly recognize myself, with my dark shadowed eyes, heavy mascara, and red lipstick. I teased up my hair a bit too, or at least tried to, to give it more volume, and I hope it doesn’t look as bad to Ryder as it looks to me.
I take a deep breath.
Here goes everything.
Walking towards the door, I look at the flickering light, and the sense of foreboding churns in my stomach, but I push it aside.
But just then, two people push their way out of the bar, making out and completely ignorant to my presence. Her hands are all over him, and she is grinding on him. Right there in the parking lot as he slams her up against the wall.
She giggles, and he growls, and as I get closer, I think I’m going to be sick.
“Kaiden?” I practically shout, and I want to run closer, but the heels are way higher than anything I’ve walked in before, and I have to take each step gingerly, especially on the uneven asphalt.
He doesn’t stop as he sucks face with the latest floozy. I already know it isn’t the one from last night, or the night before, or the night before that.
He pins her hands above her head before he finally turns to look at me, shooting me the most arrogant, cocky look I’ve ever seen on his face.
Did he time this just to piss me off?
I scowl at him as I push past them, yanking on the door with a “Whatever” thrown in their direction.
It would’ve been really smooth and badass if the door didn’t choose that moment to get stuck. I yank on it and, of course, it sends me backward, my heels giving way beneath me as I drop unceremoniously to the greasy asphalt.
I’m ready to sink into the ground when I hear her laughter. My cheeks burn hot until suddenly I can feel Kaiden’s rough hands on my bare shoulders, hoisting me up as he tosses a “Shut up” at his most recent fling.