Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(51)

“’Evenin’, Erik,” said Ms. Sebastian, who’d finally stopped giving him the stink eye about three weeks ago.

“Hey, Ms. Sebastian,” he said, giving her a warm smile.

He knew that Laire not only looked up to Ms. Sebastian as a boss, but he sensed that she felt the sort of affection for the older woman that she had on reserve for the mother she’d lost. And although it had taken him most of the summer to win her over, he respected Ms. Sebastian. He appreciated the way she looked after Laire. In fact, part of him was counting on her to keep looking after Laire even after he’d returned to Duke.

“Headed back to school soon?”

He nodded grimly. “Next weekend.”

The older woman’s eyes flicked over to Laire, who was taking an order in the dining room. “She’s done well here this summer.”

She had done well. She’d stayed a busser for only a couple of weeks before her promotion to waitress, and he had it on good authority that she was Ms. Sebastian’s star employee.

“You’ve been good to her, ma’am.”

Her eyes nailed his. “She’ll miss you awful.”

“I’ll miss her too,” he said, a lump making his throat tight. “Any chance you could let her off early tomorrow?”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“My folks are leavin’ to take my sister back to school in Asheville. I’ll have the house to myself.”

“And you want her to . . .?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I just want time with her, ma’am. Nothin’ else.”

Ms. Sebastian searched his face, then nodded once. “If she wants to leave early, I won’t stand in her way.”

“Thank you,” said Erik.

She turned to leave, then pivoted back around. “Good luck at school, Erik.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

“You’ll come back?” she asked quickly. “To the Banks?”

He nodded. “At Thanksgivin’. I’m hopin’ Laire will . . .”

“Will . . .?” She raised her eyebrows in question.

“I hope she’ll be ready to tell her father about us by then so we can . . . spend the holiday together. Move forward.”

“Ah,” said Ms. Sebastian, grimacing. She took a deep breath and sighed, her eyes heavy with concern. “Well, good luck,” she said again softly before heading back to the kitchen.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, he thought.

Laire approached the bar with a tray and set it on the busing counter at the corner. “I’m almost done.”

He took a twenty out of his wallet and slipped it under his glass. “Meet me at the chairs?”

She grinned at him and nodded. “See you there!”

***

Usually, after making out with Erik for an hour after work, the wind on her face felt like a blessing, cooling the heat of her body and bringing her back down to earth before she arrived home.

But not tonight.

Tonight her cheeks burned with longing and guilt, want and shame—and more than anything else, the sharpest frustration she’d ever felt.

Erik’s house would be empty tomorrow night.

And he’d invited her to stay the night.

After her initial wave of sharp desire to spend a whole night in his arms, she’d gotten angry—at him and at herself.

Why would he invite her to do something she wasn’t able to do? The only reason her double life had lasted this long was because they’d followed a strict set of rules. On weekdays and Saturdays, she left her father’s dock at three o’clock in the afternoon and returned by eleven o’clock at night. On Sundays she left at nine in the morning and returned by eleven in the evening. As long as she didn’t deviate from that plan, he didn’t ask questions, aside from an occasional “How’s work, li’l Laire?” which she always answered with a chipper “Just fine, Daddy.” And somehow—she chose to believe it was grace—she hadn’t been given away by either Mr. Mathers over on Ocracoke or Kyrstin, who covered for her regularly with little comments about how well she was doing at work.

But with such a carefully constructed web of deception, how in the world was she supposed to leave at three in the afternoon per usual and not return until the next day? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. Her father would notice if she wasn’t at home the next morning, and her sisters, who knew nothing about Erik, wouldn’t cover that big a lie for her. No. She couldn’t do it.

But it wasn’t fair how desperately she wanted to.

She wanted a night in Erik’s arms.

She wanted the memory of falling asleep beside him.

She wanted to know what it felt like to see him when her eyes opened first thing in the morning.

As their time wound down, he talked constantly about seeing her over Thanksgiving break, but he didn’t seem to understand that she still couldn’t conceive of telling her father about their relationship. With Buxton and the Pamlico House, Sundays with Erik, and being intimate with a dingbatter, there were too many lies.

For her to ever introduce Erik to her father, she’d need about a year to lay the groundwork.

First of all, after Erik went back to school, she would tell her father she’d found a year-round job on Buxton. He’d hem and haw, but she thought he might be okay with it after letting her work all summer, and plus, he’d regard it differently since it was off-season work. Jobs off-season were hard to come by—she didn’t think he’d stand in the way of her making money over the long, hard, cold months of fall and winter.