Wait With Me (Wait With Me, #1)(8)

Lynsey giggles. “I still can’t believe you hit a bestseller list with that pen name.”

I chortle knowingly. “My readers get me.”

“They’d have to,” Dean mumbles but shoots me a proud smile.

“I just like to keep it real.” I sit back casually, relaxing into my spot on the counter. “But I will say, if there’s free coffee where you find your vibe, you do sort of feel like you’ve pulled one over on society. We live in a world that charges for damn near everything. Parking. Cups of ice. Office space. So when you get to enjoy the little things in life, like complimentary coffee, it restores your faith in humanity. And free frickin’ tastes better, that’s just a fact.”

“So you’re going back there tomorrow,” Dean states, his demeanor clearly not as euphoric as mine.

“Hells yeah! This smut won’t write itself.” I raise my beer to them and decide to make an impromptu toast. “Wait with me, my friends. It’s the revolution of the modern day millennials. You’ll see.”





Here’s one thing I’ve learned after three weeks at Tire Depot: Confidence is everything. If you walk in like you own the place, no one will bat an eye. The Customer Comfort Center is mainly full of customers anyway, and those are new every day, hell, every hour. These guys are quick with a lube job.

However, there are employees who frequent the CCC. They usually come in to steal a cookie or refill their cups from the fountain pop machine. Yeah, I know! A Coke Fountain Machine! The only way the CCC could be more perfect is if they had Gilmore Girls playing on a loop on the television instead of cheesy soap operas. But honestly, I couldn’t withstand that level of distraction, so shitty soaps are definitely for the best.

But since I catch sight of familiar employees on a regular basis, I carry a costume to protect my identity—my trusty baseball cap. I know I have noticeable red hair, but most people won’t confront you on something so ridiculous as frequenting their waiting room without a car. At least, that’s my hope.

Today, I’m deep in the word zone, baseball cap tucked down low, noise canceling earbuds in tight with some groovy synth beats that are great for anal scenes when the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand.

My fingers pause on the keyboard, and I look up from my spot in the armchairs that surround the TV. Everybody is looking around curiously, accusingly even. Frowning, I glance around the room, and my blood runs cold when I see a pizza delivery guy standing in the enormous waiting room shouting something to the thirty-five-odd people here today.

With trembling hands, I pop out my earbuds and hear clear as day, “Mercedes Lee Loveletter, I have two large pizzas, parmesan breadsticks, and a pound of boneless chicken wings. With…” He pauses to look at the receipt. “Three dipping sauces.”

Why is he bellowing the delivery receipt out loud? Is that a thing? I don’t think that’s a thing.

He adds, “Claim it now, or it’s going in the trash.”

My inner frugal girl roars to life, and my face turns red fucking hot as I croak, “I’m Mercedes.”

The eighteen-year-old with greasy hair and acne scars looks at me with dead eyes. “I’ve been calling your name for like five minutes.”

Is he seriously scolding me in front of all these people? And OMG…five minutes?

“Well, I didn’t order the pizza,” I defend, shifting uncomfortably and closing my laptop as everyone’s eyes are pinned to mine like I’m about to start a fucking flash mob or something. “Do you know who it’s from?”

“No,” the boy states and moves toward me while pulling out enough food to feed ten people.

“This is a prank.” I laugh nervously and slide my laptop alongside me. His dead eyes meet mine again. “I could never eat all this.”

“I…don’t…care,” he confirms, plops the hot food on my lap, turns on his heel with his pizza bag in hand, and exits the room.

I’m literally sitting with a mountain of hot food on my lap, and everyone is fucking staring at me. No one is smiling. No one is looking like they get the joke. They’re all gawking at me and thinking, what kind of fat loser has pizza delivered to herself while waiting for an oil change?

Awkwardly, I get up with my boxes of food and move over to a high top table that’s out of center stage, but I can feel everyone still watching me. My stomach is roiling with so much humiliation, I’m not even hungry anymore.

I see the receipt stuck to the top of the chicken wings and tear it off for a closer look. At the bottom of the credit card transaction, I find a name I know all too well:

Hannah Martin.

Hannah is the queen of romantic comedy and was the very first author friend I made in the independent publishing community. We both had breakout books around the same time and were so new in the industry, we kind of clung to each other for survival. She lives in Florida with her husband and three kids, but I see her a few times a year at book signings. We talk almost every day about book crap and everything that amuses us. Hannah was the one to push me to keep going back to Tire Depot, so I never saw this coming.

I shakily grab my phone out of my back pocket and type out a text to her.

Me: You fucking whore.

Hannah: What?

Me: You know what. This pizza!

Hannah: I don’t know what you’re talking about.