Elegant Sins (Dark Secret Society 1)

It was my fault. I made him angry. I hit him first; we were hitting each other.

Funny how the guys never came away with bruises or broken bones, though.

“Come on, Grace, don’t be like that. You know how the guys around here are. Jimmy got laid off from the shipping center last month—”

“‘Cause he kept showing up hungover or still drunk,” I interrupted but she ignored me.

“It’s not like there’s any good jobs around here anyway. It’s easier to just drink and forget about it all. Can you really blame them?”

I reached out and took her hand, the dark purples of her bruise looking even more horrendous in the ugly fluorescent lighting of the diner. “Yes. Yes, I can blame them.”

She just shook her head and pulled her hand back. “You really are such a snob. At least Jimmy’s got a steady place to live.”

“Only because his mama lets him live in that apartment free.”

Delilah just shrugged. “It’s better than most guys can offer. I grew up with my five brothers and sisters all crammed into one room of a single wide. So, it seems like I’m stepping up in the world.”

And with that, she grabbed the cloth from me and went over to scrub the tables near Mr. Simmons. He lit up, seeing her coming. I couldn’t stand him, but Delilah knew how to work him for every spare quarter in tips.

The second she passed by his table, his hand snaked out. I turned away before I could see his gnarled old fingers pinch her butt. After all, I wanted to keep down the little bit of eggs I’d managed to shove in my mouth before running out the door this morning.

Soon things picked up with the lunch crowd and Delilah and I were running our tails off to keep up.

It wasn’t until around three in the afternoon before I had another break. I stretched my back. God, it didn’t seem like carrying trays of food around should be that tiring, but when the booths filled up, those trays could get really heavy. Not to mention the constant running back and forth.

People would dock your tip for the smallest perceived lack of service. If they finished their coffee and you didn’t intuit the very second the last drop slipped down their throat so you could be there with the steaming carafe ready for a refill, they’d get pissed and use it as an excuse not to give you a tip at all sometimes. But if you bothered them too often asking if they wanted a refill, they’d complain you were pesky and intrusive.

Guys liked cleavage on display but if they were with their wives or girlfriends, it pissed the women off to catch their guy sneaking a peek down your tight shirt. Some days you just couldn’t win.

I looked at the clock. Just fifteen minutes left on my shift and then I could finally go home. I leaned back against the counter and tipped my head toward the ceiling. Why the hell had I ever invited Kyle to live with me?

At the time, it made financial sense. He had a job back then and we could afford rent on a double-wide if we pooled our paychecks.

Maybe I was just as clueless as Delilah because I thought it was a steppingstone up in the world, too. From single to double-wide. Sure, it was still a house on wheels, but you couldn’t beat the square footage. I was going to set up a home office in the extra bedroom to do my homework.

I was almost through with my business degree.

Well, sort of.

It was a degree I’d designed for myself based on the free online business classes from the best colleges in the country. It was incredible how much information there was out there. They just gave it away. I’d taken business classes from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale. Courses on entrepreneurship, sales analytics, financial markets.

I did every assignment (even though they were never graded by anyone other than me) and read every book (no matter how long I had to wait for them through interlibrary loan). I wrote papers and did class projects, and I tried to get on every free student forum I could to discuss ideas or swap assignments to grade each other’s work.

Not that I’d have a piece of paper at the end of it saying I learned anything or that I was qualified.

But screw that. I knew. I knew I’d already finished enough work for an associate degree in business and was now working toward my MBA.

I was smart and I wasn’t going to be a lowly waitress barely earning minimum wage all my life.

I looked around the grimy diner. One day I’d own a restaurant of my own and I’d run it right. It would be clean. Bright. A place people wanted to come for a respite from their shitty lives. It would be a place people could spend an hour or two and be inspired that better things were possible.