Slamming Demon (Pounding Hearts 2)

Fuck, I needed help.

Fuck, I couldn’t do it.

The words blurred on me and I had to close my eyes for a moment.

Slowly opening my eyes, I looked again to the two blue ones and focused on Emily. In my heart though I pretended they were Mandy’s lending me her strength.

“I found a quote from one o

f my Dad’s movies. I would like to read it to you guys now.”

I took my breath in slowly then out. In slowly then out.

”Because we don't know when we will…”

Chapter Twenty

Mandy

Today

Pressing my hands against my eyes, I lean against the counter and breathe deeply. I will not cry, dammit. The tears are aching to come out but I fight them back. I’ve already cried enough tears over him. It’s been five years, I need to get over this.

“Mandy?” a soft voice calls out and I sense the door to the ladies’s bathroom swinging open. “Are you okay? Oh my god, what happened?”

Grace just grabs me and pulls me into a hug before I can squeak out a word of protest. If she didn’t touch me, I might have been able to keep it together. But as soon as my best friend’s arms pull me into a protective hug, the tears break through and I choke back a sob.

“Did someone say something to you? I don’t care what Bob says, some of those guys are real assholes. Customers or not, they deserve to be smacked.”

I shake my head and I just can’t voice what happened just yet. My throat feels tight, all it wants to do is make sad noises and constrict.

Grace’s hand rubs down my back. It’s soothing, but I’ve also seen her comfort her daughter, Hope, this way, and I’m not a little girl. I’m a big girl, at least I should be acting like it.

It takes me a couple of minutes, but as soon as I feel like I can speak I lean back and tell her quietly. “It wasn’t an asshole customer. It was Brett. He showed up with a bunch of guys and I had to serve him.”

Grace’s intake of air is so shrill, so sharp, I swear I hear dogs barking off in the distance. “Brett was here? You had to serve him?”

I bite my lip and nod my head. It was beyond humiliating, but even worse than that it fucking hurt to see him. Not only is he even more handsome than I remember, but it felt like just being in his presence reopened all those old wounds I thought I had stapled together. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to close them again.

I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.

“Oh my god,” Grace gasps, and I don’t know if it’s for me or more for her, but she pulls me into another tight hug. “I’m so sorry, honey. You shouldn’t have had to do that. I should have been here…”

I shake my head and resist the urge to shake her off. I love Grace, I do, and normally, I really need her hugs and sympathy. Besides my dad, she’s the only one who gives a fuck. But right now her good intentions are just making me feel worse. I need to steel myself and I can’t do that if she’s hugging down all my walls.

“Even if you were here, it would have hurt, regardless,” I reassure her.

And it would have.

It might have been a hell of a lot harder if I had to watch Grace serve Brett, spying on him from a distance. This way, I got to enjoy his contempt for me up close and in person.

And, “At least I got a huge tip out of it.”

Grace leans back and blinks at me as if I’m crazy or something. “Seriously?”

I nod my head.

This is how I cope, finding a bright side even if what’s going on is bleak as fuck. Grace knows my methods, and must catch on that it’s what I’m doing.