Stella hated being controlled. She always had. She needed to find her own way and make her own choices.
And often, that had meant making mistakes, and suffering consequences. Consequences that other people had foreseen. She'd made her peace with that a long time ago: if she wanted to be free, she couldn't be safe.
Feeling safe and free was something she'd always figured was impossible.
But...now she was wondering.
It was just silly speculation though, of course. Nate was going to see this whole Todd business through, and then go back to wherever his security agency was based, and Stella would still be here, waitressing and desperately hoping that Eva could go to whatever college she most wanted.
But it was an interesting idea. A strange idea. An idea that filled her with a wistful kind of hope.
***
Nate
Nate was having a weird day.
From the outside, it didn't look weird at all. He was at a protectee's place of work. The fact that it was a diner made everything very convenient: there was no need for stealth on this job, so he could just park himself at a table, drink a cup of coffee, and stay on the alert.
He'd done this exact thing a hundred times. Set himself up where there was danger, wait for an incident, watch a client go about their day. Nothing weird about it.
The weird part was all inside his head.
It was part of his job to mark all of the people who came and went. Nate had all of the diner employees' faces memorized, and was paying attention to when anyone said their names. He'd noticed everyone who came in and out. Normally, he'd pay a little extra attention to the pretty women. If he noticed one who was single, he might think about asking her out later on, when he wasn't on duty. Traveling so much for work meant that he could have plenty of one-night dates with good-looking, intelligent, fascinating women, and that was how he liked it: he met lots of people, learned interesting things about them, indulged in some physical pleasure, and went on his way. It was almost a habit by now.
But that part of his brain just...wasn't engaging today.
He wouldn't have made any moves, not with the client right there. The most he would've done would've been an extra spark in his smile when he made eye contact.
But he didn't even want to.
A couple of the waitresses were pretty. There'd been a very attractive woman in the party of six who'd come in for breakfast. But Nate had felt...nothing. No stirring of interest, no desire to see what they might be doing later on.
And if that wasn't enough, he was having a hard time doing his job because he didn't want to take his eyes off the freaking client.
Keeping an eye on Stella was important, but watching the exits was equally as important, as was keeping track of who was coming and going in the building. Nate was used to that being instinct, no need to think about it or make himself do it.
But he kept having to drag his eyes away from Stella's graceful form as she slid plates onto tables. He kept being distracted by her silvery laugh echoing through the dining area as she joked around with another server. He kept watching as her expression lightened every time she met someone else's eyes, before falling back into a pensive, slightly worried frown when she thought no one was looking.
Stella, Nate was realizing, was good at projecting unconcern. He was beginning to understand why Lynn and Ken hadn't seemed worried about her state of mind, last night. He heard her joking about how in-demand she was when someone asked her about a different man hanging out and keeping an eye on her.
Based on how she’d been with him, he would've bet money that she was too nervous about Todd to joke.
But with the customers, and even with her coworkers, she was behaving as though it was all a silly game. She tossed her hair, rolled her eyes, laughed and laughed. She pantomimed unconcern, or boredom. She danced over to the tables and flirted with the customers.
It was like watching a performance. A very good performance. Nate wondered how much energy it took her to keep it up, and why she thought it was necessary.
He wanted to pull her aside and tell her that it was okay to be upset and worried. That her coworkers would surely understand. That people would want to help, and not—judge her for being afraid, or whatever it was she was worried about.
But, of course, that wasn't his business at all. She wasn't interfering with Nate's job by pretending that she wasn't taking the whole thing seriously. If she'd really thought it was a joke or a game, that would've been a different story...but Nate had seen her last night, had talked to her this morning, and he knew that she was taking it as seriously as a person could.
So he shouldn’t care.
But he did.
It was just weird.
***