Immortal City (Immortal City 1)

Maddy blinked. “Okay, I’ll bring back an application with your food.”

“I was actually hoping I could apply right now,” Jacks said, a little urgently.

“All right,” Maddy said, a little surprised, “I’ll bring you the application.” Maddy turned to go in the back, oblivious to the officers approaching just outside the window.

“Miss?” Jacks called. Maddy turned. “Isn’t there someplace we could go in the back? So you could interview me? I’d like to get that part out of the way.” His eyes flickered to the door, where the police were just entering, their hands were on their holsters. He looked back at Maddy.

“Please.”

There was something different about him, Maddy thought. Something beyond the obvious good looks. It was in the way his eyes caught the light. The way he looked at her. They way he held her gaze. The funniest thing was, it made her want to trust him.

She was surprised to find herself speaking.

“Okay, follow me.”

Jacks jumped to his feet and followed Maddy around the counter and into the back. He couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize him, but at this point he didn’t care. He wasn’t concerned with anything except getting out of the dining room.

Maddy’s uncle was cleaning the griddle as they passed. Before Kevin could look up, Maddy had taken Jacks into their tiny office and closed the door.

The room was dingy and cramped. A battered metal desk was covered in piles of receipts and bills, an old picture of Maddy and Uncle Kevin in a frame poking up out of the mess. Maddy’s backpack, exploding with textbooks and college brochures, sat on the floor. She smoothed her uniform and found an application among a stack of forms. Jacks took a seat in the creaky chair opposite the desk and pulled his hood back.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Sure.”

Closed in the small room with him, the fact struck Maddy that this boy’s beauty was nearly overwhelming. Who was this guy? It didn’t even seem real. His pale blue eyes were piercing under strong, dark eyebrows, and his model good looks sat on a sturdy face, giving him a slightly rugged quality.

“Okay,” she said, assembling her thoughts and grabbing a pen out of a nearby coffee mug. “I didn’t get your name.”

“It’s Ja . . . Jason.” Jacks looked over to a newspaper sitting on the desk and read the headline: STOCKS SLIDE AGAIN. “Jason Stockton.”

“Okay, Mr. Stockton,” Maddy said, “do you have any prior experience in serving?”

“No,” Jacks said. Maddy looked up at him.

“Any experience in the restaurant industry at all?”

“No.”

Maddy sat back in her chair. “You know, Jason, to get a restaurant job in Angel City it’s pretty much required to have some experience serving.”

Jacks’s lips pulled up into a half-grin. “Well, how are you supposed to get experience if you can’t land a job to begin with?”

Maddy folded her arms and leaned over the table. She was trying not to flirt, but she almost couldn’t help herself.

“Okay, then, why should I hire you?”

Jacks looked for something, anything, that would keep him safely in the back room. His eyes drifted down to Maddy’s backpack and a college brochure sticking out between two textbooks.

“To save money for college,” he said, improvising. Maddy paused, her expression softening. Jacks looked at the image of the leafy campus on the brochure’s cover. “Somewhere back east, actually. Away from Angel City.”

“Really?” Maddy said, her interest piqued.

“Yeah . . .” Jacks said unsteadily. He took a deep breath and lied. “It’s always been my dream. Problem is my family, well, we don’t have a ton of money right now.”

Maddy shook her head in empathy. “I know how that is. Did your dad lose his job or something?”

“Actually, he . . .” Jacks trailed off, searching Maddy’s eyes. He was surprised she had unwittingly brought him back to the truth. “He died.”