Run

Chapter Three

The diner was about half full. Most of the patrons had their food, which was good for Charlie. The cook - you couldn't call him a chef, not in a place like this - needed the break. His line cook was out, again, and the dishwasher had been conscripted into making salads and other easy shit. Unfortunately, he'd only succeeded in screwing up the orders and was sent back to the dishwasher.

Charlie took his break leaning against one of the long metal counters, curly hair sticking to his head from the sultry heat. He'd waylaid me with the same question he asked every day. A drink, a meal, a movie, hell, a walk. Anything, anything at all, just to put his poor misbegotten heart at ease. And he did it all in such an over the top fashion I knew he was joking. The ring he carefully placed on his left ring finger when his shift was over cemented it. I took the teasing and horded it. It fueled the spark and made it last a little longer, and I had hope that someday it would catch and burn the forest.

"Kenny, babydoll, you're breakin' my heart here." His eyes rounded and his mouth drooped at the corners.

I snorted. "Dude. The puppy dog eyes don't work on me. I thought we'd been over this." I grabbed the salad sitting in the order window.

"Works on everyone else." He grinned.

"If by everyone else, you mean your wife, good for you. Because, you know, it should. Would kind of suck otherwise." I carried the salad out to table five and set it down, flashing a smile at the woman who'd ordered it. "Let me know if you need anything else."

I checked on my other tables, refilled water glasses, retrieved another fork for a young mother who'd lost hers when her son decided it would be better on the floor. It was normal. It was spectacular. I felt better than I had in days. Weeks, maybe. I could box up the negativity roiling inside and chain it, lock it down. Keep it from escaping.

The diner helped some. It reminded me of the old cafe in Salem I'd worked at all through college, with its faded Formica tabletops and scuffed linoleum. I felt more comfortable in this worn place than I had in the last bar I'd picked up some shifts in. Gwen, the owner, hadn't blinked at my hair or the tattoos she could see.

I wasn't about to delude myself, though. My mystery lover from the night before was the reason. The knot between my shoulders that no amount of yoga could get rid of was gone. I'd eaten a full breakfast this morning, and lunch, too. Dinner was hours away, and already my stomach was looking forward to it. Sex healed. I just hoped the magical properties would last long enough for me to find a safer, healthier way to heal.

Heal in a way that therapy and medication couldn't.

Gwen stuck her head out of the kitchen. "Kenna? My office when you have a minute."

I dropped off the check for a man holding his hand up like he was in a classroom and made my way through the kitchen to Gwen's miniscule office. "What's up?"

She waved a hand at the door. "Close that and have a seat."

I shut the door and sat in one of the half-wrecked chairs in front of her desk. She pushed a piece of paper across the desk at me. "There was a problem with your Social Security number."

A shock of cold shot through my chest and formed a lump in my stomach. "Oh?" The paper was my I-9 form. I'd used my passport for my employment papers. I'd managed to alter the birthdate so I could still use it. I'd faked the social, coming up with a random nine digit number. The diner, and Gwen, had looked like the kind of place that wouldn't look too closely at something like that. I'd been wrong.

"It came back belonging to a fifty-four year old housewife in Detroit." Not so random, then. Not so random at all. "You don't look like a middle aged housewife."