Following Me (33 page)

“Belle,” he whispered, not
pulling back but not moving forward.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice
strained.

“We have to work,” he said, like
it pained him.

“Yeah.”  She would wait for him
to make the first move.

“I can’t go out there like this,”
he said, gesturing down.

Devon took the moment to look
down, and when she saw what she did to him, her smile grew.  “Maybe…I should go
first.”

He swallowed.  “Probably.  I’m
going to need time to calm down or else we’re going to need to finish.”

She preferred the second option,
and it must have been clearly written all over her face because he groaned and
pressed his forehead against hers.

“Belle, you can’t look at me like
that.”

“I’ll, uh…just go,” she said,
easing away from him.

Brennan grabbed her one last
time, pulling her in for a slow kiss before releasing her.  “You’re still
coming to my place tonight, right?”

She smiled brightly.  “Yeah,
definitely.”

“Good.”

His eyes
roamed her body as she backed away from him.

DEVON EXITED THE break room and made
sure her clothes were in good enough condition before she went out onto the
floor.  Jenn was right; it was a pretty light crowd.  Amy was having no trouble
with the few people in the restaurant.  Devon just figured it was slow because
it was the weekend after the Fourth of July.  Most people wouldn’t be able to
travel two weekends in a row.  Plus, the traffic from the sailboat race was
concentrated in the morning and the evening.  She would probably get a rush
tonight.

“About fucking time,” Amy
grumbled when Devon walked up.  “Think you could be any later?”

“Probably,” Devon said with a
shrug.

“I mean, was it not enough that
you got yesterday off, too?” Amy snapped.

“Amy, lay off, alright?  I
already got yelled at by Jenn and Brennan for this.”

“From Brennan? Riiight.”  Amy
rolled her eyes.

So, that’s what this is about,
she thought, realizing it was about Brennan.

“Yeah, they were both pretty
pissed,” Devon told her.

“Well, maybe they’ll fire you.”

Devon gripped the menu she was
holding as tightly as she could, so she wouldn’t snap back at Amy. 
Could
she get much bitchier?

“Thanks for the vote of
confidence,” Devon said sarcastically.

Amy just rolled her eyes again
and walked over to one of her tables.  Devon busied herself by rolling
silverware, filling salt and pepper shakers, and wiping down the tables.  At
some point, Brennan returned, and she smiled as she felt his eyes follow her
around the room.  She wondered if he even knew that he did it so frequently.

The day passed with a steady flow
of traffic.  It wasn’t anything that one person couldn’t handle on her own, but
it was nice to have both Amy and Devon on the shift.  The dinner crowd was more
obnoxious than normal, and Devon felt like punching one of the customers.  She
even heard Amy swear at a guy who grabbed her ass.  Jenn’s wasn’t that kind of
place.

Devon was more than irritated
when she found the shitty tips from the rambunctious groups after they had exited
the restaurant.  Amy was fuming across the room, and Devon suspected she had
discovered the same problem with her tables. 
What kind of assholes came in
with a huge party, acted like hellions the whole time they were here, and then
didn’t tip?  Who had raised them to do that?
  Devon wanted to throttle them
and explain to the worthless human beings that just because they had never
worked a day in their life didn’t mean they couldn’t appreciate the hard work
she had done for them.  But, of course, she couldn’t do that either.

“You go ahead and take a break. 
You look like you need it,” Devon told Amy.

She didn’t want to do Amy any
favors, but Amy had been there longer. Plus, it didn’t help Devon any to have
everyone hate her.

“Thanks.  I need a fucking smoke,”
Amy said, pressing her hand to her forehead.  “I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Devon watched Amy’s tables and
kept Brennan busy with drink orders. Leaning forward, he kept offering her
shots of tequila like the first time they had ever really talked.  Devon
declined, but he just kept offering.

“Just one shot,” he whispered,
pushing the drink toward her.

Devon shook her head.  “Not on
the clock.  Give it to Amy.  She will flip her shit.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Oh, don’t play dumb.  That girl
is obsessed with you.”

Devon giggled as Brennan poured
the rest of her drink orders.

“What?  No, she isn’t,” he said.

“Brennan, really?  You are not
oblivious to the world.  You have to know that her and Hannah are so into you.”

“Huh,” he said, his eyes going
deep into thought.  “That explains a whole hell of a lot.”

Devon rolled her eyes.  “How did
you not see that?”

“Only have eyes for you, Belle.”
He smirked, placing a drink on her tray.

Her stomach flipped as she picked
up the tray.  She made a round of her and Amy’s tables.  Amy returned ten
minutes past her allotted fifteen minutes with the smell of smoke announcing
her presence.  She didn’t apologize for her tardiness, and Devon suspected it
was because she had been late earlier.

“Your turn,” Amy said with a
shrug.

“Thanks,” Devon said.

Devon walked past Brennan into
the back and took a seat on the bench.  She sighed and stretched out her aching
legs, lying back on the bench.  She yawned and let her mind wander back to this
morning when she had awoken in just a tangle of limbs.  Being with Brennan was
the only thing that had allowed her to forget her old life.  She had tried to
push back the memories, but they haunted her no matter how hard she had tried. 
When Brennan had walked into her life, all of that changed.

When she heard the door creak
open, she shifted up to her elbows to see Brennan walking in.

“Hey,” he said with a charming
smile.

“Hey.”

“Came in here to check on you. 
It was a bit of a madhouse out there for a while.”

He walked over and sat on the end
of the bench.  She scooted down and rested her head on his thigh.

“It was.  I’m ready to go home,”
she said with a yawn.  “Someone kept me up late last night.”

“Not late enough,” he said,
running his hands through her hair.

Devon chuckled and closed her
eyes as he worked his magic at untangling the knots.  He calmed her down, and
she could have lain there all night.  Everything was so natural and easy with
Brennan.

She exhaled softly.  “Can I ask
you something?”

“What is it?”  His hand pulled
back through her loose strands.

“I’ve been wondering about this
since you told me, but I don’t want it to sound weird,” she said, her hands
fiddling with the buttons on her white shirt.

“Nothing is weird between us,” he
said.

“I just…well…your dad left you
with money, right?”  She felt weird for asking.

Brennan tensed and stilled his
hand.  “Uh, yeah.”

“Then, um…why do you live in a
small one bedroom, take the L, and work as a bartender?” she asked, her words
coming out in a rush.

She didn’t want to sound snooty
because that wasn’t her intention.  But if his dad had worked at Northwestern
Memorial for thirty years as a doctor, then he was likely well-off. 
Why
wouldn’t Brennan use any of that money?

“Oh,” was all he said.

“I don’t mean to sound like I
like you any less because of it.  I don’t!  I don’t care about those things.  I
like those things,” she added hastily.  “I was mostly curious.”

“Well, truth is…I don’t like
money,” he said with a stilted laugh.

“You don’t like…money,” she
repeated.

“I don’t know.  I do.  I just…it
was
his
money.  Everything I buy with it reminds me that he’s gone.”

Devon sat up, so she could look
at him.  The pain was clear on his face, and she was sorry that she had brought
it up.  She took his hand and held it in her own.

“I don’t mind the things he
owned, like the boat.  Those are happy memories, but the house…”  He
shuddered.  “I couldn’t live in that house.”

“He left you a house?”  She
wasn’t sure why she even asked, but she didn’t know what else to say.

The more he talked, the more she
wondered why she had asked at all.  He sounded so sad.

“Yeah.  I didn’t know what to do
with it, so I just left it as is.  It’s probably dusty.  Sometimes, I go over
there to mow the lawn the way he liked it, but that’s as far as I can get,” he
said.  “I bought the apartment after that.  I try to keep it all low-key and
live the way I used to live before it happened.”

“That has to be hard,” she said,
her thumb drawing circles on his hand.

“I’ve survived.”

“Glad I can be here…so you’re not
just surviving anymore.”  She pulled him in for a hug.

“With you, I’m living,” he
whispered, kissing her head.

She leaned her head back and
kissed him on the lips.  “Me, too.”

“And just so you know, I try so
hard on those medical exams,” he said with a sigh.  “He always wanted me to be
a doctor, just like him.  Follow in his footsteps.”

“But is that what
you
want?” she asked, knowing that it wasn’t.

After listening to his music just
one time, she knew that being a doctor wasn’t what he wanted. 
How could it
be when art called to his soul?

“I’m perfectly content working as
a bartender and playing music for the rest of my life…but you can’t retire on
that.”

“No.”

“I just don’t have the heart for
it.  I got my scores back,” he said.

“How did you do?” Devon asked,
her heart jumping out of her chest. 
Was it that time already?  Were the
scores already reported?

He shrugged.  “Good enough to go
wherever I want.”

“Oh wow,” she said with a smile. 
“Where have you applied?”

“That’s the problem…nowhere.  I
haven’t applied anywhere.  I don’t know if I can be him…and I hate that about
myself,” he told her.

They sat there in silence for a
bit.  Devon knew something of parental approval.  She and her mother had never
seen eye to eye on what Devon should do with her life.

Devon reached out and took his
hand in her own.  “You know, my mama always wanted me to be a country music
singer.”

“Yeah?  Is that because your
parents work in the industry?”

She was surprised he remembered
that about her.

“Yeah. They’re lyricists.”

“Like you,” he said with a smile.

“Ugh…no way.  Not like me.  My
stuff sucks, and I’m never letting people hear it.”

“I doubt that, Dev.”

“Anyway,” she said, not wanting
to touch on that conversation right now, “I never wanted that for myself.  I
never saw myself as the country music artist my mother wanted me to be, no
matter how hard she tried, and she tried hard.  But my mother also wants me to
be happy, and she only pushed me as far as she could without upsetting me.  She
wants a country music star, but she’s okay with me being the person I am. 
And…I think your dad would want that, too.”

Brennan leaned forward and kissed
her.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said
shyly.  She felt weird being the one giving out advice for once.

“Come on.  Amy will probably be
looking for us any minute,” Brennan said, standing.

“You’re probably right.”

They walked out of the break room
and into the kitchen just as Amy walked through the swinging door.

“Where have you guys been?  I
need your help!”  She glared at Devon like she might stab her.

Devon wouldn’t put it past her.

“Sorry.” Brennan swept past Amy
and headed to the bar.

Devon sighed heavily.  She hated
when the moments with Brennan were broken.  It was like she was in a dream, but
unlike her nightmares, it was the best place she had ever been.  It was nothing
like her past life.

She walked out onto the floor and
took orders at the two tables she had acquired.  She rushed them back to the
kitchen and refilled drinks for another table.  Brennan handed her a full tray,
and she quickly deposited the contents around the room.

“Here you go,” she said with a
big smile, giving out the last drink to her customer.

Devon turned around toward the
entrance to greet an incoming customer, and her tray slipped out of her hand,
clattering to the ground.

“Reid?”