BECCA
IT’S BEEN THREE MONTHS, and everyone still believes the lie I’ve been feeding them. They believe I am her, the other Becca. The persona of myself I pull out and plaster on for others because she is someone the general populace can approve of. Looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I see her, even feel her blanketing my skin like a cheap costume on Halloween, but my eyes give me away.
They’re clouded panic mixed with the illusion of control, like driving at night without your headlights on.
The restaurant entrance bell dings, pulling my reflection of a girl I’ll never be from the mirror. I still have fifteen minutes left on my shift ⸺uniform on or not⸺ which means there’s still a show to perform. A façade for the audience to be fooled with.
I stuff my jeans and Three Amigo’s uniform shirt into my backpack, take one last look at my reflection, at the cuffed shorts my thighs barely fit in to and the form fitting V neck, and walk out the door.
You don’t need the uniform to hide in plain sight. Just smile. Pretendyou’reoneofthem.
“Much easier said than done,” I mutter to myself as I walk out of the bathroom, round the corner, and enter into the reception area of the dining room. My eyes follow the oil paintings lining the cream walls till they find what I’m looking for.
Dereck’s sitting at the large family table in the center of the room. He hasn’t noticed me yet, and a part of me hopes he won’t. He brings too much out of me. I’m feeling everything I know I shouldn’t. A swell in my chest. A quickening of my pulse. A warmth to my face, and the ever annoying tug of my mouth to want to smile from ear to ear like some dopey lovesick sack. Darn him.
All I want to feel is nothing.
When I step up to the waitress station, our eyes connect and I try not to react as he nods at me. Rather, I slide my order pad into my back pocket and approach him with caution with a neutral face.
“Amanda isn’t going to be happy about you sitting in my section, and not hers. Again.”
Dereck looks over my shoulder at his sister who’s cleaning up one of her larger tables. He runs a hand through his short honey hair till he reaches the back of his neck and rubs at the muscles there.
I never thought mechanics were sexy. In my head, I used to picture a middle-aged, beer-gutted, balding man with gambling debt. Now, I picture Dereck Pemberley. With his tanned skin from summers spent working shirtless under this blazing Tennessee sun and teeth Colgate could use for an ad campaign, he paints a much better picture. Especially if you add in the tattoos he keeps hidden from view beneath the sleeves of his black work shirt. They’re some kind of wings that accentuate his defined muscles, and ⸺if his arms are any indication⸺ hint at a different kind of six pack to get drunk on underneath the buttons of his uniform.
A hand waves in front of my face. Dereck looks at me with raised brows and a knowing smirk till my cheeks burn.
“What?” I ask, hoping he won’t call me out.
“I said she knows I can’t resist pestering you, BG.”
A dimple digs into his left cheek.
“Lucky me.” I bite the inside of my cheek to hold my lips in place, refusing to smile along with him. He’s getting too close to seeing behind my persona ⸺again⸺ and we haven’t been talking more than a minute. I whip out my order pad from my back pocket. “Your usual?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. I’m waiting on my friends and my parents to show before I order anything.”
“Oh.” I look to the entrance door like all of them are about to walk through it any minute. “That’s why you’re not sitting in your regular spot.”
And why he wasn’t here at lunchtime when he normally comes.
“So, you don’t need anything?” I ask while my thoughts try to find something to keep me here a few minutes longer.
“Just conversation,” he says with that smile of his. The one that fills his face in every sense of the term, and makes my tummy turn to mush.
His eyes are watchful. I can feel them taking me in just as I had been taking him in. They travel the length of my body more than once, and because I’m asking for problems, I don’t walk away.
You’llneverdoanythingaboutit.
That’s true, but it’s safe and, for the most part, innocent.
“Did you finish your new book?” He asks.
Darn him. A smirk pulls one side of my mouth. With effort, I fight it off and give him my other Becca smile.
“I did. This morning after I finished mopping.” I try not to bring books to work, but Randy and his crew were still hanging around this morning when I woke up. They never let me have the peace to read, and Charro doesn’t mind as long as I get my work done first and don’t interrupt his morning telenovelas.
“How many stars did this one get?”
“Four.” My cheeks heat. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re teasing me,” I say with the hint of a smile. It’s only fair. He caught me writing in my journal the first week I started here and has used it more than once to keep me standing around to talk with him.
He shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re fun to tease.”
My stomach bears the weight of a boulder. Reminding myself to breath, I say, “Tease all you want, my book list is vital.”
Dereck leans forward, resting his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together. The images on his upper arms come more into view. I try not to look, so my eyes go to the shamrock logo on the left side of his chest.
“I’d dare say the only vital list is a bucket list,” he says. A challenge in his tone.
“I’ll have to take your word on that one.”
His eyebrows rise till his forehead crinkles. “You don’t have one?”
No. A bucket list would mean I would have time in my life for small adventures. Time and money. The two things I don’t have the liberty to spare. I can worry about something as trivial as a bucket list when I have full custody of Nathan.
“I’m calling your bluff.” My face burns from being so forward with him, but it’s Dereck. It didn’t take long to realize I’m safe with him. “I guarantee at your dad’s shop there is a list of all the vehicles that you need to work on, and what’s wrong with them. Am I right?”
He nods, a lazy smile plastered on his face.
“Seems like a vital list to me.” I quirk my mouth and arch a brow at him, daring him to fuss with me.
“You got me,” he admits. “But I’m still going to argue that a bucket list means more to a person than the Shamrock’s daily docket.”
“Oh? And what is on your bucket list?”
His eyes travel me again, my stomach flipping as he does this. Dereck’s tongue slips from between his lips, wetting them.
“I haven’t written one myself, but a few things are sure to go on there.” He meets my gaze. “You look great out of uniform, by the way.”
Breathe.
I forgot how.
“I see how it is,” Amanda says as she walks up beside me. “Becca gets changed to go hang with her friend, and you lose all sense of family loyalty.”
“I sat at a table,” Dereck chuckles as he leans back in his seat and creates some space between the two of us, “not really a crime.”
“Mm,” Amanda crosses her arms. “And your line of sight dipping to her legs every few seconds didn’t have anything to do with your choice of seat? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Dereck opens his mouth to answer.
“I’m going to go clean a few things up before I go,” I rush out blazing a trail to the kitchen. My heart thudding loud enough to hide Dereck’s response from my ever curious ears.
It’s been too long since the last time I let myself get involved with a guy. My body is reacting from the years of neglect. It, and Dereck, are confusing lust with like, that’s all. In all reality if he knew me ⸺the real me⸺ he wouldn’t look my way twice.
Yetyouwaitforhimtoaskyououteverysingleday.
And every single day, he doesn’t.
You’retheonewhotoldhimyouweren’tdatingrightnow.
That’s because I’m not dating right now. The last guy I let myself get involved with left as soon as he found out the truth, and I refuse to believe anyone else wouldn’t do the same. The girl they might see when they look at me ⸺the other Becca⸺ might be appealing, but she is still me. She still has one too many secrets for a guy like Dereck to want to get involved with.
“Right,” I mutter as I pull out my phone and check it.
Randy: PaRty at youR place tonight.
Randy: I’ll see u when u get heRe.
Ugh. We literally just had a conversation this morning about respecting my boundaries a little more. About not throwing parties at my place without checking with me first, or at the very least, keeping it small so I’m able to go to bed at a decent hour.
Yousaythatlikehecares.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Randy only cares about Randy. But it doesn’t mean I have to like him or the way he’s forged me into his life like he does with everyone else.
I send him a text letting him know it’s fine. It’s not, but I say what he wants to hear anyway, because it’s really all I can do. He holds all the cards in my craptastic situation.
Besides, I planned to show Stephanie around town and taking her out to eat anyway. I won’t be home till the street lights are on, so him and my mother can do as they please.
As I’m wiping down the service station, another text comes in.
Randy: Since you ain’t gonna be heRe tonight, I’ll have the Real paRty on SatuRday. That way you can hang too.
Awesome. Now, not only do I have to ask Stephanie to change our plans around tonight to avoid Randy and my mother, but I will also have to waste yet another Saturday night hanging out with them. They’ll invite more people than my trailer can hold, and all of them will leave a mess that will take me days to clean. Oh, and not to mention all the illegal…
“Dereck has got it bad for you,” Amanda snickers as she walks into the kitchen to dump the empty plates into the bin and wash her hands.
It takes me longer than I care to admit to fight back down the smile creeping onto my face. Amanda doesn’t miss the slight curl that managed to slip out, and is grinning much like her brother does, even with their vastly different skin tones.
It must be a Pemberley thing.
Instead of saying anything to start yet another conversation on why I won’t give her brother a chance, I sidestep her and make my way over to the tea dispenser.
“I totally forgot your brother’s tea. Excuse me.”
I fill a glass to the brim with ice before filling it with sweet tea, just like he likes it, and bring it to him. Dereck sets his phone down and grabs the glass, thanking me as he does so.
Though it’s hard to concentrate on what he’s saying since his fingers are covering mine, scratching my skin with his callouses.
An image of his hands running up my legs, the callouses tickling the sensitive parts of my thighs, flits across my mind.
“What are you thinking about, BG?” Dereck asks, half of his mouth lifting into a grin.
The nickname makes me blush further. He has called me that since the first day we’ve met, and no matter how many times I ask, he refuses to tell me what it stands for. Or give me hints. The only thing he has done is tell me no over and over again as I made wrong guess after wrong guess.
“I’m thinking I need to go grab my stuff,” I say while trying not to notice the melancholy dripping with my every word, nor the disappointment I feel at having to leave before him. “My shift is over.”
Dereck frowns. “I thought you worked all day on Thursdays?”
“Usually, but my friend got an afternoon off and wanted to hang out.” I’m smiling again when realization hits. “You know my schedule?”
“I told you I like pestering you.” He smiles from ear to ear. Colgate eat your heart out.
It’s hard to walk away when he looks at me like that, like I’m someone who matters to him.
Hedoesn’tevenknowyou.
No, and that might be the best part of this whole situation.
“I guess I’ll see you next time?” I offer, mentally crossing my fingers.
His smile falters. “You really got to go?”
I nod.
He rubs the back of his neck, working down to a muscle on his left shoulder. “Well, before you go, can I see your order pad?”
My face scrunches up, and though I should say no since Charro is a freak about his order pads, I find myself already sliding it out of my pocket.
“Why?”
Dereck doesn’t immediately answer me. Instead, he whips out a pen from his jeans and starts writing on it.
“Charro is going to get mad at me if…”
“Don’t worry,” he says as he looks up at me with a grin, sliding the pad in my direction, “I told him what I was doing and to add the cost of the pad to my bill later.”
Curious, I look down at the pad. The date has been filled in, but where you’re supposed to put the customer’s order is my name with a line scrawled underneath it, but nothing beneath it to indicate what it’s meant for.
“And what is it you’re doing?”
Dereck sits back, holding the pen out to me. “I want you to write one thing you’d put on your bucket list.”
“Are you serious?” I say with a touch of a laugh. “I mean, I get you enjoy laughing at my love of lists, but this seems silly.”
“Why?”
“Because…”
My words fall short. This is the problem with opening yourself up to someone, even to the smallest degree. One question leads to two. Then three, and before you know it, all the things you knew needed to be locked away are out in the open. All the ugly things we try to hide and mask with polite conversation and brief interactions.
“Wow.” Dereck pulls me from my thoughts with one small chuckling noise from the back of his throat. “BG, you really have a way with words.”
Rolling my eyes, because of course I can’t really say no to him, not when he’s grinning at me like that, I come up with the best answer I can.
“Because I have too much to worry about right now to do anything that I’d want to put on my bucket list.”
“Hm.” Dereck runs a hand across the stubble peppering his face. It’s the longest it’s been in weeks and has me wondering if he’s trying to grow a beard. “Well, would you mind writing just one, to humor me?”
Don’tdoit.
Leaning down, I pinch my mouth together and write the one thing I’ve been wanting to do since Nathan was born and I realized how much life I had yet to experience.
“Go past the state line?” Dereck asks as he reads it aloud. “Becca, you’ve never been out of Tennessee?”
My traitor of a face heats. “Not once,” I admit. “I almost did my senior year of high school but… things came up.”
Dereck nods, plucking the slip from the pad and tucking it away in his pocket. He looks at me in earnest and…
Amanda taps my shoulder.
“I think your friend is here.”
Looking out the window, I see Amanda is right. Stephanie’s hopping out of her car, smoothing the fabric on her yellow sundress, and walking towards the entrance.
“Oh,” I look back to Dereck, “I guess I got to get going.”
Dereck nods. “You work on Saturday though, right?”
“Right.” I answer on a squeak. “Till four.”
“I’ll be here,” he says. His eyes on my flushed cheeks. “Maybe we can finish this conversation?”
I give him a small smile and nod before heading to the back to clock out. It takes all of two seconds, as does gathering my backpack.
Stephanie gives me a hug and kiss as soon as I make it out the door.
“I missed your face,” she says as she squeezes me around my middle. “Let’s both agree seven days is entirely too long to go without seeing one another.”
“Agreed,” I chuckle.
She pulls back and places a kiss on my cheek once more, pointing to the restaurant door. “Charro won’t give me flack if I sneak in and use the ladies, will he?”
I shake my head.
“Good,” she waves to her car, “I left the keys in it and such if you don’t want to go with me and chat me up while I pee.”
I giggle and crinkle my nose at her. “Pass, I’ll wait out here where pee-free conversations take place.”
Stephanie pokes me in the side before opening the door, the entrance bell jingling, and making her way to the bathroom. She always double checks her makeup when she goes to the bathroom, so I may as well…
“Becca, wait.”
I turn to find Dereck walking out of the restaurant, headed my way.
We’ve never had a conversation without a table between us, let alone outside the confines of Three Amigos. Granted we are only on the sidewalk just outside the restaurant doors, but still.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
He nods, looking out at the parking lot. “Your friend went to the bathroom, so I figured I might have enough time to…” Dereck sucks in a breath, his hand rubbing at his right side. “Well, the thing is, today’s got me feeling more ballsy than I’d normally be and…well...I wanted to…”
Stephanie walks back out the door. “I totally forgot my makeup bag and my freaking freckles keep popping through…” She looks from me to Dereck, a knowing smile filling her face. “Who’s this?”
“Oh, um.” My mouth tries to form the introduction, but with Dereck smiling at me, and Stephanie smirking because I know she knows who this is because I’ve talked about him so much, my voice falls silent.
“Hi, Um.” Stephanie sticks out her hand. “I’m Stephanie. The best friend.”
Dereck returns the shake of her hand, his eyes never leaving mine. “It’s actually Dereck, Dereck Pemberley.”
“Oh, I know.” Stephanie shoots me another one of those grins that tell me she’s going to make trouble. “This one here…”
“I’m sorry, was there something you wanted to ask me?” I lurch out.
Smooth.
Aren’t I always?
“There was,” he admits, shuffling one of his booted feet. When he looks down at me, I have to fight the urge to look away, and just let him witness my face heating.
I knew Dereck was tall, but standing this close to him, I realize I’ve miscalculated his length. I come to the plains of his chest, having to crane my neck to look up at him.
It also occurs to me I’ve gotten his eye color wrong. From our normal distance, I thought his eyes were always a cloudless, sky blue. I’ve never been close enough to see the lines of color in the blue, nor the second tone surrounding his pupils. They’re like different depths of the ocean being seen all at once, lapping into a sun-hued hazel, his pupil creating an eclipse. It’s mesmerizing and causing things to stir in my chest that I don’t really want to be feeling.
“There was, well has been, something I wanted to ask you, and I keep putting it off, but today has me feeling gutsy.” He slides his hands in his front pockets as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. “Would you want to go out sometime?”
My teeth sink into my inner cheek, trying desperately to avoid showing how I feel. I’ve been considering this possibility for weeks. My want to be with him isn’t the problem. Okay, it is the problem. Dereck doesn’t know me, or how hectic I really am. He’d walk after the first glimpse into my life.
Well, he’d walk, or Randy and my mother would make him walk. They would never approve of someone like him.
“Dereck…”
“You know,” Stephanie cuts in, “you’re way more handsome than Becca led me to believe.” She cuts me a look, all but telling me to stop denying myself something I’ve been wanting since the first time he called me by that silly nickname.
“Really?” Dereck’s smile turns full force, spreading out across the entirety of his face. “So, BG here talks about me to the best friend, does she?”
“For sure, almost every phone call.”
“And what does she say?”
By some miracle, all conversation gets brought to an immediate end when a heavy truck comes pulling into the parking lot blaring some Taylor Swift song.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dereck says. He holds up a middle finger to the driver as they pull up right in front of us, parking beside Steph.
Tyler sticks his head out, singing off-key to the top of his lungs. He pops the driver side door open and makes his way to Dereck with dance moves that are more for a bedroom than a restaurant parking lot.
“You feeling twenty-two yet?” He shouts over the music.
Dereck ignores him, looking past Tyler’s shoulder, to the girl sitting in the passenger seat.
“Court, will you turn that shit off?”
The girl turns it off and climbs across the bucket seat to get out of the open door. She’s gorgeous in a celebrity kind of way. Like some tanned secret love child of Sandra Bullock and Megan Fox with raven hair and sharp features.
She walks over and, without pause, plants a large kiss to Dereck’s cheek. She then faces me, eyeing me like she’s seen me before though I know we haven’t met. She’s the kind of girl you remember.
“You must be the famous Becca.”
“Famous?” I ask.
Tyler answers, tossing an arm over the girl’s shoulder. “As if you don’t know the birthday boy is obsessed with you,” he chuckles. “How are you this fine day, Becca?”
I bite back a sharp laugh.
It seems like I’m not the only one out of uniform today. I’ll admit, the button down and khakis make for a decent optical illusion. The outfit makes Tyler look like someone I can be friends with, but his career makes that impossible. The second he figures out who I am, who my mother is, or finds out about the crowd that barges into my home most nights, he’ll ruin the image of normal I have made for myself here.
“I’ve got nothing to complain about, Officer Howser.”
“You know I feel the same way,” Tyler chuckles. “I get to give Dereck here hell all day.”
“Just wait till your birthday,” Dereck warns. “I’m going to make you regret ever playing that stupid ass song.”
“Is it really your birthday?” My face melts as Dereck turns to look at me, along with everyone else. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Do you know all your customers birthdays?” He counters.
“That’s not the same. You’re different.” My eyes widen with the slip up. When Dereck’s smile deepens at my omission, I try to fix my mistake. “I mean, you’re Amanda’s brother. And you…me…we’re…”
“I’m listening,” he says with a grin.
“We’re friends. Right?”
It sounds good. A friendship is safe.
Everyone, me more than anyone, waits for his answer.
His eyes soften to some sort of caring I’m not comfortable with. “We’re definitely friends.” He takes a hand out of his pocket to rub at his left shoulder. “And since we’re friends, that should mean we get to hang out outside of the restaurant, right?”
No. Absolutely not.
“I’m not dating right now, remember?” And though the words leave my lips, even I can admit to hearing how half-hearted they are.
“I remember, but I’m asking anyway, hoping you’ll let me be an exception.” Another one of those face-filling smiles I loathe and like all as the same time, fills his face.
“It seems like you already have plans.” I nod towards Officer Howser and his girlfriend.
“He’s free Saturday,” Tyler interjects.
“I work Saturday.”
“Till four,” Dereck concurs. “But we could hang out after.” He takes a step closer, close enough for me to smell something mingling with the autobody scent I’ve come to enjoy. Something sweet, like the first bite of an apple. “Look, I know you’re not dating, and if you don’t want to call it a date, that’s fine. With my birthday and everything, everyone kept asking me what I wanted, and the only thing I could think of was,” his face fills with that wonderous smile of his, “spending time with you.”
My face warms in a way I don’t mind as I look at the caring in his eyes. He means every word of it, and though it should terrify me, all it seems to be doing is weakening my resolve. He’s the kind of guy that, if I didn’t have Nathan to fight for or Randy and my mother to tend with, I’d want to see myself with.
“You’re making it really hard to want to say no,” I mutter.
“Then, don’t say no,” he chuckles. “All I’m asking for is one date. No strings attached. Just let me feed you and entertain you for one Saturday afternoon.”
Ifyou do thison Saturday, Randyisn’tgoingtobehappy about it.
“Just one Saturday?” I ask.
Dereck nods, that Colgate smile making me blush further.
“Is that a yes?”
For the first time, I offer Dereck up an honest smile. “It’s a yes.”
He lets out a breath, his darn face lighting up. Dereck must really be fooled by the other Becca if he is this excited about going out
with me.
You’rejustasexcitedtobegoingoutwithhim. That’s different.
“Do you have a way I can call you? Maybe get your address?” My address?
Hecan’tseewhereyoulive.
“She’ll find you on Facebook,” Stephanie says for me. She shoots me a calm gaze, one with a silent “we will talk about this in the car, and I’m going to convince you not to freak out” look about it.
“Sounds great,” Dereck beams, completely unaware of how much I am about to disappoint him. “I’ll be on the lookout for you, BG.”
