A Smile as Sweet as Poison (7 page)

“So I know this is presumptuous and out of the blue,” she started. Dylan’s back was turned while he puttered around with bacon and eggs. He was already dressed, back from his morning run before Hazel had even rolled out of bed.

At least Ward was just as much of a couch potato. He had yet to finish shaving.

“What’s that?”

Hazel bit into her toast and, mouth full, asked, “Could I have a key? I was thinking of swinging back in the afternoon, maybe fixing you guys up with some real dinner…” The excuse hardly stood up to scrutiny, but it was the best Hazel could do on short notice.

Dylan’s white-clad back didn’t give much away. His placid expression was no better help once he shut off the induction cooker and sauntered over to the kitchen island with their breakfast. “You wait on people every day. You don’t have to do that with us.”

“I know—”

“We could go out,” Dylan went on, a cheery note in his voice. “I know a great Italian place close by.”

“Black tie?” Hazel waved a hand, both to dispel her arch tone and dismiss the memory she’d conjured. It was Ward who had picked the restaurant the first and last time they all went out together. It wasn’t fair to hold Dylan responsible for that fractious experience. “Anyway, I can’t. I’ve got the graveyard shift tonight. You and Ward’ll be alone for dinner.”

“Oh.” Dylan’s face fell as he finished serving the eggs.

One of her yolks punctured, flooding the wedge of toast.

“I’ll get you a key, then.”

“I mean, you don’t have to,” Hazel temporized.

“It’s a good idea.”

Her heart did a backflip despite Hazel’s best efforts to keep her expectations low and her feet on the hard, cold ground. “You think so?”

Dylan met her eyes. “Yeah. I do.” He reached around their plates to cover her hand with his. “You know we like having you here, right?”

“Sure.”

“And it’s not just for the hot sex.”

Hazel grinned. “Speak for yourself.”

“I know Ward feels the same way,” Dylan insisted, his expression strangely serious, as though he was willing her to understand something important.

In a heartbeat, Hazel went from anticipation to a sudden curl of dread. She extricated her hand under the pretext of attacking her eggs with fork and knife. “This looks good.” Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Dylan frown, a blink and miss it kind of slip up.

“I doubt they’re as good as Marco’s,” he demurred.

“Modesty doesn’t become you,” Hazel teased. “Suit and tie, though…” She gazed at him suggestively. “That’s giving me all sorts of ideas.”

“Keep ‘em in mind for tonight—or whenever,” Dylan amended quickly.

He was good about tolerating her erratic schedule, but not for the first time, Hazel wondered how much of that was genuine and how much was simply politeness. She flashed him a smile. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

Dylan took a sip of coffee and said, “We’ll make it special.”

“Oh? What do you have in mind?”

This was new—flirting over breakfast, teasing each other without consequence. The collar was tucked away in the dresser drawer with the rest of her things and Hazel was once again her own person, forced to navigate between gentle barbs and meaningless innuendo with no crutch and nothing to corral her hang-ups.

The precarious balancing act only lasted another twenty minutes, before Dylan checked his watch and announced he had to go. He pecked her on the cheek before donning his pinstripe suit jacket and checking his hair in the hallway mirror.

“Go away, heartbreaker,” Ward groaned, unusually morose.

“Look who’s talking,” Hazel giggled.

In his gray suit and black shirt, Ward looked like one of those TV executives—actors too young and too handsome to ever warrant the position in real life. Like them, he had decided to forgo a tie. “Onward to the slaughter,” he intoned, faintly baleful, and pocketed his wallet and sleek, last-generation cell.

He was almost out of the door when he turned back to kiss Hazel and pinch her ass. She swatted his.

Ward’s laughter faded down the stairwell with the sound of his footsteps. Dylan was waiting at the bottom. Hazel heard them exchange words, their voices faint and faraway. Then they were gone, the heavy glass door at the foot of the building swinging shut with a dull clang.

Hazel was left alone, an absurd imitation homemaker to their distinct versions of Don Draper.

The spare key rested, heavy and cool, in her palm.
It would’ve happened anyway, in its own time.
She hadn’t forced Dylan’s hand. He wouldn’t have let her.

With a deep breath, Hazel dragged the steel door shut and locked it. Her first stop was the bedroom and the laptop she’d concealed under the bed.

* * * *

“We’re thinking Hawaii or Aruba for the honeymoon,” Sadie gushed over the counter as she refilled a regular’s mug. “Frank’s not big on sun and sand, but he loves me, so…” She cocked a hip, posing smugly.

Hazel ducked away before she could be roped into the conversation. The diner was three-quarters empty, normal for this time of the afternoon. As long as she kept her feet moving and her mind on the job, she didn’t have to think about Ward and Dylan coming home in a few hours. Would they like the lasagna she’d made this morning or trash it and order in again?

With a bright smile and a delivery of conch fritters and onion rings, she chased away the small insecurities that had crept in since the morning hours.

“Working hard for those extra tips, huh?” Travis murmured as he passed her in the aisle between the rows of red vinyl booths.

Hazel thinned her lips. “Thought you had the evening off.” The switch was the only reason she had taken the graveyard shift.

He turned, beaming. “Good memory. Don’t worry, I’ll be off when it quiets down.”

She couldn’t resist darting a look around. Between the knitting circle and the community college students chugging down Red Bulls, the diner was pretty dead. A graveyard would’ve been more animated. “Watch out you don’t miss your chance. You know what Marco’s like.” Unpredictable, volatile, quick to berate what he saw as a cardinal offense against the ideals of the service industry—a regular manager, in other words.

Travis hummed meditatively. He waited until she’d finished refilling cups in her section before falling into step. “Sounds like you don’t enjoy working here.” A jerk of the chin indicated the tight press of Formica tables under flickering lights, the laminated menus peeling at the corners. The speakers duct-taped to the ceiling because Marco placed the virtues of DIY above health and safety hazards.

“When did I say that?”

“I read between the lines,” Travis announced with an unapologetic grin. He had a wide mouth, his cheeks unshaven.

Hazel tried to picture him in camo on an arid plain somewhere. “Can’t say I dreamed of making minimum wage when I was a little girl, no,” she confessed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to have a job, but…”

“I know what you mean. Not exactly glamorous, right?”

Glamour wasn’t what Hazel had been thinking of, but she didn’t press the point. With The Video resurfacing and her personal details being posted online, she was finding it hard to avoid dwelling on every bad decision that had led her to this moment.

It all started with college and being away from Dunby for the first time in her life.
One taste of freedom and—disaster.
Maybe there was something to all those sermons Reverend McDaniels had recited over the years about wayward souls.

“But you got other options,” Travis pointed out, startling her from an impromptu trip down memory lane.

“I do?”

He nodded. “You’re young and you’re pretty… All kinds of opportunities out there for a girl like you.”

Hazel drew herself up a little straighter, the back of her neck prickling with perspiration. “Don’t know what you mean.” She wasn’t nearly the right weight for modeling and she had no acting chops to speak of, but she doubted that was what Travis referred to.

“I think you do.” His voice was a low baritone, intended for her ears only. He leaned in. “I know guys who’d pay good money to see what you got under that uniform.”

Shock turned Hazel’s limbs to lead. Her breath tangled in her throat.

Travis casually tilted back as Sadie joined them by the far wall.

“You two look cozy,” she giggled. “What’re you plotting? Is it my bridal shower?”

Hazel couldn’t find her voice. She barely heard Travis trot out a lie, his elbow brushing hers when he gesticulated. Blood pounded against her eardrums.
He knows.
It might’ve been baseless suspicion before, but now her details were floating around in the websphere, tracing a map back to Hazel.

Never mind men accosting her in the street or on buses,
this
was an eight o’clock news alert waiting to happen.

On legs that barely felt like her own, Hazel pushed away from the wall under the pretext of getting a patron their check. It took her away from Travis’ innuendo and Sadie’s single-minded enthusiasm, giving her time to think.

Marco was on the phone in the kitchen, arguing in rapid-fire Italian. He didn’t notice her slip out of sight.

There was no staff room to speak of at the diner, no incentive for the servers and busboys—when Marco bothered to hire any—to hang around when they weren’t working. Besides a crummy restroom, the only other place Hazel could go for a little privacy was the cinderblock-walled locker rooms where she and the rest of the wait staff stowed purses and whatever clothes they didn’t want to imbue with the smell of fried chicken.

Hazel fished out her cell phone and, with shaking hands, scrolled through her contact list. She didn’t hesitate before pressing Call.

Ward picked up on the third ring, sounding breathless.

“Don’t say my name,” Hazel blurted out. “I don’t want Dylan to know it’s me.”

“O-kay…um, why?”

“Remember the shit you found out about me? The stuff that’s online…” Hazel dropped her head back against the metal locker behind her. Impact echoed through her skull. “It’s gotten bad. I—I think I need your help.”
Again.
Her pride smarted just to force the words out. The last time she had called on Ward to rescue her, she’d been too chickenshit to go home after a night spent clubbing with Sadie and her then-boyfriend, now soon-to-be husband.

On the other end of the line, Ward was silent for a long moment.

“I see.” He heaved a put-upon sigh. “And we can’t do this in the morning, Maddie?”

Who the hell is Maddie?

Ward pressed on before Hazel could speak. “All right. Are you already at the office?”

Oh
. “Still at the diner,” Hazel replied. “But you don’t have to come, I can meet you—”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Ward cut her off.

A breath that Hazel hadn’t realized she was holding expired from her lungs. “Thank you, Ward. And please, don’t tell—”

“I said I’ll be there.”

The call disconnected so abruptly that Hazel couldn’t say if he’d snapped at her intentionally or as part of his one-sided skit. Either way, Ward would be at the diner soon. That was something. He had contacts. He could help. Sacrificing another inch of her pride to make that happen was a small price to pay.

Hazel swiped her fingertips under her eyes and made herself get back to work.

* * * *

“Loved the lasagna,” Ward said when he arrived, fifteen minutes later. “Not sure how I feel about the lies.” He wore jeans and a black leather jacket zipped up to mid-chest, yet still struck her as inconspicuous among the early evening patrons as black ink on a page.

Hazel forced a smile to her lips and gestured him to a table.
Everything’s fine, don’t make a bigger deal about this than it has to be.
“I didn’t realize you’d be home so early.”

“Surprised Dylan and I keep secrets, too?” he fired back. It might have been an innocent tease if not for the clipped edge in his voice. He captured her elbow to make her stop. “What’s going on, Hazel? On the phone, you sounded—”

“Someone’s inviting people to find me and…do stuff. Like in the video,” she snapped, whirling to face him. They were far enough away from the entrance that she didn’t think there was any chance of being overheard, but Sadie and Travis were still making rounds.

Ward could’ve agreed to meet her outside, if he cared about making this easy on her.

He frowned. “What are you saying?”

Irrational, pent-up fury seized hold of Hazel. “Violent porn with my face on it ring any bells? Well, some fucker reposted the video again and now they’re advertising where I live and how to find me,” she ground out, every word like barbed wire in her mouth. “Now you get why I don’t want Dylan to know?”

Ward sank down into the empty booth she’d led him to. “Shit.”

“I’ll get you some coffee.”

“Think I need something stronger.”

“Coffee’s all you’re getting,” Hazel said, already stomping away.

Sadie caught her eye at the bar, eyebrows creeping up in silent question.

“Everything’s good,” Hazel lied. “Can I have the milk?”

“Sure… You know if you need to talk, I’m here, right?”

“Yeah.” She mustered a smile, keenly aware of Travis watching them, drawing his own conclusions. She nearly stepped on his foot as she peeled away from the bar, but he backed out of the way too quickly.

Ward was resting his chin on his folded hands when she returned to his table. “Sit.”

“I’m supposed to be working—”

“Sit down,” he reiterated, some vague trace of the Dom she knew creeping into his voice. “Please.” He flung a plaintive gaze her way, his blue eyes nearly bled to gray under the unflattering neon lights.

Hazel obeyed, smoothing the skirt of her uniform down with both hands.

“The video’s been around for a while. Cached, sure, but if I could find it—”

“It was reposted,” she explained. “My best guess is someone found it and decided to share with the class.”
Swap ‘class’ for ‘entire world’
and you’ll understand why I’m worried
. “It’s happened before, mostly with the stills. Guys like to upload their porn collections these days.”