Night Shifts Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Are you going to finish your meal?”
    I should. The only
thing stopping me is the fact that I’m no longer hungry. “Can I get it to go?”
    She smiles. Again, she
seems to understand. I wonder why she didn’t try to talk to Luke. Maybe it
wouldn’t have come to this. Maybe he wouldn’t have needed me and would be
getting to know Shauna instead. I go cold at the thought. I can be a very
selfish person.
    “I’ll get a box. You
want his, too?”
    I look at his
untouched plate. I do, but not because I want to eat it. I just can’t stomach
the thought of leaving it to be discarded by a heartless busboy.
    “Sure. I’ll pay for
both, don’t worry.”
    “I’m not worried, Callie.”
    Surprised, I somehow
manage to thank her. I’m not sure how she knows my name. Maybe she knew his,
too, and just pretended not to. It has to be hard to spend your days around
people pretending not to know them.
    I glance over at the
invading couple. They’ve now relaxed and are scanning the menu. I think of
Luke. His ring. His eyes. The anger slipping into his face.
    He hadn’t run that day
he encountered me in his chair. I wonder what changed.

 
    ∞∞∞

 
    I’m not surprised when Luke doesn’t show up
the next day. I don’t intend to stay long either. I stop by the table, check in
with Shauna, then move on to the next phase of my schedule.
    The second day I can forgive
as well. I never lost a spouse. I have no idea how long the grieving period is
or what it takes to recover from something like that. I figure it’s probably
more than two days. I still check back in at Jemma’s, just in case, this time
taking my place at the table for a cup of tea. I hope the recovery period is
shorter than I imagine, and my gaze shoots to the door every time it opens, but
it’s never Luke. I see Stan, even Darryn showing up for a shift, but not Luke.
    By day three I’m
starting to get concerned. I don’t really know him, but that fact brings no
comfort, only leaves me feeling incomplete. We have work to do, conversations
to explore, memories to share. I don’t know Luke well enough to need him, but I
know I need to finish whatever we’ve started, even if we’re only two strangers
who decide to remain that way. I just need it to end with a choice.
    I quiz Shauna on day four,
but she hasn’t seen him. Even the hostess shrugs, making it clear that my
problem is not her problem. Luke is a sidebar, an anecdote for her friends over
a beer on the Friday nights she isn’t working. He’s the weird guy who comes in
and disturbs the peace by staring at a chair like a freak. That is, until he
started eating breakfast with me. Now, he’s the freak who runs away when other
people sit in a chair. She isn’t going to help me.
    Oddly enough, my only
clue comes from Stan. Luke had taken a call after he fled that day. Stan heard
every detail as the younger man hovered in the windbreak, pleading with someone
to cancel something and sell the rights to something else. Since Stan knows nothing
about him, the conversation makes no sense to him. Since I do, I know I have to
keep waiting for him.
    So, I do. Day five,
day six, and day seven. An entire week I wait.
    It isn’t until the
following week when I can finally breathe again.

 

Day
Five.

 
 
    “Callie.”
    I want to hug him. I
actually start to rise from my chair to begin the embrace and catch myself.
    “Luke.”
    He sighs and drops to
the seat across from me. “I’m sorry.”
    “For disappearing for
a week without a word, or giving me a heart attack?”
    “You were worried about
me? You shouldn’t worry about me.”
    “Of course I was! You
didn’t exactly leave in a calm state. Then, nothing for days. What am I
supposed to think?”
    “Like I said, you
really shouldn’t worry about me. You can’t, ok?”
    Says the most biased
judge in the history of verdicts.
    And yes, I catch the
disturbingly cryptic nature of his warning, but it’s a dangerous sentence. I
can’t deal