Twice Upon a Blue Moon (2 page)

“Ah.”

Sadie finally got her shoes on. “Sorry, we kinda lost track of time.” She pulled down the hem of her leather skirt. She didn’t seem to be sporting any bruises. “Didn’t we, darlin’?” Her dimpled smiles were known for melting hearts. It was a shame Sadie had a habit of squandering them on useless tools who never seemed to treat her right.

“It was an absolute pleasure,” Best replied. The kiss he planted on Sadie’s temple was tender enough to make Hazel want to look away. She didn’t.

Sadie giggled girlishly and slithered out of his arms. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“You have my number.” Best trained a pair of chocolate brown eyes on Hazel. “Maybe next time you’ll come in for a drink… I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t give it.”

Hazel started for the stairs, content to disregard Sadie’s scandalized expression. She heard her apologize as she pushed past the door of the brownstone.

Sadie caught up to her on the sidewalk. “What the hell was that?”

“What did you want me to say? Sure, we’ll have that threesome you’re fantasizing about?”

“Oh my God,” Sadie groaned. “When did he say that?”

“Did you miss the part where he was flirting with me while you were standing right fucking there?”

“He was just being nice,” Sadie scoffed, flinging her hands up to the heavens.

Hazel did her best to ignore Sadie as she slid behind the wheel. It was too cold and too late to shout at each other in the street. Sadie slammed the passenger side door shut as she climbed in.

“Why do you have to be such a weirdo about this stuff?”

“Really?” Hazel deadpanned. “You’re really going to ask me that?”

Battle-frenzy fled Sadie’s eyes. She tugged a hand through her curly blonde hair. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I had fun, okay? He’s a nice guy.”

“Does that mean you’ll call him?”

On this point, their opinions diverged dramatically. Sadie was a subscriber to the ‘sorry, I forgot’ school of public relations. She had a habit of stringing men along, even when they were nice and fun—and cool to be with.

True to form, she shrugged. “Maybe. Unless he actually
was
angling for a threesome.”

Hazel keyed the engine. “You really had a good time?”

“I can give you details—”

“God, no. I’d have to bleach my ears,” Hazel retorted, wrinkling her nose.

Sadie propped her knees against the dash. “Oh, come on. You have to admit you found him at least a little bit cute.”

Despite herself, Hazel thought back to the dress shirt and iron-creased pants, the short, slicked-back black hair. “If you’re into the
Wolf of Wall Street
look, I guess.”

“You should see his playroom…” Sadie let out a wistful breath. “I could sleep for days after that.”

“Good luck getting Marco to agree.”

Sadie let her head fall back against the seat. “Marco loves me.” She sounded a little out of it.

Hazel shot her a sidelong glance as they idled at a stoplight. Sadie’s eyes were barely open, her features soft and relaxed, the way she normally got after smoking a bowl.

Something like jealousy curdled in Hazel’s gut. Why couldn’t she have that?

The answer rose up with the blinding memory of camera flashes and the dense perfume of spilled tequila.

“It’s green,” Sadie muttered.

“Right.” Hazel put the Volvo into gear. They drove on.

* * * *

The Monday to Friday crowds had thinned significantly by Saturday morning, so Hazel put in a good word with Marco when she got in, then called Sadie to let her know she was taking her shift.

“You’re the best,” Sadie slurred into the phone.

“Drink lots of water,” Hazel said and hung up.

“She sick?” Marco asked as he flipped pancakes in a battered skillet. “My sister’s come down with something again. Says I can’t bring Maria over or she’ll catch the bug.”

“Your sister has a very delicate constitution.”

Hazel had met her once, after Marco’s divorce had gone through and his whole family had temporarily relocated to the diner in the guise of emotional support. Free food was just a bonus. His sister was a head taller with fists the size of anvils. She did not strike Hazel as the kind of woman who suffered flu vectors easily.

Marco snickered. He had a very particular way of laughing, mostly through his nose and jerking his head back the way a bird might do before putting out an eye with its beak. “Seriously,” Marco pressed. “Is she sick? I make a mean chicken soup…”

He was so painfully earnest that Hazel wanted to hug him.

As long as she’d been working at the diner, his steadfast affection for Sadie had remained constant. It was something of an open secret that he had only hired Hazel on her say-so. He had overlooked a lean résumé and offered her a helping hand when she was sinking.

Hazel was grateful to him, but not enough to keep from editing the truth.

“She’s just hung over.”
From getting her brains fucked out by Mr. Best.
“I’ll go see if anyone needs a refill.” She flitted out of the kitchen before Marco could press her for details.

Out front, the regular early birds were largely absent. Hazel recognized a couple of high school kids from the nearby development, earphones thrust in and fingers flying over the keyboards of their iPads. Their burgundy and gray uniforms gave them away. Hazel circled around their booth, working her way around the occupied tables. By the window, a taxi driver who stopped in after every graveyard shift looked up from his newspaper when Hazel topped off his coffee.

“What’s new, Allan?” A nondescript name for a nondescript, blond face. Hazel wouldn’t have known he used to be an Olympic gymnast if she hadn’t heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

The cabbie rolled his shoulders, joints creaking like misaligned metal rods. “Got another ticket last night. Swear the cops have it in for me.”

“It’s Orange County,” Hazel pointed out. “They have it in for everyone below the poverty line.” She patted his shoulder with a companionable hand. “I’ll go see about your pancakes.”

“I didn’t order any.”

“Then who…?” Hazel tracked Allan’s rheumy gaze to a stooped figure in the booth at the back. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Wouldn’t say no to pancakes on the house, though!” she heard Allan heckle.

Her attention was diverted by the crisp collar of the man poring over his cell phone at the rear of the diner. She didn’t recognize him until he glanced up.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Best started with a beatific smile. “Of all the gin joints…”

“More like ‘pretty sure this counts as stalking’.”

Best’s smile dimmed like a switch had been flipped. “Is Sadie around?”

“She’s not working this morning.”

“Is she all right?” Best leaned an arm against the back of the booth, his Rolex resting awkwardly on cerise vinyl. He dropped his voice an octave. “Is it because of…last night?”

Hazel white-knuckled the coffeepot handle. It was tempting to say
Yes, you screwed her up and now she’s a weepy mess. Yes, you should’ve asked her to stay the night
. She recognized that thread of malice that wound around her thoughts. It was familiar cruelty.

“No.”

Best heaved a breath, shoulders sagging a little. “Oh. Good.” He sounded genuinely relieved.

“You want more coffee?” Hazel asked, swirling her pot.

“Yes, thank you…” Best maneuvered his mug to the edge of the table so she could fill it. His fingers were very pale around the ceramic—nails square and neatly trimmed, not a hangnail or callus in sight.

No wonder
. He probably hadn’t worked an honest day in his life.

“Look. You do what you want, but Sadie said she’ll call you,” Hazel recalled. “You don’t need to show up here to pressure her.”

“It’s a free country.”

Hazel shrugged, trying to play off the venom that rose to the tip of her tongue. “That’s why I said do what you want.”
You will, anyway
. Men like Best talked a good game about fairness when it suited them but at the end of the day, they only saw to their own bottom line. She knew the type. She’d spent three years kowtowing for scraps from a man none too different.

“Are you this friendly to all of Sadie’s boyfriends?”

“Wasn’t aware you were her boyfriend.” Were, not are. Hazel couldn’t snuff out a flicker of pride for chasing vernacular out of her repertoire when faced with the likes of Best.

Best sucked his cheeks in, as though to conceal a smile. “Touché. I suppose I’m not. But still. Can’t help feel there’s something about me you don’t like.”

“Oh, don’t lose sleep over it. I bet I’m not the only one.”

“I won’t.”

Jerk.

She felt Best’s gaze on her back as she sauntered away to retrieve his pancakes. It stirred something akin to panic in her belly, but Hazel knew how to shove past bothersome discomfort.

The swinging kitchen doors made for a paltry shield.

“So tell me more about your sister,” she entreated, before Marco could ask about Sadie.

By the time she returned to his table with the pancakes, Best was on the phone. He met her eyes for a moment, smiled apologetically, and returned to his hums and hmphs. Hazel made a point not to feel affronted. There were worse things on this job than being ignored.

Marco kept her from dwelling with tales about his sister’s vacation in the Caribbean where purportedly she had fought off a real, live shark and lived to tell the tale.

“And that’s how she got a bionic thumb—” Marco jerked his chin to the horseshoe of Formica tables fanned around the diner. “Did you get his check?”

Hazel turned just as the door of the diner clanged shut. Best’s retreating back flashed into view for a breath then was gone, swallowed up by the swarm of pedestrians on their way to the department stores and food courts that served organic vegetables and lactose-free salad dressing. “Shit.”

“It’s coming out of your paycheck,” Marco remarked in a singsong, no longer the cool boss trading tales. He put up his hands when Hazel fixed him with a glare. “Hey, I’m running a business. I gotta feed my kid.”

She slammed her pad on the counter, vaguely aware of it bouncing back to hit the floor as she stomped away to gather the dirty dishes. A litany of muttered curses bubbling under her breath aborted mid-stream.

Best had slotted two twenties under his coffee mug. Beneath them was a paper napkin on which he’d scribbled
Dylan
, followed by a series of digits.

He had left her his phone number.

Chapter Two

Sadie breezed into the diner well after the lunch hour stampede. She flashed Hazel a lazy smile and pushed her wide, white-rimmed sunglasses into her hair. It might as well have been a summons. Hazel followed her into the back, where Sadie all but stretched out on the narrow bench between their lockers.

“Did you ever notice how good it smells in here?” She filled her lungs with breath. “Think Marco burns incense or something? Man…” Dyed blonde curls brushed the floor as she laced her fingers across her stomach. “It’s like peaches or something, right? Maybe pomegranates—”

“Are you
high
?”

“Shh,” Sadie giggled. Levering up onto her elbows seemed to take it out of her, because she huffed and puffed with effort. “No, I’m not.” A lock of flaxen hair fell into her eyes. She blew it out, grinning. “I, uh… I think I met someone.”

Hazel’s stomach plummeted, dismay weighing her down. The news wasn’t one. Sadie fell in and out of love at least three times a week—usually with prohibitively expensive shoes or Hollywood actors whose pictures she pinned to her Pinterest board. But this time, she’d fallen in love with a flesh and blood man that she’d actually met.

A guy who just so happened to be the standard variety of double-dealing asshole that didn’t deserve Sadie.

“Oh, hon…” Hazel stuck a hand into the voluminous pocket of her apron. Dylan Best’s phone number crinkled in her grasp.

Sadie pulled her knees up to her chin. “Do you remember Frank?”

Hazel frowned, unclenching her fingers. Had she heard that right?

“Med School Frank?”

Sadie’s aunts had taken up the cause of finding her a husband soon after she’d turned eighteen. Eight years later, they were still going strong, undaunted by Sadie’s choosy nature. Med School Frank was the latest in a long line of suitors whose accomplishments and pedigree had been first vetted by Sadie’s aunts and the other ladies at the hairdresser’s where her mother worked.

“He came by last night,” Sadie gushed.

“At midnight?”

“Well, no. Earlier. He left flowers and a note.” She rummaged in her Louis Vuitton knockoff for the missive. “Aha!” Her smile was triumphant as she plucked out the envelope.

It was, Hazel had to admit, a very nice gesture. Most of Sadie’s admirers could barely manage texting—although they were very adept at sending her dick pics.

Sadie hugged her jean-clad calves and propped her chin on a tear in the distressed denim. “He didn’t source the poem, but still… What do you think?”

Hazel took her time, considered her response. Sadie gave her heart like some people dispensed bird feed. Inevitably, that meant she often got hurt.

“Byron,” Hazel murmured, having scanned the careful, blocky penmanship. “Nice.”

“I know, right?” Sadie hitched up her shoulders. “I was thinking I might swing by tonight… His mother’s hosting the other biddies for mah jong. He’ll be so bored.”

It sounded like her mind was already made up, a sign that Hazel’s input was expected to flow in the same direction.

Better Med School Frank than Wall Street Best…

“What about last night?” Hazel asked as the note exchanged hands again. “You gonna call Tall, Dark and Handsome?”

“Probably not. Why? Do you think I should?”

She had a round, doll-like face, the kind Hazel would’ve expected to see in cereal commercials on TV. No wonder talent scouts had invited her to a couple of castings when she was a teen. No wonder her mother had refused. Hollywood was a mere stone’s throw away, teeming with impressionable young women—a scary prospect for a single mother from the Midwest.