The Waiter by Bradleigh Collins (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

the pashmina. I unzipped my suitcase. Right on top was my pashmina. Underneath was the denim dress I wore the day I met The Waiter. Every piece of clothing was now a piece of history. I took out my Steve Maddens. I thought of Josh and laughed. And there was the black pantsuit I’d worn to my job interview. If I got this job, I would be moving to Manhattan in a matter of weeks.

Dana came back in the living room. “Okay babe, I’m outta here.”

“Thanks again for the pickup!” I hugged her.

“Thanks for the dress! I’ll get it back to you this weekend. Love you.”

“Love you too. Tomorrow night, Sex & the City.”

Dana gave me the thumbs up as she headed to the elevator. I closed the door. I walked over to my entertainment center and turned on the CD player. Fiona Apple began to sing. She would keep me company as I finished unpacking. But first, I needed some iced tea. That’s one thing you can’t get in New York. Sweet tea was like water in the south, and I hadn’t had any in four days. I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass.

As I walked back into the living room, I saw that Dana had forgotten her soaps and left them on the table. I was just about to call her cell phone to tell her when the downstairs buzzer rang. I immediately buzzed her back up. And then I went back to unpacking.

A few minutes later, Dana knocked. I opened the door. It wasn’t Dana. It was Dalton.

“So what,” he said as he stood there towering over me, “you were just never going to talk to me again?” His hair was longer than the last time I saw him. He was wearing a black t-shirt, jeans and Doc Marten boots.

“What are you doing here Dalton?”

“I need to talk to you.” He walked right in and sat down at the table.

“You’ve got five minutes.” I closed the door and leaned against it, my arms folded tightly in front of me as some sort of subconscious shield. What I really needed was a bulletproof vest.

Dalton looked at my suitcase. “Where have you been?”

“New York.”

He picked up a bar of soap from the table and sniffed it. Then he stared at me, saying nothing. Fiona continued to sing about shadow-boxing in the background, which seemed eerily appropriate for the current situation.

“Talk,” I said.

“I’m in Atlanta,” he replied.

“I see that.”

“No, I mean, I’m working on a project here in the Atlanta office for a while. I’m not traveling.”

“So?”

“So I just wanted to see you.”

“You’ve seen me.”

“And tell you that I was sorry.”

“Okay then.”

I opened the door and motioned for him to leave. He sat there for a minute. Then he stood up and walked over to me. I couldn’t look at him. He put his hand on the back of my neck. I froze. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“I’m sorry baby,” he said. Then he left.

I shut the door. The smell of his cologne lingered in the apartment. That same fucking cologne he was wearing the day I met him. I stood there, trying to process what had just happened. And then I started to cry.

In a matter of minutes, Dalton had dredged up all the feelings I’d been trying so hard to suppress over the last month. And I hated him for it. Part of me wanted to believe that he was actually sorry, and for that, I hated myself.

It was now midnight and I was exhausted. I changed into my pajamas and sat down at the computer to check my email before going to bed, a bad habit I’d developed that I couldn’t seem to shake. In any case, I figured it would take my mind off Dalton and give me a head start on my work week. I grabbed my day planner and opened it, pen in hand. There, for the month of August, were twenty-eight consecutive days of hand-drawn smiley faces representing every day I hadn’t spoken to Dalton. If I were an alcoholic, I would have a 36-day chip. But tonight, I was thrown off the wagon.

I logged in to my work email. Most of the messages were junk that I deleted immediately. A couple were from Brenda, the bitchy account manager that hated me because I refused to flirt with sales managers at company outings and happy hours. “They pay your salary,” she would say. “The least you could do is show them some attention.” Her emails could definitely wait until tomorrow. Then I noticed an email from an address I didn’t recognize. The subject line simply said, “Hi!” I opened it.

Hey Red! Hope you had a safe flight. How’s Hotlanta? Let me know if you hear about the job. (You’re going to get it.) Enjoyed our morning stroll. We’ll talk soon.

P.S. Your lips taste like grape juice.

I read it again. And again. And then again. Then I got up and walked over to my suitcase. I picked up the pashmina and wrapped it around me. My morning moment had found me again.

I crawled into bed and turned out the light.

CHAPTER 7

◆◆◆

Friday afternoon at the office. It had been one week since my job interview and I still hadn’t heard anything. I would have been completely depressed if it weren’t for the nightly ICQ chats I’d been having with The Waiter.

It started with a phone call on Monday. After talking for over an hour, The Waiter suggested ICQ messaging to avoid the inevitable long-distance charges we were about to rack up. We exchanged usernames and our bedtime chats began, usually after he had gotten home from work.

During our Wednesday night chat, a message from Dalton popped up. It simply said, “Hi.” I simply ignored it and changed the settings so he couldn’t see when I was online. I was still pissed about him ambushing me. Plus, I wasn’t going to let him interrupt my catching up with