Angel Wings and Bullets

Chapter 1 Thanksgiving I felt a gentle nudge at my back when I failed to move up to claim the empty space in the queue as yet another indigent diner took his tray. Only six people away from the front of the line, I’d frozen in my tracks and blinked several times, because even as he disappeared through a swinging door behind the counter, I could hardly believe it was him. “Sorry.” I turned, and only then realized—shame on me—that the person behind me was a woman with a small child clinging to her arm. I was faced with a decision, one that took only a moment to make. I motioned for the pair to step ahead, as someone else took over scooping the mashed potatoes and ladling the gravy. I would have felt terribly guilty if I had gotten the last of either, and the little one was left without. My turn came soon enough, just as Sawyer—or someone who looked just like him—returned to his serving position. Though I’d been hoping to avoid my past, it seemed as if the fates had planned it another way. “Happy Thanksgiving.” His voice hadn’t changed much in over a decade. My looks, apparently, had. There wasn’t even a hint of recognition in his hazel eyes as they met my dark ones, likely filled with anxiety and shame, when I couldn’t help but look up. I’d considered bolting, but I was hungry. I hadn’t had a single meal the day before and only coffee for breakfast with the money I’d collected holding out my hand to passersby. “Thanks.” I hung my head again, because of what I’d become, and also so Sawyer might not see it. My plate full, I slid it down the line. It was all over. Every fantasy I’d ever had about Sawyer Ettinger over the past twelve years was squelched within an instant. And who would have guessed it? Whoever would have imagined that a guy with perfectly coiffed hair and manicured nails, who wore a fancy dress shirt and gold watch to serve food to bums, wouldn’t throw himself on his knees in front of one in a soup line on Thanksgiving? I looked at my plate as I sat. The food no longer held any appeal, so I got up to search the room. Walking up the center aisle, two rows with eight tables on either side, I looked for the little girl and her mother, to offer them my meal, and then go. Part of me was hurt Sawyer hadn’t recognized me. Our one and only interaction, though many years prior, had been nothing short of magical, unless, of course, I had blown the whole thing way out of proportion in my mind.