The Stalker

Chapter 1-2

“You know there’s no shortage of restaurants,” she said. “Did you have to bring me to the place I work?”

At least they were in a corner. She fought the urge to run her fingers through her wet hair, which was still damp from the quick shower she’d grabbed. She’d thrown on white sweatpants and a matching bulky and comfortable hoodie, and when she’d finally gone downstairs, her dad had been standing at the bottom, checking his watch.

“Hey, stop complaining, considering I’m the one who had to wait for you,” Ryan said. “When I said ten minutes, I didn’t mean for you to take a twenty-minute shower and then try on everything in your room while I waited downstairs. I thought you’d throw something on, brush your teeth, wash your face, and we’d go.”

Alison reached for a packet of sugar and tapped it before ripping it open to pour into the steaming coffee Nan had brought as soon as they sat down. Nan was the waitress who had trained her, an older woman close to retirement, with hair she’d let go pure white and a smile that always warmed her. She’d reminded Alison that customers liked a happy waitress, not one with a chip on her shoulder. She stirred in the sugar and then tapped her spoon on the edge of her mug, fighting the urge to roll her shoulders, very aware that her boss, Chad Hargrave—older, married, and balding—was walking their way.

“It wasn’t twenty minutes,” she said. “I’m not a guy, who can get out of bed and throw on the first thing he sees. I’m a girl. It takes me more than ten minutes to get ready.”

She didn’t have to look up to know that Chad was now standing there, but she lifted her mug to drink as she took in the man who had welcomed Belinda with open arms.

“Hey there, Alison,” Chad said. “Listen, we’re kind of short staffed, so I need you to start earlier today. Then I’m going to put you back on the lunch shift for the rest of the week. Okay?” He patted her back and smiled at her dad, then didn’t wait for a response before walking away.

She felt her jaw slacken, her appetite disappearing, and she squeezed the handle of her mug, firming her lips, wondering how that had just happened.

“Why didn’t you speak up?” Ryan said.

She dragged her gaze back to her dad, who lifted his mug, took a swallow of coffee, and then closed up the laminate menu and slid it to the edge of the table.

“And say what, no?” She could feel her attitude with a dash of anger. Why did she feel as if there was a “Kick me” sign taped to her back?

“Well, for starters, didn’t you say the dinner shift is what you wanted?” Ryan said. “You make more tips there, but now you’re suddenly working a shift you don’t want again. When you work for someone, you don’t have a lot of say, but you do have a voice. If you don’t speak up, you’ll get walked over. So is this a permanent demotion? Just saying, you have to use your words and talk and communicate instead of going right to that place of having a chip on your shoulder and being angry at the world.”

She rested her elbows on the table, holding her coffee mug between both hands. Nan was running plates out from the back, wearing blue jeans and a faded blue shirt. The breakfast and lunch crowd were casual, but for the dinner shift, they were a little more on the dressy side.

“I don’t have a chip on my shoulder, but he’s my boss,” Alison said. “I’m pretty sure if I said no, the next thing he’d say is ‘Pick up your check. You’re fired.’”

She wasn’t sure what to make of the amusement in her dad’s expression as he shook his head and said, “Now you’re being overdramatic. Words matter, and you have to speak up. Talking isn’t your strong suit, I know. You hold things in, Alison. You get pissed off and think the world is out to get you, but it isn’t. What you give out is what you get back. Well, at least you can show up for family night now, and we can keep tabs on you again, check in and find out what you’re doing, talk…you know, like families do. And maybe you can explain why you’re suddenly renting an apartment and moving out.”

She took a swallow of the bitter coffee that needed something else, more sugar, maybe cream. She put the mug down on the table. “It’s called being an adult. It’s time to have my own life and place. I didn’t know I’d been approved to rent the apartment. I applied and was told they’d get back to me. So how did you find out?”

She wondered for a moment if her dad would answer her question. He glanced over to the side as Nan hurried past and said, “I’ll be right back to take your order!”

Ryan pulled in a breath and leaned back, nodding. “Being eighteen doesn’t make you an adult,” he said. “There aren’t many people I don’t know in this town, and since you didn’t put any references down on your application, my phone was suddenly ringing. I went to school with Trish Huckman, who manages the Carlyle. She was wondering why you signed the application as Alison Sweetgrass, not O’Connell. Everyone in this town knows you’re my daughter, but you’re still using Wren’s last name? I don’t like the kinds of questions that raises. As you know, people create problems that aren’t there. They come up with their own version of the truth.”

She had hesitated, since she usually wrote Sweetgrass-O’Connell. She had even wondered, for a moment, if he’d understand.

“A habit, I guess,” she replied. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

She stared at her coffee. Sometimes letting a lie roll off her tongue was easier than explaining why she did the things she did. When she flicked her gaze back to her dad, he was staring at her and leaning back, and his blue eyes held an edge of hurt. Okay, now she felt like s**t.

“It is a big deal, Alison,” he said. “You’re my daughter…” He let out a sigh, and she knew he was taking it personally. “Alison Sweetgrass-O’Connell is your name. You’re an O’Connell. Or do you have a problem with being my daughter? I thought we were past this.”

She didn’t know what to say. She wished she could go back and undo that moment and write her full name. Wren hadn’t exactly been father of the year, yet she was still holding on to that piece of him even though she would never walk away from her family here.

“No, Dad, there isn’t. You’re being ridiculous. It was just a blip and meant nothing. I wasn’t thinking…”

She stopped talking. His gaze lingered with that dark look she knew well. It was just who he was. She never knew when he’d call her out, but she didn’t think he’d let this slide.

“Okay, the truth?” she said. “I wanted anonymity, to do this myself and not have it get back to you or Uncle Marcus or anyone in the family. But, apparently, I can’t even do that right. So everyone knows about me. Not sure how I like that.”

She thought of Trish, the woman who’d shown her the one-bedroom apartment, and felt another knife in her back.

Her dad didn’t say anything for a second. Then he pulled in a breath. “This town knows about all of us. We’ve been in the spotlight for too long, and it seems everyone knows how to connect the dots between us. Trish wanted a reference. Since you’ve never rented a place before, it makes people nervous. I vouched for you. You’ve got the place if you want it, but why the rush? You’re just starting out, just finished high school. You have your own room in a roomy house, and you’re just starting to put money away. It’s not as if we’re at each other’s throats.”

She didn’t know how to explain the feeling that it was time to move out, to move on to her own life. “Dad…seriously, it’s time. I just want to have my own place, to be responsible for myself. It has nothing to do with the house being too small. I just want to make decisions for myself, be on my own, pay my own way, walk through the door to something that’s just mine. It’s not that you’d never see me.” She thought of the way her dad poked his nose in her business. At times, she wanted it as much as she didn’t. “If you’re trying to talk me out of it…”

He lifted his hand and shook his head. “I’m not talking you out of anything. I just wanted to touch base and understand. You know this doesn’t mean you get to skip family night.” He leaned back in the chair, resting his arm over the back of the empty one beside him. She understood what he was saying, and she didn’t know why she wanted to be okay with it.

“I promise I’ll be there,” she said. The smile burst like a bright beam of sunshine in her stomach and pulled at her face, and her dad gestured to her.

“That there is something I want to see more of, that smile. And one more thing.” He leaned across the table, looking to the side, and she held her breath a second, wondering what was coming next. “If your boss touches you like that again, that good ol’ boy pat on the back, you tell him to keep his hands to himself, because if he doesn’t, it’ll be me who’s in his face. Use your words and set your boundaries, or I will.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her dad was serious. Every time Chad did that, she tried to tell herself that it was normal and shouldn’t bother her like it did.

“Okay,” she finally said.

He frowned. “Okay what? You’ll speak up, or you want me to have a word with him? Because I will. You want me to fight your battles or teach you to fight?”

The answer was on the tip of her tongue as she dragged her gaze over to her boss, who strode out of the back with an apron around his waist, carrying three plates to a table. She knew how he looked at her and everyone else. Her boss was just one more asshole whose name was on her list.

“I’ll tell him,” she said. “But when he fires me, I’ll tell him it was your idea.”

Her dad laughed and shook his head. “Ah, Alison, Alison… That’s my girl, jumping to the worst-case scenario. But, just FYI, he won’t fire you. He can’t, because if he does, it won’t just be me he’ll have to contend with—it’ll be all the O’Connells, and I think you know well, darling daughter, that we look after our own. And one other thing: Just remember, when you move out, you can always move back home.”