Why You Should Never Trust Pancakes
2617 Words
Chapter 1: Why You Should Never Trust Pancakes
Let me start with the pancakes. Because that's the kind of detail that matters — the small, stupid, almost funny thing that makes the whole disaster feel real.
Maya's ex — ex-fiancé, actually, which is a whole different level of humiliation — used to make her pancakes every Sunday. Fluffy ones. The kind with chocolate chips arranged in a smiley face. And every Sunday, he'd slide the plate across the kitchen table and say, "You're my whole world."
So when she walked into their apartment twenty-four hours ago and found him buried in her best friend on their couch — the couch they'd picked out together, the one with the stain from the red wine incident — the first thing she thought wasn't how could you. It wasn't even I hate you. It was who's going to make the pancakes now?
That's the thing about betrayal. It doesn't hit you like a freight train. It hits you like a spoon. Small. Metal. Cold. And then someone keeps tapping it against your skull every five minutes for the rest of the day.
She stood there for maybe four seconds. Long enough to memorize the way his back arched. Long enough to see her best friend's eyes go wide and guilty. Long enough to realize that the mug on the coffee table — the one that said World's Okayest Girlfriend — was hers. They'd been drinking from her mug.
Then she turned around, walked out, and kept walking until she reached her car. She didn't pack. Didn't scream. Didn't throw things. Just got behind the wheel and drove west because west felt like the opposite of everything she'd known.
Fourteen hours later, her car gave up somewhere in Montana. Not a dramatic breakdown — just a cough, a shudder, and a check engine light that blinked like a sarcastic wink. She coasted into the first town she saw. The sign said Nowhere, Population: 47. She actually laughed at that. A broken, hysterical laugh that scared a squirrel.
Nowhere had exactly one bar. The Rusty Cage. The name alone should have been a warning, but Maya had stopped heeding warnings around the time she caught her best friend wearing her bathrobe. So she walked in.
The smell hit her first. Not just cigarette smoke — old cigarette smoke, the kind that's soaked into wood and regret. Underneath that, whiskey, cheap beer, and something that might have been vomit or might have been hope. Hard to tell. The floor was sticky in a way that suggested decades of spilled drinks and bad decisions. Her sneaker made a sound — squeak-stick, squeak-stick — like the floor was trying to hold onto her. Like it knew she was the kind of person who ran.
She ordered a soda from the bartender, a tired woman with a beehive hairdo and an expression that said I've seen worse. Then Maya took a seat at the corner of the bar, back to the wall because some instincts never die, and tried to become invisible.
That's when she noticed the booth.
Four men. No — not men. Presences. They sat in the shadows near the pool table, arranged like a pack of wolves who'd already eaten but were still interested in the chase. The biggest one had a beard that could hide small animals and arms the size of her thighs. Next to him, a wiry guy with a nose ring that caught the light every time he moved — which was often, because he seemed incapable of sitting still. Then a quiet one, almost invisible until you noticed his eyes. Pale. Watchful. The kind of eyes that filed away everything you did.
And then the fourth one.
He sat at the head of the booth like it was a throne. Thick neck, heavier build, but not fat — dense, like a tree that's been growing in bad soil for years and came out harder because of it. Tattoos crawled up his throat and disappeared under his collar. His vest said President in letters that didn't ask for respect; they assumed it. His jaw looked like it had been carved with a knife. His mouth was a hard line.
Then he looked up.
And Maya understood something in that instant. Something she'd read once in a book, about how prey animals freeze when they see a predator because running triggers the chase. It's not fear that freezes them. It's calculation. A million years of evolution whispering don't move, don't breathe, maybe it won't see you.
Except he definitely saw her.
He stood up. The other three went quiet, even the nose-ring guy. He came around the bar — his bar, obviously, because the tired bartender stepped aside like she was parting the Red Sea — and walked straight toward Maya. Not fast. Not slow. Just… inevitable.
He stopped a foot away. Close enough that she could smell leather and cedar and something expensive. Close enough to see the tiny scar above his eyebrow and the way his pupils dilated when he looked at her face.
"You're new," he said.
Not are you new. Not can I help you. Just a flat statement, like he was narrating the obvious. The sky is blue. This floor is sticky. You're in my town now.
Maya's mouth moved before her brain could stop it. "And you're a lot."
Behind him, the nose-ring guy snorted so hard he almost fell off his stool. "She's got jokes. I'm keeping her."
The president didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge the interruption. Just kept his eyes on Maya, and she felt those eyes like physical weight. He was reading her. Not her face — her damage. The way she'd flinched when the door slammed earlier. The way she'd positioned her stool to see both exits. The way she was holding that soda like it was a grenade.
Because she was. Holding it like a grenade. White-knuckled. Ready to throw. She hadn't even noticed.
"You're running," he said. Low. Quiet. Like he was telling her a secret. "Don't bother denying it. I've seen runners before. They all have the same look. Like they're waiting for someone to finish the job."
Maya's throat went dry. She should deny it. Should laugh it off, throw some sass, reclaim her dignity. But nothing came out except a small, broken sound — not quite a word, not quite a sob.
And something in his face changed.
It was tiny. A flicker at the corner of his mouth. A softening around those dark eyes. He straightened up, took a half-step back — not retreating, just giving her room to breathe — and then he said something she didn't expect.
"Here's the deal."
He reached out. Slow. So slow, like he was approaching a stray cat that might scratch him. His fingers closed around her soda can and lifted it from her grip. Set it on the bar. His knuckles brushed hers. Rough. Calloused. Warm.
"You stay," he said. "You work the counter. You let me and my boys scare off whatever disaster is dragging its feet behind you. And in exchange…" A pause. A grin — first one. It transformed his whole face. "You stop looking at me like I'm a tsunami."
Maya blinked. "You are a tsunami."
Behind her, the nose-ring guy was literally crying with laughter now. The quiet one just shook his head. The mountain of a bearded man muttered something that sounded like here we go.
The president — Knox, she'd learn his name later, but right now he was just the president — tilted his head. "Yeah," he admitted, and his voice dropped even lower, until it was almost a growl. "But tsunamis are warm. And they take you somewhere new."
Maya looked at her soda can sitting on the bar. Looked at the four men in the booth — the four monsters who'd apparently decided she was theirs now. Looked at the sticky floor and the flickering neon sign and the broken jukebox that had started playing something slow and sad.
She should run. She knew she should run.
But her heart — her stupid, battered, hopeless heart — was already leaning forward.
"How's the health insurance?" she heard herself ask.
Knox blinked. Then he threw his head back and laughed. A real laugh. Thunderous and surprised. The kind that shook dust from the rafters. His boys joined in — a chorus of wheezes and snorts and one low, rumbling chuckle from the quiet one.
"Terrible," Knox admitted, wiping his eye. "But the ride's worth it."
Maya reached out, picked up her soda, and took a long sip. It was flat. It was warm. It was the best thing she'd ever tasted.
"Then I guess I'm staying."
End of Chapter 1
- Writer
