Read Online Hard by Eve Jagger - Free Book Online Page B

so you work there for free?” Savannah says after I
catch her up on why I slept until half the day was gone. I even told
her about the daily office work I’m doing, the books and
balance sheets, leaving out last night’s office work.
    Not that Savannah would have cared. Knowing her, she might have high
fived me. But without knowing what Ryder’s thinking, whether
I’m even going to have a job there on Monday, I guess I’m
not sure if a high five is in order just yet.
    Savannah and I sit at a window-side table at Sunrise Café, a
place we used to come when she would visit from Austin during college
breaks. She stacks a piece of bacon on her forked French toast then
dips the whole thing in a side of orange juice. It’s a combo
she’s loved as long as I’ve known her, and it kind of
makes me smile to see that her eating habits haven’t become
more refined, even though I can only assume from the oversized Louis
Vuitton tote bag she carries and Lululemon workout clothes she wears,
she can afford to eat anything she wants. Literally.
    “I mean, I’m working for money,” I say. “It’s
just that Ryder’s keeping all of it til Jamie’s debt is
repaid.” The waiter pours me more coffee, not even waiting til
my cup is empty, which on the one hand I appreciate as being
attentive, but on the other I think is less about his effectiveness
as a server and more about the fact that Sunrise is kind of quiet for
a Saturday. Being a server, I realized last night, is a lot harder
than I thought it would be. Balancing a tray of drinks through a maze
of customers or even just hearing people’s orders over the
music and the talking is serious work. I was on my feet in heels for
basically six hours straight.
    Except for the part, of course, when I was sitting on Ryder’s
desk. You can’t really keep your shoes on if your jeans are
coming off.
    “Does Sebastian know about this?” Savannah says, and the
mention of his name shakes me right out of any memory of last night
with Ryder.
    I take a small bite of my omelette, and chew it as long as humanly
possible. “Not exactly.”
    Savannah sits back in her chair, sips her coffee with both hands.
“What’s going on?” Her blond ponytail, the same
length but curlier than my own, falls over her shoulder as she shakes
her head, examining me.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Cassie, I’m a lawyer,” she says. “I’m
paid to call out when people are trying to be deceptive. Add that to
the fact that I’ve known you, like, half your life, and I think
I can safely say: something’s up.” She punctuates the
point with another stab of French toast and bacon.
    I haven’t really told anyone what happened with Sebastian.
Jamie hasn’t asked. I told my mom that I was just here to
collect some of my stuff from the house, and while I didn’t say
I was going back, I also didn’t say I wasn’t.
    But Savannah isn’t just anyone. I swallow, and take a long slow
blink, trying to hang on to this one, last pre-truth moment, because
once you say something out loud, it’s real. “It’s
over. I left him.”
    “Oh, God, Cass,” Savannah says. She reaches across the
table for my hand. “Like on-a-break over or over-over?”
    “Over-over.” It’s scary but actually a relief
finally to be putting this information out into the world. Until
right now, I don’t think I had realized how much tension I’d
created in my body keeping this stuff to myself all this time, like
trying to wear shoes every day that are too tight.
    “What happened?”
    I run my index finger up and down the rounded handle of my coffee mug
and look out the window. The restaurant has a back patio, white
wooden tables on brick, surrounded by grass as green as a golf course
in Augusta. Even in shorts and a tank top, it’s too hot today
to sit out there, but there’s something so appealing about the
emptiness of that space, like it’s still untouched, unmarred by
anything anyone could do. It’s still perfect, which is