Page 22 of Ember
“How about some pie?” he asked, grabbing her ass.
“Um, that’s not on the menu,” she grumbled.
“Oh, come on, honey. We have been circling each other for months now. The least you can do is admit it and let me take you back to my place after your shift. I promise you’ll have a good time.” Clive bobbed his eyebrows at her, and she felt nauseous.
“Thanks, but I already have plans after my shift,” she lied. Her only plan was to avoid her landlord, who seemed to always be hanging around her front door and trying to get a few hours' sleep before having to be back at the diner for her morning shift.
“Well now, you’re just trying to hurt my feelings,” he taunted. He made a face as though he was trying to pout, and she rolled her eyes.
“Now why would I go and hurt the feelings of my favorite regular?” she asked, lying her ass off. It was technically not a lie since he was her only regular customer at the diner.
“It’s okay,” Clive insisted, “I’ll forgive you if you say you’ll come home with me tonight.”
“The lady has already turned you down,” a gruff voice said from behind her. She turned to find a man who looked like he had been riding a bike for days and wore enough dirt from the road to prove it.
“Um, thank you, but I can handle myself,” she insisted. The stranger just flashed her a smile, and for a split second, she was sure that she had seen him somewhere before. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“Not yet, but you will,” the stranger said. She wasn’t sure if she should take it as a promise or a threat, but he wasn’t giving her much time to think about anything.
“Now, how about you pay the nice lady and be on your way. And if I ever see you grab my daughter’s ass again, I’ll break your fucking hand,” the stranger threatened. Clive was smart enough to back down, and all Lillith could do was stand behind the man and stare at him like a crazy person with her mouth gaped open.
The man waited for Clive to hand Lillith some cash, telling her to keep the change, and then he took off for the door. “So, you’re my dad then?” she asked, trying for nonchalant, but failing miserably. Her squeaky voice usually gave up the fact that she was nervous, but this man didn’t know her well enough to understand that part of her.
“I am,” he said, sitting down in the booth that Clive had just vacated. “And I’d like the chance to talk to you, Lillith.” She wanted to tell him that he had a lot of nerve showing up at herwork to ambush her, but a part of her was curious as to what her father had to say for himself—starting with where he had been all the years that she thought he was dead.
She waved over to the other waitress, Jenna, that she was taking her break and sat down across from the man who was supposedly her father. “So, what can I do for you?” she asked. She didn’t even know his first name, but she could see that they had the same color eyes, and even some of their features were similar.
“I’m Ben,” he said, holding out his hand to her. She looked it over and finally decided to play nice—at least until he could give her some answers. “Same last name as yours,” he quickly added, “Wolfe.” Lillith knew that they had the same last name. That was how she had tracked him down. Her mother and she had different last names, but she always thought that was because her mother had remarried for a short time when Lillith was just a little girl. Her stepfather passed away when she was just six, leaving her mom and her alone. She always thought that her stepfather was secretly her real dad, but that was just wishful thinking. The man cared for her as though he were her biological father, and when he died, she thought that she might not ever get over losing him. But being alone had sadly become a part of her life since losing her mother, too.
“Why are you here, Ben Wolfe?” she asked, pulling her hand from his.
“I’m here to let you know that I got your letter,” he said. When she found out that her father was not only alive, but living in Arizona, she wrote him a letter. It wasn’t a very nice one, but she needed to get a few things straight—namely, to know if he even knew she existed. Apparently, he did now.
“You came all this way to tell me that you got my letter?” she asked.
He shrugged, “and to meet the kid I never knew I had.” Well, that answered her question about whether he knew about her or not.
“My mother never told you about me?” she asked.
“No,” he breathed. “If I had known—well, I’m not sure what I would have done. You see, your mother and I met each other at a concert and hooked up. We exchanged information and everything, but I never heard from her again. Hell, we didn’t make each other any promises, and I was married and had a kid at home. It was a stupid—” he stopped, but she knew exactly what he was about to say.
“Mistake,” she whispered.
“No, not a mistake,” he insisted. “A regret. I wish that I had known about you. I wasn’t in a good place in my life back when I met your mom. I’m betting that she wasn’t in a good place either. We didn’t know each other, but I’m sure that I would have liked to have known her. It just wasn’t in the cards.”
“I see,” she breathed. Lillith wasn’t sure if any of his answers were the ones that she wanted to hear from him—but at least they were answers. “I heard that I have a sister,” she said. She had done some digging when she found out that her father was alive. She had a hard time finding anything about him—even his name was a mystery, she knew that she had a sister named Ember. Her sister’s name was written on a slip of paper in her mother’s box, and next to it was written, “Lillith’s sister” with a question mark behind it. It was all she really had to go on when she started searching for answers.
“You do,” he said. “Have you contacted her?”
“Not really,” she admitted. The thought of calling someone out of the blue and saying, “Oh, by the way, I’m the sister that you never knew about,” wasn’t really her jam.
“I’d like to say that I could introduce the two of you, but Ember hasn’t spoken to me in years. Like I said, I wasn’t in agood place back in the day. I’m afraid that I wasn’t a very good father either.” Lillith wanted to press him for more answers, but the silence between them was almost too much.
“I guess I'd better get back to work,” she said, trying to ease the tension.
“Before you go, I’d like to give you this,” he said, holding out an envelope to her.
“What is it?” she asked, almost afraid to touch it.
