Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males by Kelly Favor, Locklyn Marx Page B

nervous.”   And sad, she thought, but saw no reason
to mention that.
    “Your name’s Caelyn,
right?”
    “Yeah.   What’s your name again?”
    “Rosemary, but
everyone just calls me Ro.”   Ro
smiled again as she set another glass on the bar.   “Well, Caelyn you must be popular,
because someone already called for you.”
    “Really?”   Caelyn frowned.   “Who?”  
    Ro shook her
head.   “I don’t know.   He didn’t say.   He just asked if you were waitressing
here today, and I said I thought so.   I told him you weren’t in yet and asked if he wanted to leave a
message.   He said no thanks and hung
up.”
    “Weird.”   Caelyn felt an odd thrill run through
her body.
    It had to have been
Elijah looking for her.   Maybe he
wanted to apologize for the way he’d left things.   Perhaps this meant that she was going to
speak to him again after all.
    The thought picked
her mood up and she was able to start her day of training with renewed
enthusiasm.
    Before Kenzie
arrived, Ro showed her some of the ropes—showed her the schedule and gave
her a quick tour of the restaurant.   They only had a skeleton crew on until about noon, when more of the
staff began arriving.
    But everyone was
incredibly friendly and made her feel welcomed.   Once Kenzie and the rest of the staff
showed up, everything kicked into overdrive.   Customers were beginning to appear and
be seated, food was being prepared, a few folks sat down at the bar.
    Caelyn’s duties were
mainly to follow Ro around and help her as she watched her do her job, learned
the menu and the procedures of the restaurant.   Even though she wasn’t waitressing, it
was still hectic, as she was running food to tables, getting drink orders, and
dealing with customers the whole time.
    She was breaking a
sweat, but basically enjoying herself.
    It was a lot
different than sitting in class all day, but she wasn’t sure it was a bad
thing.
    The hard part was
when she occasionally allowed herself to envision what it would be like at
night, going back to a room with nobody waiting for her.
    And it wasn’t even
that she missed her roommates in the dorms.
    She missed him .
    Elijah.
    He’d left so
suddenly, and she was still hung up on wondering why.
    It wasn’t until the
evening, just a few hours before her shift ended, that everything turned
completely upside down.
    Up until then, she’d
been doing her job, hustling, learning everything as fast as possible.   Ro seemed happy with her, and Kenzie was
happy if Ro was happy.
    At around eight
o’clock, Caelyn took a break.   She
grabbed a Diet Coke and stood out back with some of the other servers and
kitchen staff, most of whom smoked.   They all talked while smoking, and she drank her soda.  
    Then she went inside,
dumped her drink at the bar, and went to the bathroom.   The woman’s bathroom was towards the
back of the restaurant, and there was a long hallway leading up to it, that
hooked around a corner.
    Caelyn was coming out
of the bathroom when someone familiar rounded the corner.   It took her a moment to place who it
was, because she had no way of imagining that this person could show up there.
    When she saw him, it
was as if her entire mind just shut down.  
    She almost seemed to
go deaf, and her vision narrowed.   She stumbled a little.
    He smiled at
her.   “I’ve been looking for you,”
he said.
    She tried to swallow
but it was like there was a boulder in her throat.   “What are you doing here?” she asked,
but it barely came out of her mouth.
    Jayson smiled
wider.   “I came to find you,
babe.”   He reached out to touch her
and she stepped backwards.
    “How did you know
where I was?”
    “Lucky for you, your
friends really care about you.   Alicia told me you got a waitressing job out here, and it didn’t exactly
take a genius to track you down.”
    “Why would you track
me down?   Obviously I left for a
reason.”
    He cocked his head as
if it had never occurred to