Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

“Do you want anything else?” Damon asks, and doesn’t leave.

I stare at the plate, then pick up a fork. “Are you going to watch me eat?”

“What’s your name?”

“Tessa. Tessa Smyth.”

“Damon Moretti,” he says and holds out a hand. “See, I finally got to introduce myself correctly.” He winks as I shake his hand.

He leaves me to finish my meal, an incredibly juicy chicken with impossibly crisp skin. I inhale both of my veggie sides and scrape the last of the creamy whipped potatoes on the edge of my fork with a knife. Nothing left but bones. Asshole never let me clean my plate. It wasn’t “ladylike.”

My sparkling dish is empty in front of me while I watch the baseball game. A busboy clears it away, as Damon mixes and pours and goes in and out of the kitchen for the dinner rush, which isn’t that busy—I’ve been to places before where the people eating at the bar are shoved from behind with drunk idiots waving dollar bills or flashing cleavage to get some attention. The rush here makes it feel busy, but not like in a big city.

Everyone filters out as the restaurant will be closing soon. It’s Friday night and the young’uns have to start their hookups. Barbie and Bitsy are the last to leave, besides me. They whisper to each other and sneak flirtatious glances at Damon all night. As the cleanup starts in the main dining area, Damon comes out and brings them their check, then brings me mine. Barbie (the blond) announces loudly that they’re going to some bar two blocks away, one that stays open till three A.M., in case anyone else is thirsty?

Subtle.

Alone now, I plunk down what I owe plus twenty percent. I grab my denim jacket when Damon approaches.

“Hey. You don’t have to leave. I want to talk to you a little more,” he says. “I was just trying to get them out of here. I know them. The dark-haired one, anyway. She always comes here and gets drunk and try to get me to meet her somewhere after.” He shrugs. “Nope.”

I chuckle. “Girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

Crap. “Boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

Asshole? “So what’s the deal with you then?”

“I don’t have a deal.” His eyes are intense, and I know he means it. I’m about to your-place-or-mine him out of habit when I remember my place is a disgusting shithole motel for the night, and that I’m trying to break the cycle. “Can I get your number? I’d like to take you out. Show you around. You know, since you’re new.” He smirks.

Me: No. I can’t do it again. Not so quickly. Brain: Nah, he’s not like the others.

“I suppose I can use a friend in town.” I grab the pen that’s nearby on the bar and write my number down on a coaster. I hand it to him, and he holds it over his heart as I leave to call Hobart to take me back to paradise.

Damon is nice, and he’s hot, but I’m not getting involved with anyone, even if they promise to love me. Especially if they promise to love me. I’ll know real love when I feel it.

Words don’t mean shit to me anymore.

9

JACE

When Jace got home, he assumed Candy knew something was very wrong because she didn’t bark and yelp the way she usually did when he walked in after work. Maybe she always did it to protect Tessa. Tessa usually stayed with her all day, and now she was gone, and whatever happened last night, Candy witnessed. She wasn’t used to Jace being there during the day, especially in the morning, like he was now. Even dogs had a schedule. He let Candy outside in the yard and waited for her to come back to the door before he started his investigation. He didn’t want to lose track of her and find out she was sniffing around Nick and Gwen’s place, hunting for bacon.

Jace didn’t know where to start, or what to look for. Tessa was pretty simple. She didn’t have much when they got together. What still bothered him, however, was the detective saying she knew whoever did this to her. What did Solomon already know?

He gulped, wondering if anyone told Solomon about the violence. He hoped no one knew what happened.

Jace ran up the stairs into their bedroom. Tessa had replaced the plain doors on all three bedrooms with detailed, ornate, heavy wood that made a whooshing sound every time he opened them. He stared at the small, boxy room. Again, all Tessa. She liked things neutral with pops of color, so the walls were a light gray, and everything else was violet. A violet satin bedspread, a deep purple chair in the corner that was basically an extension of her closet, housing outfits that she’d decided against wearing yet was too lazy to hang up. It always irked him, but supposedly that’s what women did. He’d only lived with one woman, Desiree, before Tessa.

Desiree took him by storm when he was thirty. They’d met at a party—one of his old college buddies had an elaborate Christmas party every year—and he was drawn to her thirst for life. She wanted to be a journalist and worked a room like she was being paid. She was good at asking questions, a trait that Jace obviously didn’t possess or he wouldn’t be in his current predicament. They’d dated for a few months before she suggested they get an apartment together in Hoboken so she could be closer to the city, which they couldn’t afford. Not that they were able to afford Hoboken either. She assumed he’d just quit his job and get one at a different bank in the city, which he did. Entry level again; a newbie.

About a year later, she informed him that she’d gotten an offer at the Chicago Sun-Times and left him high and dry. She moved on without consideration for the life they’d