Echoes of the Heart - Casey, L.A. (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“No pictures either.”

“Jesus, man. Stop it.”

I ignored Angel and so did Risk.

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why did you treat me like that in there?”

“Treat you like what?” He blinked. “I barely know you, Frankie.”

Don’t you dare cry.

“You knew me once,” I said, standing tall. “And I knew you too. Treating me like I’m beneath you just because I’m a waitress is downright disgusting, Risk.”

“I can’t remember a time when you were beneath me, Frankie. Only when you were on top.”

I couldn’t help but stumble back a couple of steps with the force of his hurtful words. It would have hurt less if he’d slapped me.

“I can’t believe you just said that.” My voice cracked. “Who are you right now?”

“Risk Keller.” He winked. “You don’t know me anymore, Frankie. People change.”

“You’re right!” I snapped. “People do change because you aren’t the Risk I once knew. He wasn’t cruel like the person you’ve become.”

“Maybe you didn’t know me as well as you think you did, Cherry.”

Hearing my nickname come out of his hateful mouth was like a punch in the gut.

“I knew you inside and out, you fucking arsehole!” I bellowed. “How dare you tarnish the relationship we had by treating me like this!”

“I think that relationship was tarnished the second you dumped me, soft lips.” He tilted his head, clearly remembering more about us than he let on. “What? Is my money not good enough for you? It’s easy cash, you can put your feet up for a couple of weeks with that tip.”

Risk’s friend Angel shifted as he looked from his friend to me and back again. A surge of fury shot through my veins and I felt my face burn with heat. I bunched up the wad of notes he’d tipped me and threw them in his face like they were nothing more than scrap paper. Risk didn’t flinch, but his gaze did harden and his posture went rigid.

“I have worked in this diner since I was sixteen years old.” I lifted my chin and looked him dead in the eye even though I knew that mine were filled with tears. “I’m not a millionaire like you. I don’t have the luxury of money and I never will, but every penny I have ever earned is worked hard for and you have the fucking audacity to treat me like less than you because you’re rich and famous and can tip someone over a thousand pound like it’s nothing. Are you better than me now, Risk? You forget where you come from, you forget you were one treated lesser and I was the person whose shoulder you cried on because of that.” I looked him up and down, thoroughly disgusted. “There’s no need for the likes of you in Southwold. We might not be the most glamorous people, but we are honest and hard-working. I’m heartbroken that someone as fake as you came from here.”

“Is that all?”

His voice was so raspy it sounded like music all on its own.

“No,” I stepped forward, tilted my head back to glare up at him. “Fuck you, Risk Keller, you piece of shit. That is all, arsehole.”

Now I was done.

I turned and walked away from Risk and returned back into the diner, where I went straight into the staff bathroom and locked the door behind me. I fisted my hands and pressed them against my eyes to keep from crying. I tried to take deep breaths in and out, but the urge to sob was overwhelming me. I slid down the door until my bum touched the floor. I drew my knees up to my chest and tried to battle away the horrendous pain that ached within my chest. It had nothing to do with an asthma attack and everything to do with my heart breaking.

Risk somehow managed to break me all over again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

RISK

I was a no good, rotten piece of dog shit.

No one needed to tell me so, I knew it without anyone else’s input. Angel, however, felt like I needed to hear how much of a prick I was the entire drive back to May’s house last night. He didn’t stop there either, when I woke up the following morning and went down to the kitchen to make some food, he was already seated at the kitchen table. He glared at me as he drank from his cup of what I guessed to be tea. I felt my jaw click from clamping my teeth together to keep from saying a word. I left the kitchen hungry, but it was worth it to get away from Angel’s judgemental eyes. It freaked me out how he could glare at you and make you feel like he knew exactly what you were thinking when you were thinking it.

I felt bad enough without him making me feel worse.

We agreed that we would sleep in May’s house until the first of our three concerts at Wembley Stadium took place in London next week. We wanted the nostalgia of the best part of our childhoods which was this house and the studio attached to it. Angel wanted to experience where we grew up too, so he was on board to bunk in the house with us, but I think he was regretting it after how much of an arsehole I was to Frankie the night before. I got it. What I did . . . that wasn’t me. That was a prick who wanted revenge on a woman because she hurt his feelings in front of a group of kids.

I was massive fucking fanny.

Angel had told me not to do something that I would regret and I went and did exactly that. I treated Frankie exactly how she made me feel, worthless. It didn’t feel good in the slightest. I didn’t get that moment of ‘screw you for hurting me’, all I got was a wave of regret that Angel said I would have.

I fucked up.

I fucked up