Chapter 2

Rainey

"Makesure you mop the bathrooms before you leave," my boss snapped before swirling his keys on his finger and disappearing out the back door of the kitchen.

I grimaced, knowing what was waiting for me in the bathrooms of the popular restaurant. Fresh Farm Foods was known for organic ingredients, which made it popular with all the hipsters in Denver. I just wished general cleanliness and proper aim was popular amongst the hipsters too.

"Suck it up, buttercup," I muttered to myself, wiping down the last of the counters and tossing the dirty towel into the pile that I would not be taking home to wash tonight. I'd put in my two-week notice exactly two weeks ago and tonight was my last shift. I'd stay for my allotted hours, but I'd no longer be taking work home, which was always unpaid. FFF had wrung all the labor out of me that they were going to get.

With a deep inhale for courage, I popped open the sticky door of the men's restroom and braced for nausea. Today did not disappoint. How a man with a moveable—aimable!—hose for a penis could not seem to get even one drop of pee in the actual toilet or the urinal against the wall was a life mystery I would never understand.

I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that my weary bones would just cooperate for one more hour. One more hour and I'd be free of the last of a long string of shitty jobs. If there was a diner with a cranky boss and mold in the air-conditioning vents somewhere in the western half of the United States, odds were good I'd worked there over the last twelve years.

Blowing out a heavy sigh, I opened my eyes and attacked the bathroom with the mop until it was sparkling clean. Okay, maybe sparkling was overselling it—by a lot—but it was at least hygienic enough to pass my boss's inspection in the morning. I didn't need him taking an hour's pay off my last paycheck.

"Rainette?"

I straightened my aching back with a groan and stepped out of the bathroom. My fiancé stood just inside the door to the restaurant, his hair perfectly combed across his pin-shaped head. He had the skull shape that was made for beanies. When we'd started dating, I only saw him in warm hats, given it was winter in Denver. By the time I realized what he looked like without one, I had come to rely on him in my life. Like a comfy—yet sloppy—sweatshirt you missed when you forgot it on a cold day.

"Hey, Danny."

I leaned the mop against the wall and came over. Reaching up, I tried to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he moved backward, a grimace on his bearded face. I looked down at my hands, realizing he didn't want me to touch him. Not after cleaning a bathroom. Danny didn't like germs.

"I'm almost done and then we can go."

Danny nodded. "I've got the car all packed up." His hands dug into his pants pockets. We both ignored the sad fact that all our belongings in the world fit into one late model SUV. "You sure this'll work?"

I turned and got busy doing the last few tasks to close up the restaurant for the night. We'd gone over this a thousand times, but like always, Danny needed reassurance.

"I promise I'm not lying. I have to be married before I'm thirty and then I can inherit my dad's money." Danny grunted but didn't seem convinced. "It's all there in the prenup. Did you read it?"

Grandma Gertie had called me a couple months ago when she was cleaning out boxes in her house that was going up on the market. She'd come across the paperwork the lawyer had left with her after my father died and left me under Grandma's supervision. Believe me when I say it had come as a shock that I had to be freaking married to inherit anything. I shouldn't have been shocked. My father was an asshole his whole life, and apparently that extended even from beyond the grave.

But I was determined to be free of him, once and for all.

I just needed to get married, inherit all those zeroes, and then I'd be free to live my life however I wanted. No more shitty jobs. No more bouncing around from apartment to van down by the river. I'd made some stupid choices in my life, all in the name of exorcizing my father. He'd withheld emotion when I was a kid and I'd spent my entire twenties running after men who I thought could heal my daddy wounds. What a cliché I was. This one last hurdle would be the final thing I needed to move on as a mature adult and live my life on my own terms.

But first I needed Danny's help.

"Yeah, I read it. Signed it too."

I twirled around, hands now washed and excitement for the adventure ahead bubbling in my chest. In five quick steps I was grabbing him by the front of his organic cotton T-shirt and kissing both his cheeks. That jackpot was mine, and now that Danny had signed the prenup, no man could ever take it away from me. I'd never been happier with my stick-in-the-mud fiancé.

"Let's go get married!"

Danny shrugged, but took my hand to lead me out the door of the restaurant where I locked it and then dropped the key in the mail slot for my boss to get in the morning. A shrug wasn't exactly the reaction one wants from one's fiancé, but that was the most enthusiasm I could hope for. The man just didn't have an excited bone in his body. Which was exactly why I was marrying him. He'd require nothing from me, other than my inheritance providing a roof over our heads. Hell, I didn't think he'd even require marital relations. We'd made out a few times in the early months we'd been dating, but he never seemed that into it. Then again, I hadn't been either.

We may not be a love match in the kind of way the movies made it out to be, but we got along well enough to cohabitate. Sadly, I'd dated a lot worse than Danny. He was simply a means to an end, and while I felt a little guilty for using him in this way, I'd been completely upfront about everything. He'd agreed to this marriage willingly.

I drove the first six hours of the drive while Danny snored in the passenger seat. When I drifted into the rumble strips along the shoulder of the highway six times before jerking awake and correcting the wheel, I knew I needed sleep. Danny took over driving and I snoozed. I woke when he pulled into a small motel in Salt Lake City, Utah. We spent the night, each of us getting a twin bed. Danny didn't even blink at not sharing a bed, which was starting to make me wonder if there was something wrong with me. Or was there something wrong with him? I didn't figure it out before we both crashed in our separate beds for the night.

We woke before the sunrise and got back on the road, only stopping for snacks and pee breaks at random gas stations. When I saw the Welcome to Blueball sign in the distance, my breath caught in my throat. I hadn't been home since I was eighteen. A heavy blanket of anxiety weighed me down, stealing some of the excitement that had been with me across three states.

"What?" Danny asked, glancing over at me.

Apparently I'd made a noise in my throat. I pointed to the sign as we approached. "We all got prom pictures in front of that sign. Don't know why, but it was a thing all the teenagers did."

Danny grunted, but didn't say anything.

The first few businesses came into view, and I stared out the window at all the things that looked the same and quite a few things that looked so different it was hard to imagine this was the same town I'd spent four years of my life. And then I saw Blueball Park, the railing of the bridge over the stream barely visible through the trees. I gasped, a flood of memories coming back to me.

"Zeke and I used to spend so much time at this park," I found myself whispering.

While my teenage years had been tumultuous at best, Zeke had been my one soft spot. My person who I could trust to always be there for me. A pang of guilt hit me, like it always did when I thought of Zeke. He'd deserved a better goodbye than the one I'd given him at our spot, but I'd been head strong and, quite frankly, a brat. He'd tried to talk sense into me, but my eighteen-year-old self was not having it.

"Oh my God." I cracked up laughing, seeing Blueball Endless Eternity, the local funeral home. The undertaker there had always dressed up the place super spooky on Halloween. Zeke had had to put his arm around me in order to get me to trick-or-treat there. I explained all that to Danny, who grunted again before taking a left at the streetlight.

We had reservations at a place called Glamper's Paradise for the week. Grandma had her house on the market and had moved into a senior facility, so we had nowhere else to stay. The reviews I'd looked up online had been glowing.

"That's Ice Hill!" I nearly broke my finger on the window pointing out the steep hill off to the side of the road where we'd zoomed down on a block of ice. "Zeke was so pissed when I went down by myself before he could get on the block right behind me."

"Sounds like you were quite in love with Zeke," Danny finally said, breaking his nearly three-hour record of single-word replies.

I looked away from the memories zooming by my window to study Danny as he drove. "No way. Zeke and I were best friends. I already told you about him."

Danny shrugged and slowed down as we approached the glampground. "I guess. Just sounds like he was pretty important to you and yet you don't talk to him anymore. Seems like there was a breakup you haven't told me about."

I scoffed, feeling irritated that he was questioning me. I was also feeling irritated because I'd spent the last twelve years feeling guilt and shame over the way I'd left Zeke. I'd wondered almost every single day if he was still in Blueball. "No breakup because there was no relationship. I just moved out of town. That's all."

Danny turned into the parking lot and maneuvered the car between two trucks. It was dark out again and not enough streetlights out here in the outskirts of Blueball. "If you say so."

"I do say so," I snapped, pulling off my seat belt and getting out of the car.

I sucked in a lungful of mountain air that held a tinge of sea salt located so closely to the ocean. Being outside was life giving. I was starting to feel claustrophobic being in the confines of the car for two days straight. Probably why Danny's comments had gotten under my skin. A little time apart wouldn't hurt. The sound of music drifted over with the shift in wind. I looked around the bed of the truck parked next to us and saw lights off in the distance.

"I'm going to see what's happening over there while you check us in. I'll be right back."

I didn't bother waiting for Danny's response. He hated live music and crowds anyway. As I got closer, the music got louder. I loved this song! I made my legs move faster, careful not to step on any pinecones, but getting to the edge of what looked like a fun party in the middle of the woods. A band was up on a mini stage and plenty of people were either chatting on the picnic benches or dancing on the scarred wood dance floor.

"It's good to be back home," I muttered, feeling my old self come to life again. I stepped onto the dance floor and let my arms fly up in the air as my hips began to shake.

I was one step closer to being free. One step closer to living the life I always wanted, on my terms. And that deserved at least one dance to shake my ass and remember that even if my joints felt ancient, I was only twenty-nine. I had plenty of life left to live. I'd marry Danny, get that inheritance, and then set up a life where I didn't have to worry about every penny I spent. I wouldn't be chasing men for validation any longer. I'd finally be Rainey Shaw, without all the baggage of my father hanging over my life.