This chapter is for Krissy and Aly! thank you for commenting on my story :) its a super great feeling to know someone likes it, i even strooogled through this nightmare of a keyboard again.
Krissy, i wrote something in this just for you because i am patiently waiting for the Mac story you teased me with. please publish. please make a 1000 chapters.
Eddie was standing in front of the coffee maker at work when Mac and his friends walked in. She was busy trying to get the powder of a hot chocolate packet to settle, flipping it back and forth between her fingers, when she accidently made eye contact with him. To make matters worse, she immediately panicked, and she awkwardly looked down to read the instructions when he smirked at her. She hadn't spoken to him since that night at his house when Greg came to her rescue, but in a town this small it was impossible to avoid him forever.
It wasn't that she hadn't tried to leave, it was just that she truly had nowhere to go and no means to get there. Mac had stolen her savings, something she had already reconciled herself to never seeing again. She told herself she had paid him that money as a kind of bail, a way to escape the prison he was determined to trap her in. That was the only way she could roll her shoulders and get back to work. She was starting back at the bottom, a place she was discouraging familiar with.
Terry, her boss, had agreed to let her live in one of the rentals out behind the building until she could work off the first months rent. She told him she had been mugged on her way to the bank and that she'd been forced to surrender her debit card and pin. Lucky for her, her face matched the story and he brought it. Either that, or he just felt sorry for the girl. Eddie guessed it was the former, but she wasn't in the position to complain.
All in all, the lodging was actually a lot nicer than the motel had been. It had the added bonus of not sharing the same parking lot as the bar Mac practically lived at, and Eddie was grateful not to have to see that red truck everyday. It was also much closer to work. Work was all Eddie planned on doing until she saved enough money for the bus fare and the deposit on an apartment out west. It was a typically vague small town dream, but it was all she had to hold onto to.
Weeks passed. Edith paid off her room an began to start saving for next months. Once she was ahead on the rent she could start saving. Her face healed and she started smiling again. So of course here he was, eager to fuck it all up.
Spastically, Eddie turned her back on the broad shouldered man and concentrated on the words printed on the tiny paper sleeve, cringing inwardly at how stupid she must look reading the directions to something so simple. She ripped it open and dumped it into a mug, keeping her eyes glued to small blue letters as she pressed the hot water dispenser.
"enjoy!" the italic text mocked her from the chocolate dust speckled packet. "you deserve it"
"oh for fucks sake" she muttered to herself.
Because she wasn't up next in rotation, Eddie didn't have to wait on his group, and she shut her eyes for a moment in appreciation. The very last thing she wanted to do was serve him. She couldn't imagine having to walk up to him and ask what he wanted to eat. Mostly because she knew how much he would milk it. He would be so fucking delighted to get to order her around again.
She didn't have many tables left, and since she had opened the diner she had been the first cut today. Maybe if she could get her last few customers to cash out she could even leave before he did. She wanted to go to her apartment and lock the door against him.
That was the other bonus of not living at the motel any longer; Walter didn't own this place or let his son run amok here. Her mind was so set on the idea of dipping out, that she set about her side work early, and she went down into the basement to get the paper products she needed to restock. She brought a tray to help her carry everything she needed. She only wanted to make one trip down into this creepy cellar.
Using the small blade she kept in her jeans, she cut open the new box of toilet paper and started stacking them on the brown, circular tray. She was counting off what she needed in her head, when the lights suddenly cut out.
"Hey!" she yelled up towards the stairs. "im still down here turn them back on!"
The scenario wasn't a new one. For whatever reason, the light switch that controlled the whole basement was located at the top of the stairs. Sometimes the cooks would flip it and walk away, a bad joke that sucked for the person on the receiving end, but Eddie wasn't in the mood for it today.
"turn the fucking lights back on! i mean it!"
"ask nice" a voice hollered back.
Eddie dropped what was in her arms and felt her bladder almost let go. It was a moment of pure terror, the kind when your heart and lungs splashes down into the acids of your stomach. She didn't want to be trapped down here in the dark, and she especially didn't want to be trapped in the dark with him.
"turn the lights back on Mac!"
"well that wasn't very nice at all" his voice, coming from the stairwell now, responded. " wanna try again?"
"what the fuck are you doing?" she asked, her voice losing its edge and revealing her unease.
It was impossible not to panic now. He was advancing on her in the pitch black basement almost silently. All she could hear was his breathing and his soft footsteps until he spoke again. She was amazed that he hadn't run into any of the boxes that littered the floor. Could this guy see in the fucking dark?
"you don't call," he mused, closer, almost right in front of her. "you don't write…"
She felt the heat coming of his chest just before her reached her, and she shoved the tray she'd been gripping towards him as she tried to bolt past. He ripped it away from her and threw it aside, catching the tails of her apron and dragging her back into his arms.
"mm" he hummed, burying his nose into her hair. He clamped one hand tight over her mouth and dropped the other one down to coast over her stomach. "how's the baby?"
Eddie bucked her whole body but he only tightened his arm around her waist, anticipating her and leaning back when she kicked her feet out in front of her. She could hear him chuckling, feel the scruff of his cheek on hers. He smelled good, like motor oil that's seeped deep into the skin. His body was wonderfully warm.
As much as she tried to focus on hating him, the feeling of his solid chest and arms was like the rush of her favorite narcotic. He was that way, something dangerously intoxicating, something you would give up everything in your life to pursue. She could feel her resolve weakening. Any kind of contact was too much. It overloaded the synapsis in her brain and she couldn't think.
He stepped backwards with her. She jerked again, thinking she could catch him off guard, but he only squeezed harder. He held her the way you would a feral cat, close and tight to his body, not letting her getting the space needed to recoil and strike.
She was pulling at his wrists, trying to get him to release her, when he stopped shuffling and took his arm away from her waist. She could feel in the way that he moved that he was reaching for something, muscles in his chest shifting and pulling. Now that his grip had weakened, she took the opportunity and spun hard, desperately trying to twist free.
Unexpectedly, the lights popped back on. She screamed from behind his hand, trying to alert whoever was at the top of the stairs, but quickly stopped. She realized he was chuckling and she turned to look. It was easy to tear free from him once his shoulders began to heave with laughter.
It was him who had restored the power. He had maneuvered them towards the back shelves and flipped a hidden lightswitch. She was in so much disbelief that she didn't even run.
"Terry made me swear not to tell" He laughed, reading the shock on her face. "likes hearing you girls scream from down here when he shuts 'em off"
"what? how the hell do you know about it?"
"Did the electrical in this building" he shrugged, producing a cigarette and lighting it with his zippo. "im intimate with all the dark places"
"you can't smoke in here" She said distractedly. She still couldn't believe there had been an alternative lightswitch down here this entire time. It was mind boggling to think of how close she had been to her solution all those times she had been terrified down here.
He snorted but otherwise ignored the comment, continuing and flicking the ash onto the ground. He was leaning back against the shelves casual and comfortable, clearly not in any hurry. Eddie, on the other hand, had to get back to work. Maybe Mac could just do whatever he wanted in this town but she sure as shit couldn't. She needed this job, and she didn't want to get caught smoking down here with him like some underclassmen too stupid to know any better. She had tables upstairs she needed to get back to.
"so you livin' here now?"
Eddie almost answered, if only to speed the conversation along, but at the last second she hesitated.
"i know that you are" he scowled at her.
"well then why even ask?" she scowled right back, forgetting that she was scared and instead starting to get angry. She was sick of him messing with her. He was such a pain in the ass. She moved to step past him, but it surprised her when he didn't do anything to stop her. He just stood back and watched her go, the paper of his cigarette burning audibly in the heavy silence between them.
Eddie abandoned the tray of toilet paper and napkins, instead heading towards the stairs and resolving to come back later for them. She stopped short when the lights cut out again, but only for a moment. The light from the hall at the top of the stairs was enough to illuminate the last few feet, and when she turned to glance back at him, all she saw was the cherry ember of his cigarette.
xXxXxXxXx
Later that night, locked up tight inside her tiny dwelling, Edith sorted her money into piles. It was her ritual every night. She would pull out the envelope she kept hidden, and then sit cross-legged on her bed and slowly integrate the days take into the stacks of twenties, tens and fives.
She hated the quiet, so she always turned the television on to something mindless that could serve as background noise. Her favorite was something that she didn't have to pay total attention to, something entertaining and totally uneducational. Tonight it was that new show "You" that she had heard everybody talking about. She didn't know what episode of the series if was but she got the jist of it. Obsessive guy stalks clueless girl via all her public social media accounts. It made Eddie glad she had deleted her facebook a long time ago. After all, Mac was capable of pretty much anything he set his mind to, so she wouldn't put it past him to try and violate her privacy in the same way the creep from the show had.
She drank whiskey while she organized the bills in front of her. They were grouped into tiny piles of $100 and then arranged next to each other so she could count them all in a row. She would do estimations afterwards in a notebook, drafting how much longer she would have to stay based on what she typically took home in a month after rent, food, and the ever present bottle of whiskey she kept above the stove. In a little while she was going to reach her goal, and then she was going to see if she really had the guts to leave this town.
She gathered all the cash together into a hefty stack and rezipped it up into the diners old deposit envelope. Then she wrapped it in a black plastic bag and stashed it under the almost full one in the trash can in the small kitchen. After what had happened before, she had made sure to hide it in a place that could be easily overlooked.
Eddie was replenishing her drink when the doorbell rang. She cursed herself for watching the scary show, and an unwelcome shiver raced down her spine as she stared through the hallway to the suddenly menacing door. She held her breath, willing whoever it was to just go away, when the pounding started. The painted wooden door vibrated in its frame as it continued.
The glass she had been holding smashed to the floor and she jumped, bringing her bare foot up and coming back down on a sharp piece of it. Somebody was screaming from the television screen and she hoped it covered the small noise of pain she couldn't help making. She squeezed the cut in both hands and cursed as quietly as she could. The blood from her wound slipped out from between her fingers and started to drip to the floor, the warm liquid oozing out like thin lava.
"i forgot to tell you Eddie" Mac called to her from the other side of the door. He paused for a moment and she heard him fumbling with something. He sounded drunk. "i forgot to tell you, that when Terry had me run the electrical in the diner -"
"oh no" Eddie whispered to herself, realizing too late that the sound she had heard had been keys.
"he had me fix it up in this place too"
The lock turned and the door swung open. Mac had his coveralls tied around his waist and his favorite red flannel rolled up to his elbows. His forearms were almost as impressive as his shoulders, and Eddie had to marvel at the sight of him. He practically dripped with lust; it was impossible not to react to his presence.
He shut the door behind him but didn't bother locking it. There wasn't anything worse than him out there, not for miles, and thanks to her sudden injury, he could tell Eddie wasn't going anywhere fast. When she tried to hop towards the bedroom, Mac bust out laughing.
"seriously?" he taunted her. "think i aint guna catch you ya cripple?"
He walked towards her, stopping once he was standing right in front of her and their chests were almost touching. Eddie had let go of her foot to stand at her full height, her only defense mechanism now that she could no longer out run him. He smirked at her, reaching behind her to grab the towel off the stove handle and then stooping down to catch her ankle his hand. He inspected the gash, prodding it with his thick fingers to make sure there wasn't any glass left inside, and the contact made her try and draw back. He held her easily though, pressing the towel hard against the cut and then wrapping it around her foot. He tied it tight enough to make her gasp, and he smiled to himself at the way she sounded when she did.
As he stood back up, he crooked one arm behind the bend in her knees and braced the other behind her shoulders, swinging her up into his arms and then depositing her on the counter. She didn't have time to complain. She was perched up and out of the debris before she even realized what was happening.
Eddie could hear the remaining glass crunching beneath his heavy boots as he side-stepped to wet another rag under the sink. He offered it to her and she started to gently wipe the fresh blood away from her toes and heel. The blood had gotten all over her, something she noticed he kept staring intently at.
"what?" she sneered. "this is your fucking fault anyway"
He was leaning on the counter in front of her, his arms gripping the imitation granite and trapping her between them. The veins in his arms throbbed with life. Lucky for her, he was busy trying to gather all the pieces of glass together into a pile with his foot, so he didn't catch her staring.
"what do you want Mac?"
He as quiet for a moment longer, contemplating and toeing the broken glass around. He still wasn't looking at her. She kept glimpsing all these tiny moments, these childlike traits in him that made him seem almost human. He was beating around the bush she realized, he was embarrassed for some reason. Then, as quickly as he had slipped into it, he shook it off.
"M'hungry" he told her finally. Rolling his shoulders back so that his spine straightened. His eyes were mean again, like a dog that's been conditioned to appear threatening. "Now where's yer damn broom at?"
He found it leaning in the corner and went about sweeping the broken glass while she swigged straight from the bottle of whiskey. Her one and only glass had been demolished, and even if it wasn't going to help the bleeding, this would help with the pain.
Eddie passed him the bottle, watching him for a moment longer before deciding to take pity on him. Even if he was too proud to be vulnerable, she could tell this was as close as he could get to it. He had broken into her space, sure, and there was the issue of her shredded foot, but he hadn't gotten handsy with her. For Mac, that was practically asking nice. Eddie took the convenient lie of preparing a meal as a means to keep him docile, and she told herself it was the easiest way to get rid of him. In the top left ventricle of her heart though, the place where you love somebody to death, she wanted to feed him. She was happy he'd come to her.