Chapter 2: Carter and Clara II

I was running on exactly two hours of sleep and pure spite.

Seriously, my brain felt like it had been put in a blender on the highest setting. 

The diner smelled like old fryer grease and burnt coffee, which usually made me nauseous, but today I was just too dead to care. It was 7:30 AM on a Tuesday. 

My feet were already killing me inside my cheap worn out sneakers.

"You look like a literal zombie," Allie pointed out. She was leaning against the counter, wiping down the laminated menu with a rag.

"I feel like a zombie," I grumbled, pouring myself a styrofoam cup of the strongest black coffee we had. 

"Honestly if a customer asks me for extra ketchup today I might just start crying. Lol. My life is a joke right now."

"Still stressing about the tuition thing?" Allie asked, her voice softening a bit.

I took a sip of the scalding coffee and winced. 

"Yeah. I checked my bank app in the bathroom five minutes ago. I have exactly four dollars and twelve cents to my name. 

My master keycard incident last night basically gave me a heart attack. 

If I lose that cleaning job I am going to be living in a cardboard box behind the library."

I didn't tell her about the other part of last night. The part where I walked in on Carter Graham completely naked in the VIP showers. Nope. I was taking that traumatic visual right to my grave. 

Just thinking about his stupid arrogant smirk made my blood boil all over again.

"Well, you will figure it out," Allie said, bumping her shoulder against mine. 

"You always do. You are the smartest person I know."

"Being smart doesn't pay my rent," I muttered.

The little bell above the diner door chimed loudly.

I didn't even look up at first. I just grabbed my green waitress notepad and clicked my pen, mentally preparing to fake a smile for whoever just walked in.

But then the entire diner went completely silent. And I mean dead silent. The two old guys in the corner booth stopped arguing about football. 

The college girls sitting by the window literally stopped talking mid sentence.

I frowned and finally looked up.

My heart completely stopped.

Carter Graham was standing inside the doorway. He looked ridiculously out of place in our rundown greasy diner. 

He was wearing a black leather jacket over a tight white t shirt, dark jeans, and some boots that probably cost more than my entire college tuition. 

His dark hair was messy in that effortless way that probably took him an hour to style.

He scanned the room with icy blue eyes, looking completely bored by the fact that every single female in the room was staring at him like he was a god.

Then his eyes locked onto me.

That same dangerous, cocky smirk from last night spread across his face.

Oh god. No.

I immediately turned my back to the door and started furiously wiping the coffee machine. 

"Allie, please tell me he is not coming over here," I hissed under my breath.

"Who? The guy who looks like a billionaire underwear model?" Allie whispered back, her eyes wide. "Uh, yeah. He is walking straight toward us. Wait... do you know him?"

"Unfortunately," I muttered, gripping the counter so hard my knuckles turned white.

I heard his heavy footsteps stop right on the other side of the counter. 

The smell of expensive cologne and crisp morning air totally overpowered the smell of the diner grease. It was infuriating how good he smelled.

I took a deep breath, slapped on my most fake customer service smile, and turned around.

Carter was leaning his elbows on the counter, looking at me like I was the most amusing thing he had seen all day.

"Hey, Sarah," he said smoothly.

Allie blinked, looking back and forth between us. "Sarah?"

Carter didn't even look at Allie. His eyes stayed glued to my face. 

"Isn't that your friend's name?" he asked, completely nonchalant.

"No," Allie said flatly.

"But it starts with an S," Carter argued lazily, tilting his head a little.

"Not even close," Allie shot back. She was not impressed. I loved her so much for that.

I had enough. I slammed my green notepad down onto the counter. 

"My name is Clara," I snapped, dropping the fake smile entirely. "And what do you want?"

Carter didn't even flinch at my tone. If anything, his smirk just got wider. 

He reached into the inside pocket of his expensive leather jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He slid it slowly across the sticky counter until it stopped right in front of me.

"I want you to fix my life, Hayes," he said. His voice was low and gravelly, meant for just us to hear.

I stared at him for a second before looking down at the paper. I recognized it immediately. It was the syllabus for Advanced Psychology 400.

I pushed the paper right back toward him without opening it. "I am pretty sure you are in the wrong place, Graham. I serve pancakes and coffee. I do not fix lives. Especially not the lives of entitled hockey players."

Carter let out a short amused laugh. 

"Feisty. I like it. But seriously, I need a tutor. My coach says you are the only person in the entire department who aced the midterm. I am currently sitting on a solid thirty four percent. So, congratulations. You just got hired."

He said it with so much confidence. Like my answer was already a yes just because he existed.

I actually laughed out loud. It was a harsh, bitter sound. "Hired? By who? You?"

"Yeah. By me." Carter leaned in a little closer, his blue eyes locking onto mine. 

"Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot last night in the locker room..."

Allie choked on her spit behind me. "Wait, what locker room?"

"None of your business," I told her quickly, glaring at Carter. "And no, we didn't get off on the wrong foot. We just established that you are an arrogant jerk who thinks the rules do not apply to him. So the answer is no."

Carter tilted his head, looking genuinely confused for a second. 

"No? What do you mean no?"

"I mean N, O. No. As in absolutely not." I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. 

"I do not tutor athletes. I definitely do not tutor you. Now are you going to order some food, or are you just going to stand there taking up space in my section?"

The diner was still incredibly quiet, and I knew people were listening. 

Carter Graham getting rejected by a waitress in a stained apron was probably going to be on the campus gossip blog in about ten minutes.

Carter's jaw tightened. The nonchalant fuckboy act dropped just a fraction, revealing the actual panic hiding underneath. Coach Miller's threat from last night must have really gotten to him.

"Look," Carter said, his voice dropping even lower so nobody else could hear. 

"I am not asking for charity, Clara. I know you need money. Everyone knows you work two jobs. I will pay you double whatever the university tutoring center pays. Triple. Just name your price."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek black leather wallet. 

He tossed a crisp hundred dollar bill onto the counter.

Just casually throwing away a hundred bucks like it was a piece of trash.

My stomach twisted. 

That hundred dollar bill could pay for my groceries for a month. It could keep my phone from getting disconnected tomorrow.

But looking at Carter Graham... looking at the sheer arrogant expectation on his face... I felt nothing but disgust. He thought he could buy everything. He thought he could buy me.

"I don't want your money," I said, my voice completely steady.

I picked up the hundred dollar bill and shoved it right back into his chest. He caught it instinctively, his eyes flashing with surprise.

"My price is you walking out that door and never talking to me again," I told him, leaning over the counter so I was right in his face. 

"I hate hockey players. I hate the toxic culture, I hate the entitlement, and I especially hate guys like you who think you can just throw cash at a problem instead of actually doing the work."

Carter stared at me. He looked like nobody had ever spoken to him like this in his entire life. 

He was probably used to girls giggling and batting their eyelashes when he breathed in their direction.

"You are making a mistake, Hayes," he warned me. The playful tone was completely gone now. His eyes were dark and serious.

"I don't think so," I said, picking up my notepad again. 

"Now if you are not going to order some coffee, I have other tables to wait on."

I turned my back on him and walked over to the coffee machine, my hands shaking so badly I almost dropped the glass pot.

Behind me, I heard him tap his fingers against the counter.

"Hey, Allie," Carter called out loudly.

Allie jumped a little. "Uh, yeah?"

"Get me a black coffee to go. Keep the change."

I heard the rustle of paper hitting the counter, and then the heavy footsteps of his expensive boots walking away. The bell above the door chimed as he walked out.

The diner instantly burst into loud whispers and chatter the second the door closed behind him.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and turned back around.

Allie was staring down at the counter with her mouth hanging wide open.

"Clara," she whispered, her eyes huge.

"What?" I asked, walking over to her.

I looked down at the counter.

Carter had left the hundred dollar bill sitting next to the napkin dispenser. But that wasn't what Allie was staring at.

Underneath the hundred dollar bill was his Advanced Psychology syllabus.

And written in bold black sharpie across the top of the paper, in messy handwriting, was a message.

*I always get what I want, Hayes. See you tomorrow.*

My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit.

He wasn't going to leave me alone. Carter Graham was desperate, he was rich, and he was clearly psychotic.

I grabbed the hundred dollar bill and shoved it into the tip jar, feeling sick to my stomach. 

This was supposed to be a normal Tuesday. I was supposed to just survive my shift, go to class, and figure out how to not get evicted.

Instead, I just declared war on the most powerful guy on campus.

God, I really hated hockey players.