Free My Song for You: A Pushing Limits Novel by Stina Lindenblatt

you anything else?”
    “No, sweetheart, we’re good for now.”
    While I’d been busy talking to them, the hostess had seated a group of college-age girls at the next table. Their clothes were trendy and high-priced, their skirts short. I glanced at my ugly brown uniform that was two sizes too big and did nothing to help my tips. I’d been working here for the past three years and I was still waiting for them to get my size.
    “Hi,” I said, a little too brightly. It sounded to me as fake as it felt. “Are you ready to order your drinks?”
    The girls looked me over, their disgust at my outfit clear. It wasn’t like they were forced to wear it, so I figured they’d get over it soon enough. What my uniform lacked in fashion sense, the food more than made up for.
    “I’ll have a Diet Coke,” the girl with long dark hair said. Her friends ordered the same.
    I returned with their drink order.
    “You mean
the
Jared Leigh?” a girl at their table asked as I parked her drink in front of her. I startled at the name. “What was he like?”
    “Amazing. He does this thing with his tongue that is to die for. I actually thought I
was
going to die when he made me come.”
    I set the glass down but accidentally placed it on the fork’s edge. The glass tipped over, spilling Diet Coke and ice on the table.
    “Sorry,” I said, grabbing the available napkins.
    “Are you going out with him again?” her friend asked, more interested in the dark-haired girl’s sex life than the stream of soda headed toward her.
    “Maybe.”
    I quickly mopped up the mess and left to get a damp cloth and another drink. I deposited the new glass on the table, taking care not to spill the contents this time. She just nodded in thanks, too engrossed in her friend’s sexual escapades to give me or the drink much thought.
    “You’re so lucky,” another girl said as I continued cleaning up the mess. “I can’t believe I went to a lame hockey game with my boyfriend. I could’ve gone with you on Saturday and met the band. Did you get their autographs?”
    Jared’s “friend” removed a piece of paper from her purse. I recognized his signature. Not his real one—the one he used to sign for fans. None of the other guys had signed it. “I didn’t have a chance to get the rest of their signatures. I got Jared’s before Amy picked me up at his apartment.”
    So after he’d come over and helped Logan and me celebrate Sharon’s birthday, he’d gone out and gotten laid. Nice.
    I took their orders, a pleasant smile painted on my face, even when the dark-haired girl demanded all kinds of changes to her order. As if tormenting me with information about what Jared had done with her last Saturday night hadn’t been enough.
    I busied myself with my job and avoided the girls’ table as much as possible. I wasn’t too keen to overhear any more details about her more-than-satisfying night with Jared. Even when I brought them their food, I did my best to escape as fast as humanly possible.
    “Is there anything else you need?” I asked, after picking up the last of their empty plates. I might as well have asked a brick wall. None of them were paying attention to me. They were busy staring toward the main entrance.
    “Oh my God, Courtney,” one girl said, her voice hushed yet overly excited, “he must be crazy about you. Why else would he be here?”
    “Did you tell him you were gonna be here?” another girl asked.
    Without meaning to, I turned to the door. Jared stood there, surveying the area. I gasped and hightailed it to the kitchen. If I was lucky, he and his new girlfriend (or whatever she was to him) would leave before I had to check if the table needed anything else.
    I emerged from the kitchen with the order for another table, which was thankfully nowhere near the girls’ table. Like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, I avoided glancing in their direction. If I didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t notice me. Okay, maybe that was a