Two

Two: A Dark Contemporary Romance Part of the LOVING IN NUMBERS Series Chloe Kent Copyright © 2023 by Chloe Kent All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Join my newsletter, get a free ebook, and keep up to date with all my book news! Join my newsletter, get a free ebook, and keep up to date with all my book news! CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 BONUS MATERIAL SIGNUP Newsletter Sign Up Also by Chloe Kent About the Author Author Links Chapter One Mia Edwards kept reminding herself that there were people much worse off than herself. She had a job, food, shelter, two very pretty pairs of real designer shoes, one loyal friend, and... money. "So... you want me to take out the meat, the lettuce, the tomato, and the pickles from your burger?" She asked her new customer, pen, and notepad in hand and a smile plastered on her face. He was her last customer before she took her ten-minute break. And by job, she meant she worked as a waitress at a cheap, 1950s-inspired diner, complete with a jukebox, chrome accents, checkerboard linoleum, and bright red booths. Charlie’s Horse Diner and Jive-In looked charming enough, and even the layers of grease that, after more than forty years in the making, looked part of the furniture now. Nestled in the rolling hills of upstate New York, they served the best food in the town, including Mia’s famous pecan pie, which she made at home in the squeaky-clean, little kitchen of the house her parents had left her when she was only three years old. That’s when Mia’s parents died in a horrific car accident. Miraculously, she survived without a scratch. Her mother’s sister, Rosemary Haynes, Mia’s guardian, and godmother had taken her in and raised her since then, together with her husband, Paul, in the same house. It had been the only home she knew. The pies were a great supplement to her wages and tips and helped her substantially with covering her aunt’s medical care. "Yes, no meat, lettuce, tomato, or pickles." The guy said. "So that will be, just... the bun?" Mia asked as politely as she could, worried for some weird reason that voicing that question might offend the customer. "And the sauce." The middle-aged man sighed, clearly exasperated at the amount of intel he needed to give for what turned out to be a bun and ranch. "Right," Mia smiled overly brightly. "Hmm, would you like the bun and the sauce separate?" "No. I want a burger with no meat, no lettuce, no tomato, and no pickles. Just the bun and the sauce." So... the sauce inside the bun? Mia didn’t bother confirming the combination; she had already annoyed the man enough. "Got it. Can I get you anything else?" A cup of tea without the tea? A milkshake without the milk? Fries without fries. A life without purpose? Again, she didn’t voice any of those suggestions. Her best and only friend in the whole wide world had accused Mia of having a very snarky internal narrator, whose comments she would never utter aloud for fear of not being liked. She wasn’t wrong. While the diner was almost empty after the lunchtime rush, the other waitress on shift, Charlene, was having a challenging time attending a table of Sundown Grove’s local teen gang. The group of six young men, with their pants hanging almost at their knees, homemade tattoos, and just general menaces all around, had only tried once to squeeze Mia’s breasts and grab her ass while she had tried to serve them. The next day, they came in to apologize to her on their knees in front of a packed dinner and called her Ms. Mia whenever they saw her after that. Completely perplexed that a series of her problems seemed to just disappear before they had a moment to take hold. She had confronted the gang and asked them why they apologized to her and not the other waitresses or other people they terrorized whenever they pleased. They refused to say a word to her. Nothing had baffled her more. Well, that and the thing about the money. It took the cook under thirty seconds to get her customer’s order ready, and after serving him his bun and sauce, she went back out to the kitchen, removed her apron, and got a bar of chocolate out of her handbag. Her diet consisted of noodles and chocolate six days out of the week. On Sunday, she cooked all her aunt’s favorites and watched in sadness as her aunt barely ate enough to feed a bird. She slipped out of the kitchen to the back of the restaurant and sat on a plastic chair in the shade of a sizzling summer sun. It was where all the waitresses sat during their breaks. Routinely, she pulled out her phone and made a call to Gail Brown, her lovely neighbor, who was kind enough to come and sit with Mia’s aunt while she was at work. Mia had no idea what she would have done without the generosity of Gail, who refused to take a cent from Mia and only insisted on a slice of pecan pie every other day, because she still had to watch her figure. Mia had just disconnected the call from Gail after being assured everything was well with her aunt before her phone rang. "Don’t you dare be late," Bianca Carlson, her lifelong best friend, said on the other side. Bianca meant the world to Mia in every