Walk Through Hell

"...Yeah, so say hi to Ben for me."

"Yeah. Bye Pete." I said. I hated doing Ben's work for him. I didn't wanna get caught up in that shit, but I just had to, sometimes.

I walked in through the employee door.

"Hey, Lexie, Velvets having some trouble setting up. Go help em?" my manager asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine."

I walked up to the sound board, checked the back and rearranged some of the wires.

"Did you figure it out?" their jerk of a lead singer asked me.

"Yeah. You're inputs were all one number off." I told him, holding up a red wire with a silver input plug on that said '1' in big, black sharpie. I plugged it in and then went to work on the set.

The band tonight was Velvet Megaplex. Their asshole lead singer/guitarist who I had just had the unpleasure of talking to was named Phil. He died his hair blonde, though, and now went by Lars. Personally, I really don't think the name was much better.

Now, this band sucked so bad, it almost made me hate coming. The only reason they got to play here [on Wednesdays, at that] is because Phil, or Lars as he prefers, was the owner's nephew.

How typical.

I've had to go as far as tuning his freaking guitar for him. He had a head ache and wasn't hearing the B string correctly. It might have been because he tuned his E string to C# and then tuned the other strings based on that. Maybe.

They got their set started and I put on my little half apron. Ben was sitting at his usual table.

"Hello, sir, what can I get you?"

"Well, if you could just lay down on the table and--"

"Sh." I looked around. "I still work here." I took his order, then leaned down and whispered, "Five minutes in the back parking lot."

A huge crowd came in and Lena sat them all.

"Hi, my name is Lexie, I'll be... serving you today." I had made the mistake of not looking up from my prying my order book and pen from my apron. Great. Just what I freaking need. A group of little preps.

"Well, Sexy Lexie," Ricky started, looking me up and down, "we'll get a pitcher of coke."

"And a pitcher of diet coke." Prissy Missy added.

"Right." I said shortly and walked away. I got Robin to go give them their pitchers before I went outside to meet Ben.

Jake's POV

"Dude," Ricky stated, "I don't care who she hangs out with, she is hot as shit."

He made sure to keep quiet so that neither the girls nor Lexie's boyfriend, conveniently seated at the table next to us, could hear him.

"I'd tap that."

I rolled my eyes. A different waitress brought us cups and the two pitchers.

"Whose playing tonight?" I asked her.

"Velvet Megaplex." She didn't sound too excited.

"Thanks."

I started spacing when I noticed Lexie leaving through the back, and her boyfriend doing the same about a minute later.

Their little meeting lasted longer than a minute though. In fact, I had a whole conversation with Ricky about how the standards of Hooter's waitresses has gone down. Breast-size wise.

When the two emerged, Ben was looking a lot more satisfied and Lexie looked... well... ashamed. Or something. I don't know, it doesn't matter.

When Ben was walking back to his table, I noticed that there was something sticking out of his pocket.

"Hey, Ray, man. What do you think that is?"

"It looks like... mushrooms?"

"Yeah." Ricky said.

"Oh my god." Missy whispered.

"You should call it in." Janie told me.

"I don't know, man," Ricky said, "we could get in some serious shit messing with him."

"Pussy." Hayden coughed.

"I'll be right back," I said, drawing my cell phone from my pocket and going outside.

When I returned, 8 people were staring at me, asking me silently if I did it. I nodded discreetly and they all went back to their conversations.

Ten minutes later, the cops showed up silently. No flashing lights or sirens. They just walked up to his table and asked him to step outside.

I looked across the room and saw Lexie look up and watch him leave with a look of utter confusion on her face. I stood up and walked towards the bathroom. She was 1/2 way inbetween me and the bathroom, and she was about to trip with a tray full of food.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry. Oh." she said, realizing it was me.

I couldn't say anything. She looked so frazzled. She didn't insult me. She wasn't even looking at me.

"Umm... thanks for catching me. And this." she added, gesturing towards the heavy tray of four meals rested on her arm. She looked like she was about to collapse.

She slowly set the tray down at the counter and walked out back.

Conveniently, the bathroom was right next to the back door. I looked behind me. Nobody was wathing. I slipped out the door.

She climbed on top of the closed dumpster lid and leaned forward, peering over the roof.

She squinted in the darkness, 1/2 catching some of the words and 1/2 lip reading the rest.

Her lip started to quiver. She looked like she was going to fall off. She suddenly turned around and I hid back behind the corner. She couldn't see me anyways. Her eyes were filling up with tears.

She slip off the slick black top and landed unsteadily on the pavement. She tried to walk a few steps, but stumbled a bit. She grabbed onto the wall and slid down.

One of the cops must have heard her jump down because he came back.

"Mam, are you okay?"

Shit. She could barely talk.

Thinking quickly, I ran over and opened and closed the door.

I turned the corner. "Lexie? That's where you are."

"Mam, is everything okay?" the officer asked again

"I think she's slightly allergic to certain types of smoke. She's got pretty bad asthma. She lives next door to me. This happens all the time."

"Okay. Just, uh, take her inside. We have a situation out front."

"Sure thing officer."

I helped her onto her feet. She stabalized then stared at me.

Her eyes reflected all the lights. They were glassy. She stared at me for a second.

"I was going to get something from my car."

"Why did you lie to him?"

I sighed. "Look, I saw them take Ben out front."

She stared at me, not knowing what to think.

"You want me to take you home?" I asked her, flashing back in my mind to all the times she helped me out when we were younger. Realizing the reason she almost got caught was because of me in the first place.

"No. Ben usu... I... Maybe James... I don't know." was all she managed to sputter out.

"Look, I'll go inside and tell them that you got sick and I'm gonna take you home."

She stared at her feet. I watched as tears cascaded down her cheeks then fell to the ground, now mixing with the light, drizzling rain which I hadn't even noticed started.

She nodded.

When I came back out, I almost tripped on the apron she had strewn next to the door. She was drenched. It must have been raining a lot harder. Her black T-shirt was clinging to her body and her jeans were starting to slip down from being so heavy.

I took off my dark blue hoody and slipped it on her shoulders. She didn't even notice.

As I helped her into my car on the side of the cafe, I caught her eye for second. She looked distant.

I guess I didn't realize how serious they were or something, but I don't think I've ever felt so good.

Don't get me wrong, what I did was horrible. I've seen her boyfriend a thousand times with drugs. I've seen her a thousand times. I've seen my best friend and a thousand other people.

But this meant that my plan was working.