Controlled Chaos (Deadly Dreams Book 1) Read Free

made eye contact with me. I needed to see if at least there was some attraction on her part. I have light brown hair and green eyes. I was thin, but it was a muscular thin. At my age, I’m a catch and I knew it. I have a great job, and my only vice is betting. Plus, I’m one charming dude, so I have been told.
    “All right, sweet and sour wings and a MGD in a large mug,” I said to Wendy. Okay, maybe my second vice was drinking, but I kept it under wraps. Wendy never looked me in the eye. She walked away and took the order to the kitchen. She never knew what she had missed. I looked at Steve, who had gotten back to work on his nachos as if he would never eat again. “What was that about? She never once looked at me.”
    Steve laughed. “Yeah, she’s a hard ass. That’s why I didn’t say anything. She has zero flirt in her waitress arsenal.”
    “Doesn’t she understand that the way she gets drunk thirty-year-olds like us to give her an obscene tip at the end of the evening is by flirting? Because we don’t know any better and we just might think we have a shot, so we throw down an insane tip?”
    “I don’t think she cares,” Steve said. “She has been told she’s hot all her life and she only comes up for air if she’s really interested.”
    “Well, that’s just dumb business practice,” I said. “I don’t care how thorough of a waitress she is; she would only be getting 15 percent. The bare minimum I give is 10 percent and that’s when I get shitty service. I give 15 percent for mediocre to minimal service. I give 20 percent if the person does their job.”
    “Huh? I didn’t realize she was a franchise.”
    “She’s a franchise in her own surroundings.”
    “How so?” Steve asked.
    “Can her job take her tips?”
    “No, her tips are all hers,” Steve said.
    “So if you look at it, inside the realm of her making tips, she has an infinite ceiling, correct? In all reality, her job could pay her eight bucks an hour, but technically, she could walk out of here with two grand each night.”
    “That would be some waitress.” Steve laughed. “We’re talking the works. She would have to cut my hair, feed me, and massage my feet, shoulders, and neck. Maybe even pop a couple zits on my back.”
    “I’m glad you kept your statement classy as always.”
    “I aim to please,” Steve said.
    There was a pause at the table. Steve was great at reading silence for what it was. In this case, I was still feeling uncomfortable with the decision I was basically forced to make today about a person I had recently grown very fond of.
    “What happened today?” Steve asked. “It’s obviously eating away at you. Let’s talk about it and get it out of the way, and we can watch the Silver and Black beat up some Broncos.”
    I shook my head. I really didn’t want to go into it with Steve, but I guess it was bothering me more than I thought. How could it not? I made a decision that ended a man’s life this afternoon. “I had to make a rough decision today. A guy wrote in his bereavement papers that I was to be the one to make the final decision on his life.”
    “What does that mean? You were his power of attorney?” Steve asked.
    “Yes,” I answered.
    “Wow, that’s heavy. Don’t they need your signature for that?”
    “He was an outpatient of mine, and I thought I was signing his weekly report that he turns into his parole officer.”
    “Instead, he had you sign his power of attorney paper?”
    “Yep.” I looked at Steve and his investigative mind was working on overdrive.
    “Who was this guy? Don’t tell it was that Crenshaw character?”
    “It was,” I said.
    “I told you he was bad news.”
    “He wasn’t bad news. He had nobody in this world who gave a shit if he lived or died. He did what he had to do to get me to sign those papers.”
    “You really liked that guy?”
    “I mean he was no Steve Moss, but he had great qualities, and his addiction was bigger than his