7 Chapter 7

Celeste had wanted to argue that the tip was too much for her to take. She knew how much customers usually tipped and it certainly didn't amount to near fifty percent of the bill. Edgar told her to keep it however.

"He's one of the few ones around here who gives a decent tip out. Would be rather rude to shun is generosity." Was what he told her. Even though she didn't really like it, not wanting to offend the werewolf who had gone back to ignoring her, she kept the extra money.

She didn't want to be greedy but knew she'd need the extra money to help pay for rent. Living out on her own was more expensive than she thought that it would be.

The rest of her shift ended without much event. Bane left about halfway through and only thanked her for the coffee before he left.

His eyes didn't even linger on her longer like they had done before. Maybe he got the hint that she wasn't interested?

She could only hope so because even though she found herself being slightly attracted to the confusing werewolf, she knew that she couldn't let it continue.

Which was one of the things that lead her to avoiding being out after dark. She didn't used to mind it before because she enjoyed the moonlight. Now though, she was more concerned about what could be lurking within the shadows.

It wasn't horrible though because the full moon had passed which meant she had thirty days to hope that everything would go back to normal so she could enjoy the light of the full moon without concern.

And with her new job, there were things that she wasn't going to have to worry about as much from now on so long as she would be able to keep it.

Thinking about that on her way home after work made her both happy and sad. Happy because she would be able to make it through the winter without worrying about how she was going to afford rent. Sad because she would be spending the winter alone again.

Even though they had put in all the time and effort to raise her and would message her once a day to make sure that she was still alive, they never actually offered her any form of assistance nor was she invited to any events or similar things by them.

Part of her knew that the only reason they kept checking on her was out of guilt because of how quickly they had requested her to move out once she was old enough. There hadn't even been any kind of discussion or warning about the matter. Her adopted father just handed her a key one day and said they got her an apartment and she had three days to move into it with all her stuff.

She was twenty at the time and three days was hardly enough time for her to get everything in order before she moved out. It broke her heart that they did this and didn't even give her an explanation, especially after they claimed that they cared so much about her and were happy that they chose to adopt her.

The only thing they offered aside from moving assistance was paying her first year of rent since she would need time to figure out how to get a job.

Celeste knew though that the reason they had done this was because her adopted mom had finally been able to get pregnant with a child of their own.

With this miracle, it meant that they no longer needed to adopt or foster kids in their minds. Thus, Celeste had to clear out to make space for their child and cut down on the expenses that they were paying.

Thinking about this reminded her of what Bane had said about if someone cared and was family that they wouldn't do that kind of thing. She bit her bottom lip as she thought about this while walking in the direction of her apartment complex.

Now though, she didn't have to worry if they gave her anymore money or helped out, she had her own form of financial independence. She just had to make sure she could keep it and if that meant she had to deal with seeing Bane most days and be polite to him even if she didn't really like or feel comfortable, it was something she could do for the sake of money.

Plus, if she did a good enough job saving up, she might even be able to afford a car which would mean she didn't have to keep walking back and forth when it got to be in the freezing cold temperature range. At least she knew now that she would be able to afford to turn the thermostat a touch warmer.

She would just keep her schedule to working in the morning so that she didn't have to worry about coming home late and afternoon could be for other things. She hadn't yet decided if she was going to college yet. It had always been her dream to do so so that she could get a degree and become a social worker.

She hadn't been able to put a lot of effort towards that however with suddenly having to move out and worry about money. She had taken a gap year after graduating from high school as she wanted to really think about what she wanted to do and where she wanted go.

Now, she mildly regretted that decision as she didn't know when she would get the chance to sort her finances enough to be able to afford it. She couldn't even rely on her adopted parents like she had originally thought so everything was going to fall on her to figure out.

For now though, she would just on the positives such as she didn't have to worry about how to keep a roof over her head and maybe she wouldn't have to worry about that creature bothering her if she was just polite enough to him but made it clear she had no intention of having anything to do with him.

This helped to lift her mood slightly as she finally reached her apartment complex. Her next focus needed to be on getting dinner together and figuring out what she was going to take for her lunch break at work. As much as she wanted the easy route, she wasn't going to be able to budget in a lot of occasions to eat. Thus, for the time being she would save it for special occasions.