I wait for Minnie outside the arena café. She can’t have gone far. Though if shedidrun off, that’s one problem solved, isn’t it? Knight might benefit from an assistant, but I’m not convinced I will. My life is pretty straightforward.
I order a coffee and a sandwich while I wait. I’m taking my first swig of caffeine goodness when Minnie approaches, clutching her handbag, still swimming in those ill-fitting clothes from earlier. Her eyes keep darting away from me, though I can’t tell if she’s concerned about making eye contact, or if she’s scanning our vicinity for signs of danger. I note the dark circles under her eyes and the way her clothes don’t quite fit.
She looks like she hasn’t been cared for in a long time.
“I don’t want this to be weird,” she says as she hovers over the other chair.
“Too late.” I flash her a grin, though I’m pretty sure it’s stilted. “Do you want to order anything?”
She perches on the edge of her seat and shakes her head.
I open my sandwich, pick up one half, and nudge the other half toward her, still in the paper wrapper. Her cheeks burn, and she folds her hands in her lap, as if resisting temptation.
“Go on,” I urge. “Or I can get you something. Since you’re my assistant now.”
She hesitates, so I nod toward the food without making a thing of it.
Her narrow shoulders creep higher. “That wasn’t my idea.”
“I think I can guess whose idea it was.” My smile feels more natural this time. “Take the sandwich. It’s fine.”
Minnie frowns at the sandwich for a moment. Then her eyes flick toward my face, and I have to catch my breath. There’s something there: pain, loneliness, and fear. Real fear, not“oh, no, I might blow this interview”fear. I’m overcome by the sudden impulse to reach toward her, to take her hand in mine or wrap my arms around her shoulder and tell her that she’s safe with me.
God, what is wrong with me? I never want things I don’t understand.
Yeah, and I’m pretty sure that type of overture would put us solidly in the camp of unforgivable weirdness. I reach for my sandwich instead and take a bite.
After a long moment, Minnie does the same. She lets out a little squeak of surprise, then tears into the next three bites so fast that I’m not sure she chews them on the way down.
Minnie catches me watching and immediately lowers the sandwich back to the wrapper. “Sorry,” she says.
I’m not sure what she’s apologizing for, so I just shrug. “I get that way, too, after practice.” To demonstrate, I take an enormous bite of my food, which has the added benefit ofkeeping my mouth occupied for a good thirty seconds while I chew through my rye BLT. Across from me, Minnie stares at the table and picks at the crust of her bread.
“You’re not really an assistant, are you?” I ask.
Minnie sinks lower in her chair. “Actually, I’m an unemployed biomedical engineer.”
I whistle. “In Vegas? How can you afford it?”
“Unemployment?” Her lopsided smile is as fake as mine was a moment ago. “I can’t. I live in my car.”
“You… what?”
“I’ve been living in my car for the last two weeks. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the arena parking deck since my dad cut me off.”
“You’ve been sleeping in your car. In Vegas.” I can’t believe it. Why did Dante leave her out there for two weeks?
“It’s safer than the alternative.” She takes a much smaller nibble of her sandwich. “And it was the VIP area.”
The alternative is the street, and for someone as petite and quiet as Minnie, I can’t imagine how poorly she’d fare. I get up from the table and head back to the counter, in part so that she won’t see my expression. What the fuck? Who kicks out their kid? Admittedly, Minnie is older than I thought at first, but come the fuck on. What kind of parent wouldchooseto put their daughter in this situation?
I grew up in a town where every adult had my back. My mom and dad, neighbors, coaches, so this kind of cruelty doesn’t even compute.
The urge to fix something—anything—hits hard and fast. I hate that feeling. It always makes me reckless.
I return a few minutes later, with my expression more composed, bearing pastries and another cup of coffee. I put the coffee in front of her, along with a muffin, while I claim the bear claw. She looks at it like she’s waiting for permission.
“The muffins are good,” I tell her. “You should try it.”
