She laughed, shaking her head. “Girl, you know I gotta have my HEA. I should be ready to send the first chunk to you by the end of this week. You ready?”
I took a seat in the chair across from her, reaching for my insulin kit on the table. “I’m ready. I have a few manuscripts I’m finishing up but you’re always my priority,” I told her as I prepared the needle for my daily injection.
“Damn right I am.”
We’d gone to State together but Max only made it one semester before she dropped out to write full time. After all of the success of her debut novel, she would have been a fool not to.
I continued with my BA, earning an English degree with a minor in mass communications, and by a leap of faith, found a career in editing for independent authors thanks to Max and her impressive social skills. It didn’t take long to build up my clientele. I did well for myself and it kept me off the grid.
Which was a necessity for me.
“You should take a break. Maybe shower. Maybe eat. Maybe do all three,” I suggested with a smirk.
She sniffed under her arms and grimaced. “Good call. I need to take my best friend out for her birthday lunch anyway.”
“Sounds good. Oh, I meant to ask, how was your date last night?”
“It was a disaster. He spent the entire night talking about himself. I’m finished letting my mother ‘hook me up’ with Ricky’s friends. What pathetic soul lets their mother hook them up anyway?”
“Well, your stepdad does have some hot friends.”
“Stop calling him that. He’s not my stepdad. He’s practically my age and that’s just…ew.”
“Well look at your mom. The woman doesn’t look a day over thirty. I think it’s cool she’s hot enough to snag a younger guy.”
“No, there’s something seriously messed up about that. And yeah, all of his friends are hot as hell but dumb as shit. I just want a smart guy with a good job who can carry on an intelligent conversation about something other than what protein shakes they drink in the morning and argue with me about where to eat. I’m ready to settle down, Cass. I just want to suck the same dick for the rest of my life. Is that too much to ask?”
I nearly choked on my water.
Max was blunt and really didn’t have a filter when it came to expressing her opinion. I think that’s what made her such a great writer.
She made it about halfway down the hall before she stopped and turned around. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Mail’s on the entry table. A package came for you.”
Max disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. I moved toward the entryway, retrieving my stack of mail. There were a few bills and some junk mail, then a pink envelope withhiswriting. My heart fluttered in my chest, just like it did every year on my birthday. This was the one thing I always looked forward to.
He remembered.
He always remembered.
I was about to tear it open when I noticed the thicker envelope beneath it. When I flipped to it, my brows bunched together in confusion.
It was thicker than the others but smaller. My name and address were typed across the front but there was no return address, and no postage.
Weird.
Discarding the bills, junk mail, and Reid’s card on the table, I tore open the end and pulled out a small, white piece of paper and noticed something silver and shiny at the bottom. I emptied the envelope into the palm of my hand and my knees grew weak, breath stalling in my throat. I swayed, trying to stay upright. I held up the familiar chain, a compass dangling from the thin silver rope. My mother had given it to Bodie right before she died. She’d given me one similar. I never took it off. They were both inscribed on the back.
May you never lose your way.
Rubbing my thumb across the letters, I sighed. I’d always wondered what happened to it.
They never recovered it from the crime scene.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I clutched it to my chest as memories of that night flashed through my mind. His screams still found me during the night, his cries of pain and pleas for help forever branded in my memory.
But I couldn’t help him.
It wasn’t until Reid showed up that I was able to come out of that closet, and even then, I wish like hell I hadn’t.
