Chapter Eleven
Serafina
Every Sunday morning, I eat breakfast at my apartment with my best friend, Asia. She wakes me up promptly at eight by pounding on my front door and I slink out of bed, still tired from my lack of sleep the night before.
“Open up, ’Fina,” she calls through the door.
I do, yawning and stretching. She takes one look at me, snorts, and comes in, carrying two white bags.
“Tell me that’s a double mocha,” I say, desperate for caffeine.
She places the bags on the dining room table, then faces me, one hand on her hip. “Tell me why you didn’t answer the phone yesterday? Or text, even.”
“Sorry,” I say, meaning it. “I wanted to be alone.”
“Why?”
Asia and I met four years ago after I decided to try and establish a new life for myself. I spent the first year in Texarkana holed up in this apartment, ordering takeout and paying my bills online. I was too afraid to venture outside. The threat of my remaining brother or any of the Dead Dogs finding me very real in my mind. Then one day I woke up and craved warmth and sunshine. I needed to be around people. To hear kids laugh and watch the birds flit around in the park. I got dressed and took the longest walk ever.
I randomly chose a café and grabbed a seat at the counter. Asia brought me a menu. I guess I looked as pathetic as I felt, because she told me there was no way she was going to let me eat alone, clocked out, then sat down next to me with a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. We talked for hours and I ended up giving her my cell number.
“Well?” she presses.
“Coffee first?” I beg, inching toward the table.
“What happened, ’Fina?”
“That bachelor party was everything I thought it would be. Trouble.” I fill her in on the basics.
“Sonofabitch,” she swears, pulling my drink out of the paper bag. “Here. Maybe you need a couple shots of Kahlua in it.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
She pulls out one of the chairs and sits, looking agitated. “You need to tell Ben to go fuck himself. No more stripping.”
I suck down a mouthful of coffee. “I can’t just quit my job. I need the money.” Although I have some savings, the money I used to reestablish myself is all gone, so I’m like most people—living paycheck to paycheck.
“You can wait tables at the café with me. The owner is salivating to get you on payroll.”
“Yeah, and in bed.”
She laughs. “Michael is a little hot for you.”
“And way too old. He’s sixty, right?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Close enough,” I say, wrinkling my nose. The guy has spent way too much time in a tanning booth and he chews tobacco, so his teeth are permanently stained yellow. “Ben won’t cancel my contract. I have two more years of school and work left.”
Asia empties the second bag, placing my favorite jelly doughnuts in front of me on a napkin. “Eat.”
“Two?”
“I splurged,” she jokes, biting into her chocolate éclair—a hint of mischief in her pretty eyes. “You met somebody, didn’t you?”
I freeze, wondering how in the hell she knows that. Yeah, I met someone. Someone I already love. “No.”
“Liar.”
