Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Every attempt at conversation I made was only picked up by Lily—the only person in the room who wanted to talk to me. Thirty minutes into the awkward silences, I was on the edge of giving up.
“So—” How in the hell did I become Davis 2.0? “What does everyone think of bulgogi? Yea or nay?”
Micah rolled his eyes. He picked up his wineglass—filled with the merlot he pointedly stood up and rescued after being told I chose to serve the strawberry-ade. “We’ve had bulgogi before, Sue. We’re not the uncultured swine you think we are.”
“Oh.”
I thought he’d say more. Nothing came.
I turned my smile on Lily. The five of us were sitting at a dining table built to hold twenty. I sat at the head of the table with Lily sitting directly to my right. All three of the guys sat at the opposite end, making the distance between us literal. “What do you think, baby girl?”
“Mmmm.” She tipped her head to the ceiling—little face scrunched up in thought. “It’s okay.”
“Okay enough that you’ll take leftovers to school tomorrow for lunch?”
That got another ponder. “Mmm, no, thanks, Mommy. Tomorrow is pizza day.”
“Course it is,” I muttered. “My cooking doesn’t beat out microwaved pizza, but I bet you don’t have these mixed feelings about boogers.”
“Ewwww!” she squealed.
“You ewwww! I know you’re a booger-eater just like your mama!”
“Nooo!” she carried on, nearly pitching over and laughing herself out of her seat.
Eeee!
Three chairs scraped across the hardwood.
“Time for bed, Lilybug.” Micah set his empty glass down next to his full plate. “Daddies will race you.”
“Okay!”
“Wait,” I cried, jumping up. “I can do Lily’s bedtime routine tonight if you want—”
“No need.” Rhodes scooped up a giggling Lily mid-run. “You did the cooking, so you just relax. We’ll get Lily down and then clean the kitchen.”
“But—”
They were already gone.
Blowing out a breath, I turned my attention to clearing the table and washing the dishes despite Rhodes’s offer. Truth was, both Courtney and Alex got me thinking I was spending too much time playing homemaker and hiding in the house because I didn’t know how to move forward from here.
I knew I wanted my chance to graduate from college, and that I wanted a degree that would help me serve lost and abandoned people who had to watch all of their dreams get stolen from them, but knowing wasn’t the first step to doing like so many thought.
Money was the first step to doing. And that was one thing I had none of.
Giving everything in Sue’s bank account to Lily was the right thing to do, and I’d do the same thing again, but it didn’t leave me with any of that steal-my-life-back-from-that-treacherous-bitch money I was counting on.
All I had to my name was the one hundred and twelve dollars sitting in my real bank account. Getting a job under my real name in the same town where I was pretending I was Sue, and the real Sarah was still away, was stupid to the extreme. On top of that, asking Micah, Rhodes, or Alex for money was out of the question. Once again, that was taking the fraud too far. Improper disposal of a body was enough of a charge. Didn’t need Sue’s widowers to tack theft to the docket.
My hands slipped in and out of the soapy water, working on autopilot as my mind ran a mile a minute. There’s got to be something I can do for money that doesn’t involve stealing it from innocent people...
My mind crashed into a wall—it’s run over.
The fact was, if I were overflowing with marketable skills, I wouldn’t have been in the bleak situation Sue pulled me out of. That was the downside of having a mother who shamed you out of having interests or exploring hobbies outside of academia. Even with drama camp! I was only able to convince her to let me go with Courtney because I spun some yarn about it being good practice for when I had to stand in front of a jury and give a defense I didn’t morally believe in.
“Those drama camps were fun,” I muttered to myself. “And I already have experience working with kids after years of volunteering at the children’s home. I could—”
—get laughed out the door when the face of the person who threw scalding hot coffee on a woman, then called her a Black bitch, walks in. And that’s before they ask me if I’m there to sell more bird shit face cream.
I tossed my head back, groaning. I was carrying around Sue’s baggage now, and that shit was heavy.
“Okay, so I need to do something solo,” I concluded. “As my own boss. Something that fulfills a need in a wealthy community that can already afford to buy whatever they want. Something that I won’t need to put my face on, because I can’t have that bastard finding out I’m still alive.” Thinking of Daniel reminded me that the number of missed calls from him had hit the double digits. “And something that people will still buy from me even though this is the same face that sold them bird shit.”