I smiled. “Sure. Let me get ready.”
I watched her leave the room and my smile immediately faded. I got dressed and met her at the door. She drove to the Crab Shack, where we had unlimited crab legs and shrimp along with lime margaritas. It was a fun night, but there was a little voice in the back of my head, screaming at me about where my life was headed.
Shelia may have said I could stay however long I needed until I found another place, but Ben would be moving in soon, and she would want privacy as soon as possible. I couldn’t stay for long, no matter how nicely she put it. I couldn’t be too upset either. Ben had a steady job. He could help pay the bills with Shelia, no problem, but nothing about me was steady.
Kell damn sure wasn’t going to let me stay with him, not after the way Ana basically had him shut me out, so that left me with only one option—to find a job and get my own place.
God, being an adult sucked.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After Shelia told me her plans with Ben, I woke up at eight the next morning, hopped on my laptop, and searched for jobs. I spent five hours applying, submitting my bland résumé, and hoping for the best. When I felt satisfied enough, I left my apartment to get lunch.
I ate lunch in my car, and realized the gift Kell gave me was still on the passenger seat. Placing my sandwich down, I dusted the crumbs off and then picked the bag up by the white ribbon. I dug into it, felt something hard, and pulled it out.
My eyes widened as I studied the gift in hand. It was a pink pocketknife and pepper spray kit. A card was attached to it:
Just in case he doesn’t take no for an answer.
I shook my head, crumpling the note into a ball and shoving it back into the bag, then tossing the knife and pepper spray on the seat. Kell was such an asshole.
* * *
After lunch in my car, I went to a nursery to go plant shopping, which wasn’t the wisest thing to do considering I needed to be saving my money, but retail therapy always pulled me out of my funk, not to mention one of the stores I shopped at was hiring.
I pulled into a parking space in front of my apartment building—the apartment that wasn’t going to be the place I called home for much longer.
I sat a moment, watching a silhouette pass by our window on the second floor. A man. Ben was there, and normally I wouldn’t have cared, but things felt different now. The apartment was going to be his now. I couldn’t saunter around like before, sprawled out on the couch, or pick at Shelia’s leftovers. All that she had would be his, and I would be the third wheel.
Head shaking, I shoved the thoughts aside, collected my tote bag and the stupid knife and pepper spray kit, and climbed out of my car. As I started tucking everything into my tote bag, ready to move to the back seat to grab my plants, I heard footsteps and whipped my head up.
A familiar person was walking toward me and I gasped, my back bumping into the open car door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Samira, I need to talk to you,” Roland said, walking closer.
“R-Roland?” I gasped as he kept walking toward me. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. You haven’t responded to any of my messages in days.” I panicked, looking around the empty parking lot before peering up at the second floor, where my apartment was. Maybe if I screamed, Shelia or Ben might hear me.
“I . . .” I didn’t know what to say, but I could feel the knife and pepper spray in my hand.
Roland stopped a foot away, as if he sensed my unease. “Samira, please . . .” He let out a long sigh and I couldn’t believe it, but beneath the light of the lamp posts, his eyes glistened. “I . . . I knew this day would come, and I know I should have mentioned it to you but I . . . I didn’t know how.”
My grip slacked around the kit, only a little. I still didn’t know what to say.
He sighed and looked up at the sky before lowering his hazel gaze again to focus on me.
“Is it true?” I asked, looking him up and down.
“No, it’s not true.”
“How do I know that?” I countered, tightening my fist around the kit again. I could feel the Velcro that separated the knife and pepper spray. One yank and I’d have the knife in hand.
“You don’t know it,” he said. “All you can take is my word for it, and I know my word doesn’t seem like shit with all that’s out there about me, but I want you to know that I didn’t do anything to Melanie. I loved her and I never would have done something like that to her.”