Stone Cold - Ashby Crime Family

“Exactly,” she smiled and pointed her cigarette at me. “Avoid this path at all costs. Get a sugar daddy or a rich boyfriend. It’s a lot easier.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I supposed that was why it was so important that I did hear it. And from someone like Brandee. She was candid about her path, which—like most of the women I talked to this morning—was full of sex and drugs. It was a universal story, and even as the little baggie I managed to score early this morning was burning a hole in my pocket, I listened to their stories.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “Less cruelty, at least in my experience. Let him fuck you when he wants and then go out and spend his money. You’ll always have a warm bed to go home to.”

Her words made me think of Calvin and the generous offer he’d made, the one I agreed to even though I woke up when it was still dark and left the house to go in search of something to stop the shakes. The sweats. The nausea. “Thank you for your candid words, Brandee.”

A slow smile spread across her face; deep lines seemed deeper from her dark desert tan as she shook thick blonde hair that was a little too dry from over processing.

“Candid words, that kinda talk right there is how I know you ain’t cut out for this shit. You talk like a college girl. Put that paper to work, girl.”

“I guess I’ll have to.” And that meant I had no choice but to leave Glitz. This was my home, the town where I grew into a woman. The town where my family’s influence had grown and the town where my name and reputation meant absolutely nothing.

Nothing.

“Hey, it ain’t so bad. There’s whole big world out there. If my life had been different I would have loved to see some of it.” She shook her head and light blue eyes took on a faraway quality. “I’ve seen a few states here and there in my younger years, but it was for work in houses and motels along the freeway. But never the Empire State Building, The Arch in St. Louis, the Rocky Mountains, nothin’ like that.”

I thought about Brandee long after I left her with all the leftovers and a small tip for her time, not just her words but her tone. It had been laced with regret. Not bitterness or anger, which I would have understood, but just regret for all the things she didn’t get to see, all the places she visited but never enjoyed.

I didn’t want a life like that, and I was glad that my journey outside Ashby Manor had been educational, if nothing else. It also strengthened my resolve to leave this town and start over. And that meant I needed to get myself together so I could save enough money to set myself up somewhere else, somewhere far from Glitz.

Maybe even far from Nevada.

It was a daunting thought. An exhausting thought and it was too early in the day to be exhausted so I shoved it down deep, grabbed the shopping bag on the passenger seat and made my way into Calvin’s place.

“Where in the hell have you been?”

I sighed. “That didn’t take long. Why so grumpy?” I figured Cal would be worried, maybe even a little suspicious but not angry. “I went out to get some special ingredients for breakfast.”

Cal folded his arms across his chest, the red and green checkered shirt that made him appear a little menacing, auburn brows dipped into a dark frown.

“What kind of ingredients?” His emphasis told me exactly where he thought I was, and even though he wasn’t wrong, I was offended.

I shoved the paper bag at him. “Take a look for yourself. All the ingredients for a perfect crackhead omelet!”

He shrugged, completely unaffected by my outburst. “That’s the thing about drug addicts, Bon, you just never know.” He inspected the bag, brows disappearing behind his disheveled hair when he saw the enoki mushrooms, truffle oil, and sundried tomato pesto.

A question lingered in his eyes. I felt sad and disappointed even though I knew I earned that skepticism honestly. “I wanted to get something nice, to do something nice but I didn’t exactly have enough money. So I made a few stops, filled out a few job applications. That kind of stuff.”

He didn’t totally believe me, but it was just true enough that Cal let it go. For now, because I wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d forget about it.

“You found a job?”

“No,” I frowned. “But I did fill out some applications.”

And we were back to suspicion. “So, how did you get these pricey ingredients, Bonnie?”

I sighed and bit back the sarcastic reply that was on the tip of my tongue because I knew that I deserved every bit of this mistrust.