Page 15 of Big Daddy

The man in the white coat at the counter lowers to the little microphone. “Winnie Collins, your prescription is ready.”

chapter six

winnie

He said twenty fucking minutes!Panic squeezes my throat as I snatch my bag off the chair and toss it over my shoulder. “Thank you,” I breathe, and end the call before he can say anything else.

What’s left to say, anyway?

“Just a sec,” I tell the man behind the counter as I swipe through my phone, ignoring the way he impatiently drums his fingers over the register.

Tapping Quincey’s donation, I put in my passcode and follow the next few steps until less than a minute later, five thousand dollars are transferred into my account, and even though they won’t be spendable for a few days, draining nearly everything accessible in my account for a prescription certainly feels easy now.

“Here,” I pass him my card and he hands me a white bag with a little bottle of pills inside. “Thank you.”

He swipes and taps, then hands me back my card. He doesn’t know that he just passed me the thing I’m pretty sure I’ve needed since my parents died, and that my life is seemingly out of nowhere taking a positive turn for once, and that he issomehow part of that journey. He doesn’t care. Instead of a smile, he nods to the woman behind me. “Next.”

I slip out of the pharmacy onto the street, and walk hurriedly down the sidewalk until I’m at Rise & Grind. “Hey,” my best friend greets, standing up at our usual table in the back corner. She waves, and points, as if I don’t see her, earning her a hearty eye roll.

“There’s literally no one else in here, dork,” I tell her as I shove the white bag into my purse, dragging out my wallet.

We hug before I drop my bag in my chair and hook a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m gonna grab a muffin and some coffee,” I tell her, guilt gnawing at the corners of my cheery smile as she nods, sinking into her chair.

“Sounds good,” she beams, returning to her laptop as I make my way back to the counter.

“Hey Winnie,” Ansley greets. She’s worked here forever, and I used to work here thinking I’d be here forever, too. Until Howard. Of course, Ansley, Brielle and anyone else who has ever asked for that matter all think I left Rise & Grind to work a shitty teaching assistant job on campus.

Look, I’m no con artist. A TA job was all I could easily come up with that explained me being on my computer all the time (monitoring my account and messaging potential clients, but mostly just Howard), and also gave me a good reason to borrow Brielle’s fancy heels. I love my best friend, but she has so much shit that she has yet to notice that I’ve never even put so much as a molecule of wear on them. If I was wearing them around campus and in the classroom, why do they still look so out-of-the-box perfect? I know why, and I thank God it’s never occurred to her.

“Hey Ans,” I sigh, peering up at the menu as if I haven’t read it a million times. “Banana nut muffin, pumpkin spice latte,” I tell her, still eyeing the menu.

She punches the items into the register and hands me the terminal, letting me swipe my card. For the first time in years—literal years—I swipe my card with ease. I know it won’t put me in the hole, and I know I’m not trading this coffee and muffin for a future meal. For now, and for the foreseeable future, I can have both without a hard choice.

And I have Big Daddy to thank for that.

My stomach lurches at the thought, and I nearly jump five feet in the air when Brielle sidles up to me at the counter, her phone pressed to her ear.

“Yes, Dad, I got the groceries.” She rolls her eyes at me playfully, and I look away, not rolling them back the way I usually do because I’m utterly terrified Brielle will be able to read BACKSTABBER in my them. “That was like two days ago, Dad. Chill. I’ve been busy at the apprenticeship. You know, at the porn company I work for.”

Ansley passes me a plate with my muffin on it, and I feign starvation, beelining for our table. Quickly, I work on peeling the paper from the muffin, and Brielle follows me back to the table, eyeing me as she continues her chat with Big Daddy.

“Yeah, I said I will.” She sighs. “Yes, Dad, I will.”

She ends the call and I avoid her gaze, instead opting to stare down the top of my muffin as I shovel chunks into my mouth. If my mouth is full, I have no possible way to look or feel awkward.

As soon as I swallow my bite, Brielle reaches out, grabbing my wrist. “Hey, you’re being weird. Are you okay?”

Ansley approaches with my latte and Brielle’s coffee, smiling as she passes them to us. “Thanks, Ans.”

She smiles and disappears, and for the first time in my life, I wish she would have lingered and made small talk.

“I’m fine,” I assure Brielle, taking another bite of muffin. With my mouth stuffed I ask, “How’s it going at Crave?”

She eyes me suspiciously, her brows cinching together as lines of disbelief curve her forehead. “Do you need to borrow money again? You haven’t asked in a while but you know you can always ask, right?”

I nod. “I’m good. Just… tired. And feel kind of off today,” I admit, because that is a truth I can tell. I do feel strange today. Getting five thousand dollars randomly from your best friend’s hot dad will put you in a strange headspace. So will being violently attracted to him.

“I get that,” she says before launching into all the details about her apprenticeship at Crave & Cure. We’re both graduate school students, with me finishing my master’s in graphic design, and Brielle working toward her master’s in film and media studies. Not long ago, Brielle stopped working on documentaries about trees (yawn) in favor of an apprenticeship with a successful director. She was assigned to Augustus Moore, the top and most respected adult film movie director in the industry.

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