Page 119 of Enforcer

Half of me knows she’s just concerned, and the other half wonders why she cares. This is why I only have Brynne as a friend. My commitment issues run deep and wide.

Brynne forced herself into my life and didn’t give me an option other than to get used to her. I don’t think Charlene would do that. So I decide she’s not a threat.

“I’m waiting for my best friend to have her baby,” I tell her, forgoing admitting anything about Dante altogether.

The bartender comes and takes our orders, promptly filling our drinks, and I slide cash over for them and the tip. Charlene slides onto a stool at the bar, and for some reason, I follow suit.

“You seem like you’ve got more going on than that,” she says, sipping her Shirley Temple.

I sigh. “Yeah, I do. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Especially since I went through the trouble of filling my lashes before I came out tonight, and I don’t feel like crying all the glue out of them.

“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry. If you ever need to talk, though, I’m here.”

I cock my head at her, seeing her in a new light. Suddenly, she doesn’t seem too strange or meek. She seems…kind.

“Thank you, Charlene. The same goes for you. I’m usually the kind of girl who enjoys silent company if I’m honest. I don’t make a great friend.”

She smiles. “Actually, that’s perfect.” Turning in her chair, she locks her eyes on the television and says nothing.

We spend the rest of the night together at the bar, ignoring one another and drinking until its last call.

We share a cab home, and when I get inside, I’m too drunk to check my phone or cry over my shame.

I climb into bed and drift off, in my makeup and clothes, with my drowned feelings.

Suddenly, I’m thankful for the Charlenes in the world.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

DANTE

“Are you going to text someone on there or just stare at it?” Slate asks as I open my message to Alyssa for the hundredth time in the last hour.

I clear my throat and shove it back into my pocket. “I was just checking something.”

He smiles knowingly, and I hate him for it. “Mm, well, pick your roller back up. This wall isn’t going to paint itself, and if we don’t get it done before Brynne gets home, we’re both dead.”

I grab the long handle on the paint roller brush and run it through the blue paint in the pan he’d filled for me.

“What color is this, anyhow?” I ask him. I connect the roller to the wall, making smooth lines up to the painters’ tape and back down to the baseboards with the overhang of plastic sheeting covering the floors.

“Pacific Blue,” he says, slathering his own wall in the stuff.

“It’s nice,” I say offhandedly.

My mind is too full, and my heart is too torn up to be more present than I am, which isn’t present at all.

“Are you alright?” he asks me as I place the roller back down, having only finished half the wall with a second coat.

“I’m fine, why?” My words are clipped. Even I don’t believe them.

“Yeah, sure, you’re fine, and I’m the King of England.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk abouther,you mean.”

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