Page 12 of Give Me Love

Claire’s parents are wealthy, and suffocating. They own a nice piece of land in the country.

She grew up riding four-wheelers and mud bogging. Having dogs around her and sitting shotgun in some boy’s truck while they rode dirt roads.

I grew up poor and unwanted.

Two totally different lives but in search of the same thing.

Freedom.

Her parents put her through culinary school, which she just graduated from not too long ago. Late bloomer because my best girl has a past, too, and his name is Cain.

Cain liked to hit women and control their every move. Kinda like my stepdad… actually, just like him.

But one afternoon after a beating that almost left her unable to use her sense of smell anymore, she called me from the hospital.

I was clueless and horrified. She’d hid it well over the several weeks it was going on. I should have known something was up because she kept making excuses not to see me.

I was hurt that my best friend was going through that and didn’t tell me. After she got out, we packed up everything she cared about in my little Honda.

She moved into my two-bedroom apartment. She got a restraining order, pressed charges against his ass, and enrolled in college a year later. Then I met Mark and we all know how that ended.

“Find anything?” I ask, wiping the sticky ice cream from the side of my hand.

“No, but I did get a flyer in my mailbox this morning. There’s a new restaurant opening up not too far from here. They’re looking for a chef.” She holds up the flyer.

“Oh, yeah?”

She grabs her phone from the table. “I looked it up,” she says, handing me her phone.

“Looks like a cool place.” I swipe through the photos.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“You going to apply?”

“Why not?” She runs her fingers through her sandy brown hair and takes a bite of her ice cream. “Maybe they’ll be desperate and hire me.”

I roll my eyes. “They wouldn’t have to be desperate, crazy girl.” I read over the job description. “You’re well qualified.”

Her right shoulder shrugs. “I guess. We’ll see.”

I trade out her phone for her coffee cup and take a sip, immediately making a face. “Jesus, woman. Where are the cream and sugar?”

She sighs. “Kathrine, I told you I was cutting back last week. Remember?”

“Nooo. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have tried that sad excuse for a coffee.” I frown. “That’s just bitter muddy water.”

I’m given a laugh. “It isn’t the greatest, that’s for sure.”

“So, you wanna go out this weekend?” I flick a piece of lint off my apron.

She looks up from her red marker circling. “Go out?”

“Yeah.”

“You,” she points her marker at me, “Kathrine Harrison, the girl who wouldn’t hardly leave the house for a month because of Mark’s dumb ass?”

I turn my lip up as my face tightens. “Let’s move on from him. I want to focus on a new future.”

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