Page 19 of Sweeter

Anna scoffs. “Knock a dollar off the next lesson and we’ll call it even. What’s with the tears? Is it Hat Boy?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” Anna rubs soothing circles into my back. “Come on, let’s go have a coffee.”

She leads me to the studio kitchen and makes us an instant coffee and Tia a powdered hot chocolate. Tia reappears freshly scrubbed, and Anna hands her phone. “You watch Peppa Pig and nothing else.”

“Okay!” Tia crams her headphones into her ears and is instantly lost to the show.

“Easy-peasy.” Anna turns to me. “So, let’s hear it. And no skipping the sexy stuff.”

I look at Tia. “Can she hear us…?”

Anna smiles. “Tia Rose, if you look at me, you can eat ice cream for the rest of the week.”

Tia doesn’t so much as blink.

“See?” Anna says. “Hat Boy story. Go.”

I tell her the story, not that there’s much to tell. Will and I met, he fixed my car, blew my mind in bed and sent me a ridiculous amount of money via the internet, so I ended it. The entire affair took less than twenty-four hours yet I’m still moping around almost two weeks later, because I’m a chump.

“How much money?” Anna asks.

When I tell her, she grips my arm like it’s a climbing wall. “Honey, how is this a problem?”

“Because I didn’t want money to be a part of our…whatever it was, and he just swung his big tech bro dick onto the table and gave it to me anyway!”

“Right…” Anna’s expression is far too dreamy for my liking.

“It’s not romantic! It’s presumptuous and gross. Where does he get off thinking I need his help?”

My new friend raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “I’m sorry, were you not propping up the bar next to me at that group catfishing?”

“That was different! Henry was an idea. This isreal.”

“Exactly! It’s the jackpot! You get a guy you want to be withanda way to make ends meet.” Anna reaches forward and pulls a stray thread from my Milky Way T-shirt. “Don’t tell me you don’t need the cash.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” On instinct, we both look at Tia. She’s giggling at the cartoon on Anna’s phone, oblivious to her mom’s financial worries. I’ve discounted her lessons as much as the studio will allow, but I’m sure the thirty dollars could go to a million other places in Anna’s life, just like it could in mine. Except now I have a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of backup in my PayPal account.

“It’s not fair,” I say. “I don’t need Will’s moneythatbadly.”

“You offering it to me?”

“You’d take it?”

Anna swats my side. “Of course, I would! But I want you to stop being stupid and keep it, instead.”

“But it makes me feel so inadequate!”

“Why? That money is a gift from someone who admires your work and wants to support you...and also maybe have you suck his dick, which you’re into. So what’s wrong exactly?”

I squirm under her gaze. “Nothing. I guess I just didn’t want my story to be some Cinderella cliché where I get rescued by a hot guy. I wanted to make it as an artist on my own terms.”

“Too fuckin’ bad!” Anna says cheerily. “Shit happens. Your shit is just Lifetime movie shit. Now stop insulting me and every other broke, single woman on the planet and accept a good thing. No one likes a martyr”

A smile pushes its way onto my face, the first smile since Will walked out of my door, covered in coffee. “It’s that easy? I just…change my mind about Will and the money and everything else and go with the flow?”

“Why not? You like him, don’t you?”

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