Page 50 of Minted
“He is hot.” Nikki nods. “I mean, I would never date him, but you totally should.”
“It’s because he’s so hot that I can’t,” I say. “My husband was already too good-looking for me. I always felt bad around him.”
“That’s because he was a bas—”
“Oops,” I say. “We don’t use bad language around here.”
Nikki arches one eyebrow like I’m an idiot.
Ricki glances at her sister. “You know that everyone at school says swear words all day long, right?”
“Everyone at school may do that,” I say. “But swear words can make people feel unsafe, and with my mother gone, I need this to be a safe place.” I realize as I say it that it’s actually true. “I won’t use bad language with you, and you do the same for me, okay?”
Both of them nod.
Which is way better than a few hours ago.
“And look, I’m going with Bentley as a friend, okay?”
“You’re kinda dumb.” But Nikki’s smiling as she disappears into her room this time.
“She’s right.” Ricki slows down and stops in the doorway. “But, like, thanks for dinner and stuff.” She offers me a half-smile, and it feels like a huge win.
All day the next day, I think about ways I could get out of today’s holiday party. It feels like I made a little progress with the girls, and I’m worried it’ll be like a turtle hearing a loud noise if I’m not around tonight. They’ll duck back in their shells and disappear as soon as I let them.
But Jennifer stops by near the end of the day. She glances at my gold dress, hanging on the edge of my window. “You’re ready. Good.”
“You’re coming?”
She shakes her head. “No, not tonight. Kristy and I are actually going to be at the Goldstone party. You’re going with James, and he’s going to talk to Quintano about the charges they brought yesterday against Mr. Clark—we want to handle the PR for that case—and you’re just supposed to make sure we have a presence for our marketing side. Should be an easy night.” She narrows her eyes. “Don’t cut out early.”
“I won’t,” I say.
So far, she’s pretended like she didn’t threaten to fire me, and she’s acted like I never said I’d quit. I suppose that’s about as good as I can expect. She watches me for a beat or two, and I wonder whether she’s going to say something, but she just nods and walks away.
I review the proposal Chump Change has put together for the girls, and I wonder what to do about it. I’m not sure what I can do about it. It’s not like they covered this in the training—what to do when you’re offering money to your foster kid?
I pick up the phone and call Alice.
“Hello?”
“I have a weird question.”
“That’s not a surprise.” She snorts. “If I had a dime for every weird question foster parents called me with. . .”
“You’re chipper.”
“You haven’t called to get rid of them or report that they’ve attacked you.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“More often than you’d imagine.”
“Well, not with these girls. They’re hurting,” I say.
“They lost their mother and managed to hide it,” Alice says. “Did you know that they forged their mother’s name on all of the important documents for months now, doing it all under cover of her being under quarantine for being sick?”
“Where’s their grandma?”
