But I also never stopped glaring, so there was that.
No, Bree was much safer at her grandmother’s home that was a short public transport ride or a brisk walk to the casino.
The night wind changed directions, and I shivered as the late-January breeze sent my silk boxers fluttering, bringing me back to my most immediate problem other than the later hour.
My lack of socially acceptable bottoms.
I crossed back into my apartment and promptly knocked over the trash can, triggering an avalanche ofMona Lisagrimaces as they spilled across the floor.
Lately, there had been too many fucking receipts regarding my ineptitude to ignore.
Bree not confiding in me for the first time in our decade of codependence was the final stamp.
Couple that with our one and only other friend AJ’s sudden disappearance?
AJ—or Ace, as I’d called him for years—had been friends with Bree long before I’d come into the picture, and even though he was an asshole and much too concerned with his image and career, something that he never understood was beyond triggering for me, I never expected him to pull a disappearing act on us.
It was unforgivable.
It was also suspicious as fuck. All of it was.
Shivering from the cold shard of self-pity I’d let in, or maybe the door I’d left open, I pulled out my phone to distract myself before the spiral could go any further.
That path only led to madness. A state I may never return from.
I pulled up my last message thread with Bree and kicked the door shut as I scrolled up, frowning as I read through the blatant and not-so-blatant blow-offs she’d sent me recently.
Me
Wanna sneak into the pool after you’re done tonight? *pool emoji*
Bree
Maybe tomorrow. Gotta get up early to work at Cornucopia tomorrow. They had a few call-outs.
That one tracked. The girl had an issue with saying no to the managers at Fortuna and would cover shifts for anyone—and anywhere, including the casino’s sprawling buffet restaurant, Cornucopia.
I scrolled past a few memes and got to another one:
Me
Wanna go to Willows Friday?
Me
I heard a kid at FU say there was a new show at the motion theater. I think he said it was a skiing one *ski emoji*
I’d low-key volunteered at the casino daycare, Fortuna University—FU for short—for years. I’d been playing a round of retroSuper Mario Broswith a pair of seven-year-olds when theymentioned going to Willows—the honky-tonk-themed casino—that happened to have the best arcade in Mississippi. I’d listened intently when they talked about the motion theater—a room very much like a regular movie theater, but instead of stationary seats, you sat in animatronic pods that coordinated with the short movie—having a new show.
It sounded fucking awesome, and as soon as I’d lost that game and let them shit talk me, I excused myself to text Bree about it.
Bree
Sounds fun, I’ll let you know.
That’d been her response more than a day later, and she had, in fact, not let me know.
My stomach screamed again, just like my instincts did, and as I could only solve one of these problems right now, I rummaged around my room until I found a pair of shorts and a hoodie.
