“I know someone,” Six offered.
I looked at my friend.
“I am not, under any circumstances, allowing Bruno to take me as his date,” I said. “Do you know how painful that would be?”
And it wouldn’t be painful because I had any feelings for Bruno whatsoever.
It would be painful because Bruno and I did not get along.
A long time ago, Bruno had been Six’s best friend.
A long time ago, Bruno had dropped Six like a hot potato because of something her dad had instructed him to do.
A long time ago, my friend had suffered a blow that she’d barely come out of.
When I’d met her years later, she’d been a shell of the person that she was now.
She’d been given up on by everyone.
Everyone except for me and her best friend, Wyett.
“You know, you never used to be like this when I first met you.” Six rolled her eyes. “So freakin’ stubborn.”
“She also had to rely on our father to pay for her shit,” Danny said. “She had to remain nice and cordial or she didn’t get money for tampons since he said, and I quote, that those weren’t a necessity.”
Like I had any choice at freakin’ all that I had a period or not.
“Your father is a douche canoe,” Six said. “And he didn’t send her any money at all. Did you know that in the final year of school, Crockett had to buy all of her clothes at a second-hand shop and Goodwill? Because your daddy dearest, who always gave y’all everything, wasn’t willing to give her anything?”
Danny’s eyes came to me.
I winced.
I shouldn’t have told Six that.
A couple of weeks ago, when the Rockett incident had happened, I’d told her all about my dad over one drunken night.
And then, from there on, I found myself with the ultimate protector in a way only Six could manage.
“I don’t think that Melody will do anything,” Belinda finally said. “But, Crockett, if you wouldn’t mind, I would absolutely love it if you could kind of play ref for me. Just… watch her. Make sure that she doesn’t accidentally knock over our cake.”
That was a very real possibility.
At my graduation from college, Melody had done exactly that.
I’d watched as my cake had fallen to the floor in a messy pile.
It’d been… something.
Something that was just a disappointment, like every other disappointment that came at the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Murphy Archer, II.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” I said honestly.
I wasn’t going to be in the wedding party.
Danny only had two groomsmen, and Belinda had two maids of honor that were sharing the duty.
That meant that I wasn’t needed.
Which wasn’t a big deal.
I kind of liked the idea of not having to get super dolled up.
Being able to wear what I wanted, without wasting the money on a bridesmaid dress, felt great.
That, and I wasn’t too sure that Belinda liked me that much as of yet.
She tolerated me, sure, but she wasn’t super friendly with me either.
Not that I blamed her.
I mean, I knew her just as well as I knew any person I would’ve met off the streets four months ago.
When Danny and I hung out, which wasn’t often due to his work as the vice principal of the local elementary school, Belinda didn’t usually join us.
One reason was because she was always working. She was a doctor that specialized in helping women with infertility. Secondly, because I think she liked to give Danny time to spend with me alone.
At least, that was what I hoped was going on.
Today had honestly been a surprise for me.
They’d called me over on my only day off—Sunday—to try cakes from another of her bakery finalists.
They couldn’t choose.
And, since Six had heard through the grapevine that it was happening, she’d come, too. Just because she wanted cake.
She’d come, which had blown me away.
Which led to right then, discussing what was one of my biggest fears—how my stepmother would act.
Because she was for sure not a fuckin’ nice person.
She was the devil.
“Okay, so what do you think of the chocolate?” Belinda asked, indicating the cake that she was thinking about for the groom’s cake.
So that was what we did for the next hour.
Tried little bites of cake.
It was okay… I could do a way better job if I had the time… it just wasn’t satisfying enough to get the job done.
Which meant, an hour later when we were leaving, I had a hankering for an honest to God piece of cake.
Not a small piece of one.
“So…”
I looked at my brother, waving goodbye to Belinda who stayed inside the house at the table.
When we finally got outside, he stopped me with a worried look on his face.
“Rockett has started running track,” Danny said, looking at me like I might blow at the news.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, trying to sound calm but coming off as anything but. “What’s she running?”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where this was going.
“Is she any good?” Six added to my question. “Because, according to her comment about her ‘mental health’ last time she came around, she needs some sort of stress relief to get rid of all of her assholeness.”
Danny looked at me then, ignoring Six.
“She’s running the eight hundred, and she’s… decent.” He looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes. “You could beat her right now without even training.”
I probably could.
Though I had curves, I was also an experienced runner who ran for fun. Every Tuesday, I ran at the track. Every Monday-Wednesday-Friday I had a semi-decent run of about five miles and cross-trained. Thursdays were my heavy lift days. And I usually took Fridays and Sundays off to recover. On Saturdays, I had a long run that usually consisted of ten to thirteen miles.
I also ran every single half-marathon that I could get my hands on, as well as a few full marathons that took a little more time for me to train for.
But those were getting fewer and further between now that I had to work so much at the store.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I pushed, knowing it was going to be bad.
“Dad hired her one of the best coaches in the country to get her to the Olympics,” Danny said, frowning fiercely.
My mouth… fell open.
There was no other word for it.
I was flabbergasted.
Stunned.
Enraged.
I’d begged. Begged.
I’d begged my father so much to get him to hire me a running coach when I was younger that I was still blue in the face at twenty-six.
To have him hire my sister one, when she was likely shit compared to me—I wasn’t conceited, I was just good at what I did—was a blow to my soul.
“I see,” I said carefully. “I guess I’ll be seeing her at the track.”
Danny’s grin widened.
He knew that he’d lit a fire under me.
He also knew that I wasn’t going to take the blow lying down.
Not anymore, anyway.
Not when my father had already slipped so far down into disgrace that he likely would never pull himself out again.