her?”
She had the grace to flinch. “Sorry. It’s just, I tell her everything. Always have. And if I had thought for a second she’d be stupid enough to repeat it, I wouldn’t have.”
I figured that wasn’t quite the truth based on Tamara’s laugh. She reminded me of Jenna in a way. She seemingly didn’t care about anyone else’s opinions of her. And oh… to be that confident and self-assured. Perhaps then I wouldn’t still be simmering in embarrassment over how I handled myself today.
I’d think about me later. I’d have a whole night of it, probably. Maybe a weekend. Turning back to Tamara, I asked, “What are you studying?”
“Elementary education. So I can go back to where I came from someday and teach all those bratty shits about the real world.”
She winked and I laughed.
“What about you?”
“I don’t know.” I picked at the green peppers.
“You got time.”
She shrugged like it was so simple.
“I’m twenty-six.”
“So?” She took a bite of her enormous taco and chewed. Once she swallowed she asked, “Who says you have to have your future figured by a certain age?”
Angie elbowed me. “See? Told you my friends were awesome.”
“Yeah, you did.”
I chewed on Tamara’s words while I finished my dinner and requested a refill on my virgin daiquiri. Josiah and his friends busted out in laughs while most of the girls rolled their eyes at the guys’ loud mouths and ridiculous behavior.
“Animals,” Angie muttered at one point. “You can’t take them in public anywhere.”
“Yo, Ang!”
“What Josiah?”
“The rest of my boys are coming in a few. We almost done here?”
“Just need the checks,” she called back.
I sat back in my seat. While dinner had been fun, exhaustion was starting to settle in. I had issues to deal with and putting them off wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“Hey. Do you mind if I pass on this one?” I asked Angie.
“Why? You’re not having a fun?”
I scanned the table. It was the rowdiest night I’d had since I could remember. “No. I had a blast. I’m just tired.”
“Yeah. That’s cool. I can drop you off when we’re done here and meet up with them after.”
She’d done enough for me. Offered me a friendship when no one else would talk to me. Let me spend Thanksgiving with her family. “It’s okay,” I said. “I can order an Uber.”
Hell, I was close enough to home I could probably walk it, except it was so damn cold outside.
I shoved my hands into my coat and bounced on my toes, trying to keep myself warm.
Tamara’s words still rang in my ears. It might not be necessary to have my entire life figured out by a certain age, but it was certainly time to grow the hell up and stop living in the past. It was time to pull my head out of my ass and stop thinking the sky was going to fall every single time there was a hitch in the road. It was definitely time I started facing the present while figuring out my future.
A warm arm fell to my shoulders, quickly followed by the scent of pine and man. “You sure you can’t come hang with us beautiful?” Josiah asked.
I shoved him away. “You do not have that kind of game with me, Jo-Jo,” I teased him, using the nickname his little siblings used for him.
He playfully shoved me back as the sound of a vehicle without a muffler pulled up.
Instantly, my blood turned to ice. In slow motion, I focused on the rims, the color, that top I’d seen opened to the skies not that long ago… the sound it made as it peeled away from my old apartment.
I knew that car.
Worse, I knew the guy who’d jumped into the back of it after pressing his body to mine, beating me, and shoving me to the ground. A tremor rolled through me.
“Hey. You okay?” Josiah asked. I startled at his voice as his brown eyes narrowed on me.
“Fine,” I croaked. I’d lost my voice.
I stepped back. The chill in the air seeped through my coat, sending ice straight to my bones.
“These are your friends?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the car. Next to me, Josiah’s gaze narrowed farther.
“Yeah. They’re my boys. Or the rest of them. What’s wrong?”
I didn’t recognize the driver, and while there were other people in that car, that didn’t mean Manny was.
“I need to go.”
“Oh no. Not with that look on your face,” Josiah said. He grabbed my hand and waved his other one in the