to fight a shiver with another frostbitten breeze. “Antony just came back. I didn’t want to get into it, so—” She shrugged. “I left.”
At that, both Cassie’s breath and fight fled. The last gift Star and her sisters should be getting for the holidays was a crusty, sporadically violent, drug-abusive stepdad back in their living room. Cassie would know; she’d been around for the sorry details the last time he landed in jail. “Last I checked, he wasn’t allowed to be in the same three-hundred-foot radius as you. Or your sisters.”
Star laughed without smiling. “Yeah, well, last I checked, he wasn’t much into playing by the rules.”
“Let me make some calls. You can stay with me tonight—”
“No, don’t do that,” Star said quickly. “He said he’s moving on this week. We’re staying with Ershanna until he goes.” Star paused, then pointed a finger at her. “I’m calling confidentiality on this, Miss C. You can’t tell. You’d only make it worse.”
“I think we should—”
Star glared.
“But—”
Star glared harder.
Cassie clenched her jaw. “Fine.”
Star nodded and put her finger back into her jeans pocket as though holstering it. Then she involuntarily quaked in the cold.
Cassie put an arm around the girl’s shoulder. “But I do want to hear that he’s gone by Sunday, all right? I’m going to be blowing up your phone the next few days until you confirm that.”
“Yeah. I know. I already blocked your number.” Star gave a mild smile beneath Cassie’s downy wing, and together they spun toward the double doors.
A blast of hot air greeted them from the radiator. The entrance hall was empty, only a few voices coming from the game room. It wasn’t surprising. Girls Haven always emptied out during the holidays. Those who showed up did so because they either had no other option or were loyal to the Haven. Star, the special case, came for both.
Together they walked down the hall. It smelled of bleach and microwaved popcorn. To be fair, it always smelled of bleach and microwaved popcorn.
“So? What’d’ya say?” At the last second Star slipped past Cassie into her office and dropped into Cassie’s rolling chair. She spun it in a circle before putting her hands on the keyboard.
Cassie slung her purse onto the hook behind the door. “What do I say to what? You being in my seat? Move.”
A gleeful scream echoed down the hall, and a second later a girl grabbed the door frame like a life raft before two others popped up behind her. Whatever game they’d been playing was swiftly abandoned, the girls lured in by the sight and sound of fresh gossip.
“What are ya doin’?” A suspicious tone lilted Bailey’s voice as she pushed her hair from her eyes and strolled in.
“We’re setting Miss C up on hotornot.com,” Star replied.
Cassie raised her voice. “It’s not hotornot.com,” she said, nudging Star out of her chair.
Still, in a matter of seconds the girls crouched around Cassie and the computer, breathing the same twelve inches of air despite the two hundred square feet of unoccupied, perfectly good office space. Through the window, flakes started to dust the road as a song played from one of the girl’s phones. Cassie couldn’t hear the words but recognized the unsavory tune enough to double tap an icon on her desktop. Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” filled the room.
All four girls moaned.
Cam spoke, the song from her phone still playing somewhere within her cheetah-print jeggings. “This song definitely doesn’t make me feel so young. I feel a hundred and five listening to this cra—”
“Crazy awesome mix, Miss C,” Star said. She threw two thumbs up. “It’s downright inspirational.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. Clearly Star was more interested in spending the next hour searching for suitors than listening to another of Cassie’s soapboxes on self-respect and teen pregnancy.
“Knock-knock.” Bree’s words matched the rapping on the open door. Her fire-red hair fell to her waist in a wet braid, the weave so thick one could’ve trusted it to rappel down a burning building. She held up two gas-station coffees. “I came as fast as I could. Left a trail of gear all the way to my car.” She handed the coffee to Cam, who handed it to Bailey, who bypassed Star and gave it directly to Cassie.
Bree pushed a couple of stacks of papers aside and took a seat on Cassie’s desk.
Cassie huffed and waved a hand around the room. “All right, guys. There are, like, five other chairs here if you haven’t noticed.”