bed and the money slipped down over my hand. Bullied and cared for. What the hell?
“But…thank you for the money. Forty bucks is too much, though—”
“Forty bucks is nothing. Look, I gotta go. I have this party thing…”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Me too. Well, not a party thing. But I need to go.” It was Thursday night and I had my weekly date with the laundry building. He had a party thing. Awesome.
What the hell are you doing, Annie?
“Will I talk to you later?”
“We’ll see.”
“No. Layla. No ‘we’ll see.’ If you’re done, be done. If you’re not, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Where in that choice is there room for me to be pissed at you?” The words choked me as they came out of my mouth. Was that me, saying that?
His laughter was unexpected, a husky curl that would usually make me close my eyes and shiver a little. “Both choices have that room. Depends on how pissed you are. You can still be mad, baby, and keep doing the things we do.”
I didn’t really know how. How to hold both my anger at him and my desire for him in the same hand. But I knew I didn’t want this to be the end.
“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Good,” he said, the relief in his voice obvious. He’d been worried I would end it.
I hung up and then walked over to my stove, where the foil-wrapped loaf of cornbread sat in between the burners.
How could the Ben I know be the Ben that was in that newspaper?
How can you be the woman lying on a kitchen floor begging your husband not to kill you and the woman having phone sex with a man you don’t know? How did those two realities live side by side inside of me?
That was the truth, wasn’t it? We could all be so many things. Victims and criminals. Sinners and saints. Devious and virtuous.
That was what my mother was really scared of, why she kept us so alone out on that farm. Why she tended that garden of radical fear and suspicion. Because we were editors of our own selves, revealing only what we wanted to show. Being only what served us best.
Trust was an enormous act of faith.
And faith…God, faith was hard.
Who was Ben? Really. Who was I?
And who the fuck was Dylan?
That night really was laundry night, so I loaded up my stuff, including the last book I’d bought at the library, a historical romance that was the second in a series, so I was a little lost, but hooked all the same.
To my surprise, Tiffany was sitting out at her picnic table, the twinkle lights on making the dusty little yard actually seem quite lovely. And she was sitting with a woman who looked just like her but without the bruises and the dark circles under her eyes.
But the real kicker was that Tiffany was laughing. Head thrown back, hand pounding the table—laughing.
“I’m not kidding, Tiff,” the other woman was saying. “He said, ‘I’m the pitcher, he’s the catcher, and there’s nothing gay about that.’ On a blind date! Who says that?”
“Oh, Bebe,” Tiffany sighed, wiping her eyes. “That stuff only happens to you.”
“Well, I’m super lucky then, aren’t I?” Bebe took a swig of some unnaturally green concoction in a plastic Spider-Man cup.
I was actively and positively envious. Of the whole thing. The laughter. The green drink. The fact that Tiffany looked…relaxed. I wanted to look relaxed.
Had I ever looked that way?
Shit. I needed a friend who was not a potential murderer or a stripper with a chip on her shoulder or a man I have phone sex with but know nothing about.
And frankly, not a one of them could I really consider a friend. A friendly acquaintance, a begrudging neighbor, and a man who turned me on like a blowtorch, but to whom I only lied.
Tiffany looked up and caught me staring. I smiled and tried not to look like some kind of weird friendship stalker.
“Hey, Annie,” she said, still relaxed. Still smiling.
“Hey, Tiffany.”
“This is my sister Beatrice.”
Bebe rolled her eyes and kind of half stood up, reaching out her hand. I stepped farther into the backyard to shake it. “Please, call me Bebe.”
“Nice to meet you, Bebe.”
“Come over and have a drink,” Bebe said. “I brought over like ten Buckets-o-Margarita—”
“Buckets-o-Margarita?” Tiffany asked.
“It says that on the label, Tiffany. I’m not making it up. Anyway, I took them from work. So it’s free and there’s lots of