can be kind of a cold bitch sometimes, I don’t keep too many friends.
And yet here I am making time for a friend for coffee. Between helping Lauren the other day and now worrying over Jenna, I can’t help but wonder if August has softened me up.
I read over his last text and smile.
August: I miss you.
He’d sent it at some point during the day. I know he’s been swamped with court cases. The fact that he took time out to not only miss me but tell me about it means more than he’ll ever know.
I climb out of my car and rush inside the coffee shop. In the corner, Jenna sits looking unsure of herself. She’s pretty in a simple sort of way. Where Callie is the cute, rich cheerleader type, Jenna has natural beauty. Fire burns behind her eyes. For what, I don’t know. I just see determination glinting behind her sadness and frowns. She’s a foster kid with crappy clothes and no one who cares. I can just relate to her more than Callie right now.
Jenna is lost. I’m a little lost too.
She smiles at me and I can’t help but grin at her. A guy in a business suit blatantly checks my tits out as I walk toward the counter. I can’t help but smirk knowing if August were here, the guy wouldn’t have the balls to look at me. August has this aggressive aura that ripples from him. Protective and possessive. I love that about him. I mean, it makes him sort of an asshole sometimes, but he’s my asshole.
I order a couple of coffees and then fix one of them up with cream and sugar for her since I seriously doubt she loves black, soulless coffee like me. Once I have hers a nice golden brown, I make my way over to her and sit down.
“Wow,” I tell her as I sit and pass her the coffee. “You should smile a little more often. I didn’t know you even could.”
She sticks her tongue out at me. “Brat.”
“There’s the girl I fell in love with,” I tease.
We spend the next half hour chatting. I learn that she’s in a new foster home that she actually likes, but what has her panties in a bunch is one of the other foster girls. Cora. She loves little Cora and doesn’t want to be separated from her when she turns eighteen soon. It’s heartbreaking to listen to her talk about her, tears freely streaming down her cheeks.
As she goes on, I learn she has a major crush on her social worker, Enzo. And from the sounds of it, he’s hot for her too. She doesn’t need that complication in her life, but it seems like one she’s actually happy to have.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to provide for Cora,” she tells me finally, her eyes no longer teary but fierce.
The fire.
It’s for Cora.
I find it really shitty that the one person who loves Cora the most won’t be considered fit by the system to have her. My mind jumbles at all the Ts she’ll have to cross and all the Is she’ll have to dot just to make that little girl hers. It’s a good, solid reminder of why I want to study law. I want to help people who need someone strong and on their team to fight for them. Cases like Jenna and Cora are ones I would take in a heartbeat.
“My boyfriend’s an attorney. If you want, I’ll ask him if he can help you.” I smile at her. August will do it. He’ll see their sad story and want to help. He’s a good man like that.
“Really?” she shrieks, putting Callie’s cheerleader lungs to shame. Suit guy nearby stops looking at my tits long enough to shoot her a disgusted look. “I’d be so thankful.”
“No problem. Now tell me more about this daddy of yours,” I urge. “You’re like a walking Maury Povich show.”
We chat for a little while longer as she spills more of the shit she’s weighed down with it. Some of it makes me worry for her, but that fire in her eyes tells me she’ll be okay in the end. She just needs a friend. Like me.
“You know,” she says with another pretty smile, “you have a warm heart for an ice queen.”
I shoot her a wicked grin. “Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone my secret.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Yours are safe with me too.”
August
It’s sad watching them grow apart.