“Tell me about your sister, Lucy. Now.”
Her dark eyes, which are the opposite of her sister’s, look at me before she starts talking. And believe me, Lucy likes to talk.
“She manages some shop,” she says with an eye roll. “Been working with them since straight out of school.” Lucy lies back on her bed and starts to play with her hair, twirling it with her fingers. “She hasn’t dated anyone seriously since high school.” She pushes up on her arms and looks at me. “Is this what you want to know? Who she’s fucking?”
“Who is she fucking?”
“No one. She’s a prude with a vicious mouth.” She scrunches her nose up. “Thea can be mean with her words.” Lucy lies back down and continues to talk while looking at the ceiling. When I get sick of her droning voice, I walk out with ocean blue eyes stuck in my head.
A prude? In that skirt she had on? I don’t see that at all.
No, I see her bent over with that skirt around her waist and my hands in her hair as I fuck her from behind.
Shit.
Shaking my shoulders, I get back to work.
Chapter Three
Theadora
I don’t go back to work that night to get my car, even though that’s where they took me from. I can’t seem to get up enough courage to go back there. Not yet. I stay in my small house all night, and the following day I struggle to get up in the afternoon.
Was it a dream? If it was, it was an unbelievably bad dream.
I call Lucy more than once, five times to be precise, and not once does she call me back.
Does he have her? Is she okay?
We may not be the best of friends, but she is my baby sister. And that has to count for something, right? I mean, I agreed to do whatever it was that man wanted from me to protect her.
For fuck’s sake, what has she gotten herself into?
Throwing off the covers, I get out of bed and quickly pull on whatever I can find, which consists of gray tracksuit pants that have seen better days and a hoodie that’s ten times my size. Putting on my old sneakers and placing my cell in my pocket, I start the trek to Lucy’s place. She’s living with a friend, and it’s not too far from where I live, but we still hardly see each other. Running my hand through my messed-up ponytail, I start to run. She has to be there. If she isn’t, then what happened wasn’t a dream. Which, right now, I am really hoping it is.
But what about my car?
You left it, so you will have to run. But it doesn’t matter, I like running because, for some reason, it calms me.
I slow down when I reach the building where Lucy lives with a roommate. Hers is more open apartments, this one is a block, and Lucy lives on the third floor. There’s an elevator that is always broken, so I know I will have to take the stairs.
Kids are out the front kicking a football as I make my way into her building complex. Glancing at the elevator, the closed sign taped to the front confirms my previous thoughts. Taking the stairs two at a time until I reach the third floor, I walk to her door and notice it’s open. Knocking anyway, Mandy ducks her head around and offers me a smile as she stands there with weed in one hand, a lighter in the other.
“Sis.” Mandy says with a wave.
I hate when Lucy calls me that—you can guarantee it comes with her wanting something.
“Lucy with you?” Mandy looks past me, then starts to roll the joint in her hand.
“You haven’t seen her?”
The joint goes to her lips, and her hair, almost every color of the rainbow, covers her face as she goes to light it. I wonder how often she’s set herself on fire, then shake my head at the thought.
Mandy looks up at me, taking a long drag. “Nope, but when you do, tell her rent is overdue. She can’t keep expecting me to cover for her.”
“You shouldn’t cover for her to begin with, Mandy,” I say.
Mandy shrugs. “Lucy doesn’t have much help. I’m it, you know?”
What a load of shit! Lucy can get anyone to do anything for her. She has that type of charm. She can weave me around her little finger, and I know it. And now look where the fuck that has gotten me. It’s also the reason why I’m here. This little visit isn’t to see my sister. No, it’s to work off her damn debt.
Fucking hell, Lucy! I want to scream the words so loudly, but I hold myself back. Will this sister of mine ever grow the fuck up? She has to. Lucy’s twenty-three, and it’s time for her to work out what she’s going to do with her life.