“We’re having to cut back. Both hours and positions. I’ve got some hours for you through the end of the month, but then…” Bian looked away at a display of cereal boxes, not meeting my eyes. “You’re the most recent hire.”
“Yeah.” First in, first out. I got it. This wasn’t my first time losing out due to not having seniority somewhere. And the manager was a nice enough woman—twenty years’ experience at the store, and still able to be patient when I didn’t know where things went at first. “Listen, don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out.”
I was less and less sure about that, and when I collapsed across my bed at seven thirty that morning, all I could see was my duffel at the foot of the bed. That ticket. It could be a few hundred to try to get another rental situation, or my last, best hope of actually turning my luck around. I tried to picture winning, being handed the check, and all I could feel was relief as I counted zeroes. And if I got on the pro tour, there would be more checks like that—enough to buy a future, one win at a time.
Maybe, just maybe, the road trip wasn’t the worst idea, especially if it delivered me to a better place.
Chapter Four
Alden
“You’re so beautiful.” I stroked Emma’s golden head, reveling in her presence, drinking in her calm acceptance. She was easily one of the highlights of my day, which said a lot about the state of my life right then.
“I’m pretty sure you came to see the dog and not us, didn’t you?” my mom asked from the kitchen doorway.
“I came to see you guys too,” I protested from my spot at the bottom of the staircase where I’d been brushing Emma. My hand tightened around the brush because I was totally guilty. Knowing Emma had been counting on our weekly Saturday run while the moms made brunch had gotten me up and out of bed, much more so than the thought of French toast casserole or turkey sausage. Or the grilling I knew was coming.
“Well, the food is ready. And no, you can’t take yours back with you.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad.” Two weeks ago, however, I had done exactly that, claiming the need to make a phone call and grabbing my waffles on the trek back to the carriage house behind my moms’ Victorian, where I currently lived. I supposed I couldn’t do the same trick again. I knelt for one last pat for Emma. “Who wants a treat?”
“You spoil her.”
“She deserves it.” And she really did. I might live in the backyard, but my visits to the main house had been irregular at best this last year—all part of a losing effort to distance myself from the pressure my moms had been exerting. Also, the dog had put up with my anxiety over the last year far better than either of my moms. That morning, she’d eagerly done an extra lap around the pond while I continued to puzzle out what I was going to do about my ticket.
I wish I knew for certain whether Conrad was going to bail. That would make everything easier. I did not want to spend days on end in a car with someone who made no secret of not liking me, even though he got along with almost everyone else. Something about the two of us was like mixing Diet Coke and Mentos—guaranteed instant eruption. I wasn’t blameless either. I knew I had a tendency to bristle at all his teasing. Just as I retreated to my carriage house to avoid uncomfortable encounters with my moms, I retreated to the relative safety of the game when around the rest of the Gamer Grandpa crew, its rules and requirements so much more reassuring than the complexities of social interactions.
And okay, part of me wouldn’t object to being smashed in a back seat with someone who looked and smelled as good as Conrad did, but that part of me was not in charge of making important life decisions, and I’d spent over two years trying very hard not to notice Conrad in that way. I wasn’t about to start crushing on someone who hated me now.
And if nothing else, I knew myself. I didn’t travel well. My social awkwardness tended to worsen when I got anxious—something that new and uncomfortable situations often triggered to begin with. Summer camps and field trips had been misery for me growing up, and even now as an adult, day trips to local conventions could be stressful. And Vegas would be an entirely different beast.
Yet none of that stopped me from wanting to go, to play, to win. Badly.
After giving Emma her treat, I followed my mom into the breakfast nook where Mimi, my other mother, was setting out the food on the colorful stoneware she collected. Mimi—whose given name was Judith—had been a part of our family since I was six, and in many ways, I related better to her than to my bio mother. Actually, I looked more like her too—shorter, dark hair, thin build—and teachers frequently mixed up who was related to whom and how. I didn’t care. I loved them both, even as they drove me to the brink sometimes, especially lately. My bio mom was taller, statuesque, with hair she kept highlighted, built more like an aging starlet than the renowned neurologist she actually was. She took the seat next to Mimi, leaving me to sit across from them, a double firing squad of expectations.