Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

I’d made my excuses because I didn’t have the money or the clothes to come along. No fake ID, no cash for the cover charge, nothing for drinks or a cab after. My roommate used the word broke as a synonym for I have to stop shopping or my dad will get mad at me. My version of broke meant I hadn’t been able to buy cough syrup two weeks before. I’d used the lingering sniffle as my excuse to stay behind.

I’d waved everyone off, told them to have fun, and expected to be the only girl around that night. But after the floor had grown quiet, I’d run into Maria in the bathroom.

She was dressed in a gold sequin shift dress that ended halfway up her long, toned thighs. Her eyes were smoky-dark, a triumph of makeup artistry that belonged in an ad in some magazine redolent of perfume samples. A black alligator clutch sat on the counter.

She looked ready to take the world by storm. Instead, she was standing in front of the mirror, yanking off false eyelashes.

She froze when I came in, her eyes meeting mine briefly in the mirror.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She looked away. “Fine.”

“Are you sure? You’re not with everyone else for girls’ night out. Are you sick?”

Her lips thinned. “According to Tammy, I can’t come because I’m not a girl.”

She yanked off the other eyelash. She didn’t meet my eyes again, but I could see her shoulder blades tense. The silence lengthened, and finally, I said the first thing that came to mind. Which, thankfully, was: “Fuck that.”

Maria paused. Our reflections locked eyes. Slowly, she smiled. “I know, right? What’s your deal?”

And maybe it’s because I wanted to like her. But for the first time that night, I told someone the truth. By the end of the evening, we’d bonded over the fact that we were the only ones around, over the fact that we were part of the vast sisterhood of women who can’t be googled because we have names so common that even the most dogged searcher would have to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of results before finding us. We’d made a hundred little connections.

She’s the only person in the world I can imagine walking with, telling this tale to. She listens. She believes me. She doesn’t say that I’m full of shit when I say that Blake says he met me in September, even though I don’t remember him.

“What do you think is going on with him?” she asks when I’ve finished my explanation.

“I don’t know. Honestly, though, have you heard anything about Adam Reynolds that makes you think he’d be a good father? Maybe this is Blake’s way of chewing his leg off to escape.”

Maria bites her lip. “I don’t know. Have you seen them together?”

The sun is almost gone and I rub my hands together for warmth. And that’s when I finally admit the truth.

“Can we not talk about that? I don’t want to care.”

“About his reasons?”

“About him.” I swallow. “There’s an attraction.” I don’t look at her. “I can’t ignore that. But no matter what he says, we can’t really trade lives. He can work my hours, pay my rent, and live in our garage. But when my parents need money, he won’t be the one who bleeds. He won’t understand, not ever, and he thinks he can just pay money and make it happen. So I can’t let myself care about him.”

“Oh, honey,” Maria says.

“That’s what I have to remember. No matter how it looks, there’s a wall between us. He won’t remember; he doesn’t even know it’s there. Please. I don’t want to speculate about what makes him tick. I don’t want to find out.”

6.

TINA

I refuse to be nervous as I enter the restaurant with Blake on Saturday.

It doesn’t help that he primed me on the way down with some less-than-reassuring conversation.

“How good an actor are you?” he asked as we crossed the bridge.

“Not very?” I frown. “I mostly just shut up or say what I’m thinking. I’m not really good at anything else.”

“All righty then,” he says. “Then I won’t tell you what’s coming. Just go with the flow, okay?”

My dose of nerves is certainly not helped by the fact that Maria made her own contributions last night. “Oh, watch this,” she told me, and I vanished down the rabbit hole of Adam Reynolds YouTube videos. He may be worth sixty-six billion dollars, according to Forbes, but apparently he is not what one would call a kind, courteous man. Quite the opposite.

And it certainly doesn’t help that Blake takes my hand as he opens the restaurant door. He does it so casually that I can pretend that it doesn’t mean anything, that he’s just a friend who has locked palms with me. I can pretend that I’m not aware of his warmth, that when his fingers intertwine with mine, I don’t feel a rush of heat.

But I do.

The place he’s taken me seems surprisingly low-key for a man as powerful as Adam Reynolds. It’s a hole-in-the-wall Indian place, with little plastic jars of tamarind sauce and mint chutney sitting on white faux-tablecloths. I was expecting something more upscale, but I guess even billionaires like good food. It smells amazing in here.