Madam LeFrey hadn't been lying when she'd said she'd given me my hope back. For ten years, I'd blindly yearned for all these things, things I wasn't even sure I wanted. A wife? Children? That wasn't really my style, but I'd still craved them with every breath I had because I'd craved the way I'd felt in those glimpses. I craved the rush of love, the pride of accomplishment, the tenderness of being adored by others, of finally having somewhere and someone to belong to. And now . . . now there was nothing. No love, no happiness, no satisfaction.
My hands began to shake and I squeezed my eyes closed. I had gotten by for a full decade, banking on the mere hope that maybe those stupid glimpses might come true. I'd kept my nose clean, which was no small feat where I came from. It took a goddamn lot of effort to be good when you lived where I'd lived, where everyone around you cheated and stole to get ahead. It would've been so easy to follow that path. But I wanted to be a good person, a person who would eventually deserve my Tinker Bell.
Except there was no way in hell I'd ever be near good enough for that rich, pampered girl I'd seen on Facebook. Not that it mattered. She already had someone else. And the fucking prick had put a baby in her; he'd put Skylar in her.
My Skylar.
Throat closing over, I lifted my face to bump the back of my head against the wall. After concentrating on pushing air through my lungs, which beat the nausea away, I crawled back to my feet and fished my wet shirt out of the sink, soaking my hair when I slopped it on.
I had a shift to begin and an auction to win. My happily fucking ever after certainly wasn't going to come to me, so I guess I'd have to keep working my ass off to make up one of my own.
Chapter 8
EVA
"Okay, so I know I should totally be working on my final World Masterpieces essay tonight, but ugh, I'm too brain-dead." Reese plopped onto the couch beside me. "Let's watch a movie instead."
Leaning across me where I was working on my newest craft project to make a diaper holder to hang from my crib, she snagged the remote. "So what're you in the mood for? Jake Gyllenhaal, Channing Tatum, or Zac Efron? I'm voting for Zac since he looks the most like Mason."
Wrinkling my nose, I paused on the chunk of fabric I was hacking away at with a pair of scissors. "Mason looks nothing like Zac."
"Excuse me? They're both hot. That's close enough." Settling herself down, Reese tossed her legs over the armrest and used what little space was left of my lap as a pillow. I totally envied her for being so flexible. Someday, I'd be able to move like that again too . . . as soon as I got this extra thirty pounds off my waistline.
"They still look nothing alike." I went back to chopping, giving the fabric a ragged, fringed look.
"Fine. Then which actor do you think Mason most resembles?"
Ugh. I didn't care who Mason looked like. Ever since she'd gotten engaged? Reese had been even more annoyingly in love with him than usual. It was beginning to drive me batty.
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe a young Tom Welling, Tyler Hoechlin, or ooh . . . Danny off Baby Daddy."
"God, yes. Danny is hot. Mason could definitely be a Danny."
"I wonder what his real name is," I pondered aloud. "Danny, I mean." Poor guy probably got tired of people calling him Danny when he was actually someone else.
"Who cares," Reese announced. "He's hot, that's all I know. Though he seriously needs more shirtless scenes on the show."
Finished with my cutting task, I set the cloth and scissors in the bag beside me and snorted. "He's shirtless in, like, every episode."
"I know." Reese aimed the remote at the television and started flipping through channels. "It's totally not shirtless enough."
With a laugh, I put my project on hold for a while so I could enjoy this quality time with my bestie. Lifting a chunk of her dark hair and beginning to braid it, I realized that soon we wouldn't have these moments together anymore. She'd be married to Mason, and I'd have Skylar. We were headed in entirely different directions. Better, but different directions. All the same, I'd miss the hell out of her.
"Hey, what about this one?" Having found a movie on Amazon Prime, Reese waved her remote at the television screen to gain my attention.
I lifted my face only to frown. "That doesn't have Jake, Channing, or Zac in it."
"But it's got Chris Hemsworth. So . . . same thing. We're watching it."
"Okay, Sweet Pea," I agreed, using the name Mason called her. "Whatever my adorable, precious bride-to-be wants."
But as soon as she pressed play, her cell phone rang.
Reese leapt off me with the agility only a non-pregnant girl could accomplish and jogged into the kitchen for her phone. "It's Mason," she called, only to answer with a low, seductive, "Hey, most handsome man in the world. How're you doing?"
After listening for a moment, she paused and sent me a significant glance. "Oh, he does, does he?" An ornery grin spread across her face. "Well, sure. Eva and I would just love to deliver Pick a new shirt."
At that name, I sat up straighter, paying rapt attention as my blood raced with interest.
Reese met my gaze, and arched an eyebrow as she kept talking into the phone. "'Kay. Sure. Love you too. Bye." When she disconnected, her smile was a little too smug. "Well, well, well."