Page 1

Chapter 1

I looked at the clock behind the bar for what had to be the hundredth damn time.

11:47.

“Yeah, aight.”

Montae was officially forty-three minutes late.

I should’ve known better than to depend on his ass. Before I came to work, I told him I could catch an Uber home. He was the one swearing up and down I didn’t need to waste my money.

I got you, baby. I’ll be there.

That was Montae’s favorite thing to do—make promises like saying them was the same thing as keeping them. And stupid me, after dealing with his ass long enough to know better, still gave him opportunities to prove me wrong.

Now here I was, damn near midnight, wiping down the same table for the third time because everybody else was gone and my ride was nowhere to be found. The bar looked completely different after closing. During my shift, it stayed loud enough that I could barely hear myself think. Music blasting, glasses clinking, people yelling over each other, somebody always needing another drink or extra ranch. Now the stools were flipped upside down, the liquor bottles had been wiped down, and the only sounds left were Tasha counting the register and the rag squeaking beneath my hand.

I tossed the rag into the bucket and pulled my phone from the back pocket of my jeans.

Three calls. Two texts. No response.

“Bitch ass,” I mumbled, staring at his name on my screen.

I called him again anyway. It rang four times before his voicemail came on, and I hung up before that annoying beep could piss me off any more than I already was.

I wasn’t leaving another message. He knew I was at work. He knew what time I got off. And unless his ass was dead somewhere—and he better not have been because I wasn’t trying to feel guilty for all the shit I was calling him in my head—there wasn’t a good enough reason for him not to answer his phone.

The messed-up part was, this wasn’t even new. Montae could be the sweetest man in the world when he wanted to be. He knew exactly what to say, exactly how to apologize, and exactly how to make me feel like maybe this time would be different. Then, right when I started believing him, he’d pull some shit like this and have me questioning why I kept expecting something from him that he had already shown me he wasn’t consistent enough to give.

“You still waiting on Montae?”

I looked over at Tasha behind the bar. She had a stack of bills spread across the counter and was watching me with that knowing little smirk she always wore whenever Montae's name came up.

“Unfortunately.”

She laughed, shaking her head as she went back to counting the register. “I told you to stop depending on that nigga.”

“And I told you to mind your damn business,” I shot back, slipping my phone into my pocket.

Tasha didn't even bother looking offended. She just lifted another bill from the stack, that smirk spreading wider across her face. “Don’t get mad at me because your man got you sitting up here looking homeless.”

“Fuck you.”

I couldn’t even keep a straight face saying it. Tasha laughed harder, and I shook my head even though I knew she wasn’t wrong. That was probably why she got on my nerves so bad sometimes. She had a habit of saying the shit I was already thinking but didn’t want anybody else saying out loud.

I untied my apron and reached into the pocket before throwing it beneath the counter. The little bit of money inside immediately killed what was left of my smile.

I counted it again.

Fifty dollars.

That was it.

Eight hours on my feet, drunk men asking for my number, somebody spilling Hennessy across an entire table ten minutes before closing, and one woman sending her wings back twice because they were supposedly too crispy.

Fifty fucking dollars.

I stared at the bills in my hand for a few seconds before folding them together. Sometimes I wondered what the hell I was doing with my life. I was twenty-four years old and worked hard enough to stay tired, but somehow never hard enough to get ahead. Every check already belonged to somebody before it even hit my account. Every dollar in my hand had somewhere to go before I could think about spending any of it on myself.