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I’d plenty of excitement in my life. Losing both of my parents tragically and then my brother, living on the streets of Las Vegas while said brother was off fighting a war that hadn’t yet taken him from me. So, boring suited me just fine. I didn’t go out on my days off from work, just relaxed at home catching up on chores, my favorite television shows and reading trashy romance. Some days it felt as though I would die of boredom but it would be preferable to dying any other way.
But even the work day had to end, and at a little after seven I removed my apron and chef hat, grabbed my bag, and exited through the back of the restaurant. The parking lot wasn’t all that well lit, but I had pepper spray on my keychain and my biggest key clutched between my fingers, a trick all girls from the big city learn early. Or else.
“Yo, Mandy!”
I froze at the sound of my name. Other than the people at Knead, I didn’t know anyone in this city any longer, which meant it was someone I used to know. I turned slowly, ready to pounce if I needed to. Instead I only had to bite back a groan at the sight of my former friend, and I mean that in the loosest definition of the word.
“Krissy.”
She hadn’t changed much in the last decade, a little older with a few gray sprouts, more noticeable because of her shiny black hair. She had a few fine lines around her pale blue eyes and she was thinner than she used to be, but otherwise she looked exactly the same.
“I heard you were back.”
“I am.”
I left this place ten years ago and she was a big part of the reason why. I did plenty of shit I wasn’t proud of back then, all in the name of survival, and I didn’t regret it. For me though, it couldn’t go on forever. Using a fake I.D. in a city like this was asking for trouble. And card counting? Plenty of people had ended up buried in the desert for that particular sin. I had a knack for counting cards even as a teenager, and Krissy was quick to pick up on it and capitalize on it. She finagled a way to get me the I.D. so we could take the casinos for enough cash to make it from one month to the next.
“How’ve you been?” She looked at me now, the same way she did when I was sixteen and alone for the first time in my life. Like a predator who found the biggest, juiciest target just lying around.
“I’m good, Krissy. You?”
“Better now that you’re back. I missed you.”
I snorted my disbelief at that. “Right. What’s this about?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t. We were useful to each other, but that’s it. If you leave, you’re dead to me. Remember?” She’d said those words to me the night before I put this fucking town in my rear view. Krissy wanted to scam and scheme forever. Not me. I wanted more out of life.
She brushed the words away with a dismissive flip of her hand. “I was upset.” She smiled in the way she used to do that I’d always mistook for care. It was plain old manipulation. “How long have you been back?”
“A while.”
“You weren’t going to look me up?”
“No.”
I’d hopped on a bus that took me all the way to the other side of the country but I’d only gotten as far as Colorado before I realized Krissy wasn’t my friend. And had never been my friend.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I found you because –”
I held up a hand. “You can stop right there. I didn’t come back for you or for that and I’m not doing it, so whatever you’re thinking you better find someone else.” I walked away, still staring at Krissy because I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her scrawny ass.
“It’s like that now?”
I nodded and her friendly smile hardened. “I need your help.”
“I can’t help you.”
“You can,” she insisted.
“Fine, then I won’t.” She glared at me and walked away. I had a feeling, though, it wouldn’t be the last I saw of the woman who taught me that no one could be trusted.
By the time I made it back to the shithole apartment I rented, I was in a bad mood and ready to fight someone. Anyone. I hated seeing Krissy again, reminding me of who I used to be. More importantly, of how stupid and naïve I used to be. Never again.
“Ugh!” I said out loud to the closet as I kicked off my shoes. I hated that seeing her brought up all those memories and emotions. Feelings I’d worked hard to bury ever since a certain blue-eyed biker reminded me why feelings were total bullshit.
I made a sub and killed three beers while I binge-watched TV until I passed out on the sofa. I’d nearly made it a full night without thinking about Ammo.
