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“Well, then,” I said, hooking my arm through hers and pulling her down the street. It was late, but not so late that the bars wouldn’t be open, and I could seriously use some girl time right about now. “Let’s get a drink and you can fill me in. I got all the time in the world.”
I had meant it as a lighthearted comment, but I regretted my joke immediately when Frankie looked at me and said, “I wish I did.”
Chapter three
Ricki
“Wait,”Isaid,settingdown my beer glass and reaching for the pitcher. Frankie had poured herself a pint when we’d first arrived, but after grimacing her way through three-quarters of it, she ordered some fancy whiskey and had been sipping happily ever since. I liked whiskey as much as the next girl, but tonight was a beer night, without question.
Plus, pitchers were half-price, so the choice was obvious.
“So, you’re telling me that today was yourwedding day?”
Barking out a humorless laugh, Frankie shook her head, as though she couldn’t even believe it herself.
“Yup.”
“Then why the hell are you here with me?” I asked, snagging another nacho off the plate. The beer may have been less than stellar, but there was more than enough cheese on the nachos to make up for it. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, getting some or something?”
“Yeah. You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Tossing back the last of her drink, Frankie slammed the glass down, making me jump. “But I honestly have no idea where that man is right now. I just know he’s expecting me to be on a flight to Las Vegas tomorrow morning.”
Something wasn’t right with her situation. I’d known about her dad’s arrest—shit, the entire Eastern Seaboard had seen those headlines—so I was honestly surprised to hear she’d gotten married so soon after his conviction.
I may not have been raised around the mafia like Frankie had, but I wasn’t completely ignorant about the kinds of things that likely went on in her family. For the longest time, I’d thought she was going to get away without having to become a part of it the way her father and uncle were.
But it looked like I’d been wrong.
“Frankie, do you need some help?” I reached across the table, giving her hand a squeeze. “I mean, if you need to hide out or something, I’d be happy to share my ridiculously small bed in my one-bathroom apartment with you.”
My friend looked at me, a soft smile on her face, but eventually she shook her head.
“I appreciate the offer, Ricki. Truly. But I think I’ll be able to handle Enzo Argenti just fine.”
“Well, you let me know if I need to come out there and kick his ass. I may be small, but I’m fierce as fuck.”
“Me, too, girl,” Frankie said, and we both laughed. “Me, too.”
We spent the rest of the night reminiscing about our days together in high school, drinking, and laughing over things of little consequence, which reminded me that I’d gotten way too serious lately. With all the crap I had to deal with at the shop, the worry over my own future, and the annoying ache at the back of my mind that popped up any time I thought about my family, it had been far too long since I’d just had a night to relax and enjoy being in the moment.
It might have taken a bizarre marriage arrangement and a plane ticket out of town for Frankie to reach out to me, but I was damn glad that she had. When we’d met in high school, Frankie had come into my life at a time when I’d really needed a friend, and by the end of freshman year we’d been inseparable. Both of us feeling trapped into roles we didn’t want to play, pretending to be someone we weren’t to keep the peace in our families. Frankie had been the kindred spirit I hadn’t known I’d needed.
It helped that she had been in need of a friend of her own, too. Everyone in our stuck up private school had known who her family was, and they either sucked up to her or were terrified of her.
I did neither, my own family drama being more than enough for my tastes, and I think Frankie had liked that about me. I’d treated her like a regular person, and we’d both clung to that friendship, only drifting apart after graduation, when shit had really hit the fan, first with my family, then with hers.
But seeing her tonight, I knew I’d let too much time pass without checking in on her, and I was only now realizing how much I’d actually missed her.
By the time we emerged from the bar, it was well past midnight, and I was rockin’ a serious beer buzz. Frankie and I stumbled our way toward the subway station, both of us headed in the same direction. Where Frankie would likely get off the subway somewhere in Midtown, I had to go all the way to Union Square, then change trains—twice—just to get to my apartment in Queens.
I knew it would take me at least an hour to get home, but I just didn’t have the extra money for cab fare. Not if I wanted to make rent this month.
Standing outside the bar, I looked up and down the street. It wasn’t empty—they didn’t call New York the city that never sleeps for nothing—but it was as close to empty as streets ever got around here. There were the usual suspects, groups of young people gathered in clusters, kids who should have been home but never were. Kids that I knew were only out looking for trouble.
They’d find it, whether they liked it or not. Mott Haven was not the sort of place where dreams came true, that was for damn sure.
It might have been on the rougher side, but I’d been working for Murray for three years, and in all that time, I’d never had any trouble in the neighborhood. People seemed mostly inclined to keep their heads down and go about their lives.
Hell, it was all I ever wanted to do, too.
