AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mia repeated her question in English. “Do you want something to drink? Nat and I want to hear all about the apartments, don’t we?”
“Yup. Spill it.” Natalie pulled her glossy dark locks into a high ponytail, her soft brown skin practically glowing in beautiful perfection. Both women, in the same exact way, leaned against the tabletop as though Luna was about to reveal the most interesting story in the world. They were clearly the bestest of friends, allowing a new emotion to infiltrate Luna’s heart: jealousy.
She plopped onto one of the chairs at their table. “It was fine.”
The other women shot each other a glance. Besides Spanish they also had whole conversations through facial expressions. Mia sipped the iced tea in her hand.
She put off going into detail by pulling out her phone and dialing the animal shelter. “Hi, I dropped off a gray and white cat earlier. I was just wondering how the cat was doing and if she’s been claimed yet.”
“Not yet,” a woman on the other end replied. “She’s been examined and besides being pretty hungry, seems to be doing well.”
This information did give Luna some relief. Although she found it weird Sam had coincidentally mentioned a pet. When she inspected her shirt after leaving the apartment, she found a single, inconspicuous cat hair. Wow, he was good. That was some forensic science shit or something.
After disconnecting the call, Luna scrolled through her Instagram feed on her phone. When she raised her eyes, they were still watching her. “What?”
“You’re getting a cat?” her cousin-in-law asked.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking about it, if the owner doesn’t show up.”
Mia took another sip. “So, how were the places you looked at?”
“I said it was fine, Mia. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Makes sense to me. Who wants to talk about fine?”
Her instinct was to snap back at her cousin, but taking her frustration out on Mia could bite her in the ass with Ross and she wasn’t about to take the risk. Instead, her frustration came out in the form of tears, which was equally annoying. Luna pressed a hand to her face to hide them. She hated crying and demanded her eyes stop producing tears immediately, because there was nothing more embarrassing than crying in the middle of Natalie’s coffee shop with the random electrician walking past.
Her cousin didn’t say a word but rubbed a soothing hand across her back. It felt good and awkward at the same time. Luna had never depended on anyone’s shoulder to lean against when she was sad, even after being dumped. Here she was, tempted to seek comfort in Mia’s gentle strength and use her shirt as a handkerchief as much as she preferred stamping her emotions into a deep, dark well.
Natalie briefly left before returning with a box of tissues. “Here, you can borrow Mia’s Kleenex.”
Natalie wasn’t kidding. On the outside of the tissue box were the wordsMia’s Big Box of Tear Tissues Boohoo!written in black sharpie along with several drawings of rudimentary crying faces with tears exploding from their eyes.
She helped herself to a tissue, blotting her eyes in an attempt to keep her makeup intact. “You have your own box of tissues?” she asked Mia. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her cousin cry except from the occasional coffee commercial these days.
“She cries all the time,” Natalie said. “She was bawling her eyes out yesterday over a TikTok video.”
“It was a big shirtless muscle guy who had a puppy in one arm and a baby in the other. There must be something wrong with your heart, Natalie.”
Her best friend snorted. “I wasn’t thinking about my heart when I was watching. Did you see that guy? So, what happened?” She produced a hard peppermint candy from her pocket, popping it in her mouth.
“I didn’t get the duplex. I know it’s a silly thing to cry over…” Even as she said the words she choked with tears again. It wasn’t simply being rejected but rather how the landlady made her feel, as if she wasn’t good enough.
Mia rubbed her back again. “It’s not silly. It’s okay to feel bad when you’re disappointed. I know how excited you were about that place.”
“Screw them,” Natalie said. “You’ll find something better.”
“And then I went to the other apartment and it’s just so…” Luna waved her hands in a way to convey how utterly mediocre Schnell Ridge was “…not what I wanted. I signed a lease anyway, but only because I asked if I could do superficial home improvements to the place to fix it more to my liking and he said okay—Oh! Andhewas there?”
“Who?” Natalie asked.
She leaned forward to make her point clearer to Mia. “The guy,you know, from the park.”
“What guy from the park?” Mia’s eyes brightened as she caught on. “Ooooooh. The guy you kissed?”
“Wait? Who’s this guy?” her friend asked.
She jabbed a finger in the direction of the actual guilty party. “Mia made me do it.”
