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I roll my eyes. “How can twenty-somethings afford to start a restaurant? I thought our generation was united in our struggle against capitalism.”
“Piper.” Noelle gently unfurls my fingers and forces me to drop the napkin. “Normally, you’d love this place. You’d laugh at the napkins and you’d be admiring all of the art. I mean, have you even seen the painting of the off-brand Miss Piggy posed like Rose fromTitanic?”
I look across the aisle at the oil painting, but can’t muster even a smile. “That is single-handedly ruining my already ruined childhood.”
Noelle groans. “You’ve been a sad sack since you called me. You have got to tell me what is going on. Is everything okay? Is it Ashley? I’ve been busy, so I haven’t heard much from her, but—”
“She’s in Mexico.”
Noelle’s eyes widen. “She’swhat?”
“She and Gram are in Mexico.” I sigh. “I bought them tickets and gave them some money to get started. I wanted them to be safe from Timofey.”
How bizarre is it that I was sending my loved ones to other countries to escape Timofey, and now, I’m mourning the loss of him myself? The world is too weird sometimes.
I take a bite of my sandwich and chew while Noelle gawks at me, too shocked to speak.
“You’re right,” I tell her, dabbing oil off of my mouth. “The Italian sub is really good.”
She holds up both hands. “Pause. Rewind. You sent Ashley and Gram to Mexico?”
“They’re doing fine. This isn’t about them.”
She blinks. “Okay. But why did you—”
“I’m upset because Timofey paid my dad fifty thousand dollars for him to stay away from me.”
Without breaking eye contact, Noelle grabs her drink and takes a long pull of her soda. When she’s done, she blows out a breath. “Okay. This is a lot to process. But I think the most important thing is: you aren’t with Timofey anymore?”
“I was never with him,” I explain. “I worked for him. But it was complicated and—”
“Are you or are you not currently planning to have sex with him?”
My cheeks flush, and I shake my head. “No. I’m not currently planning to do anything with him. Sexual or otherwise.”
Noelle pauses for a brief moment, letting the news sink in. Then she grins and claps her hands. “Thank fucking God, Piper. That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, except for the part where I don’t have a job and I’m homeless.”
“You still have your job at CPS.”
“Maybe. I’ve been sick most of the last two weeks. James has been calling my phone, but I’ve been texting back. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I couldn’t come into work because I was afraid someone might shoot up our office to take me out.”
Noelle winces. “I told you to get Benjamin and leave before that party. I had a bad feeling about it.”
“There wasn’t an opportunity. It’s not like I could have waltzed through the front doors without Timofey noticing.”
“Do you think you could get to Benjamin now?” Noelle muses. “Clearly, Timofey isn’t watching you anymore. If he let you leave, it must mean he doesn’t care about keeping you under surveillance.”
The reminder that Timofey doesn’t care about me doesn’t feel as positive as Noelle is making it sound. I brush off the hurt that settles over me like a heavy blanket and pick at my sandwich.
“I went into this wanting to protect Benjamin, but I don’t know if I can sacrifice my own life—the lives of the people I care about—to get him away from Timofey,” I admit. “It’s so much riskier than I originally thought.”
Plus, in a lot of ways, Timofey has proven himself to be a good father. Even if he has no idea how to be someone’s partner, I think he’ll do his best to keep Benjamin safe. That’s more than a lot of kids get.
“But if you get Benjamin out of there, maybe you could use him to explain to your boss why you’ve been MIA the last couple weeks, yeah?” Noelle says. She’s talking fast, the words pouring out of her like water from a hose that has recently been un-kinked. “You could tell him that you had to go undercover to get a kid out of a dangerous situation. You’d be a CPS hero.”
I chuckle. “Maybe if my life was an action movie, I’d give that a try.”
