“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He stands, and as I push my chair in, he asks, “Why did you invite me here today?”
I straighten my keyboard before turning to look at him.
“I only thought maybe it would be a nice break.”
It’s a lie that falls easily from my lips, but I can’t tell him that I couldn’t bear to see him leave me so soon.
He nods, then moves toward the door, waiting for me.
We get to the car and are putting our seat belts on when he speaks again.
“You know what I think?”
“What’s that?” I ask as I put the car in reverse.
“I think you don’t like being in charge because of the control. I think you need it because everything falls apart if you aren’t.”
He’s seeing through my facade.
And I don’t hate it.
Chapter Twenty
Cassius
Two months of working for Harmon Stone and I have one of the nicest apartments I’ve ever seen, and it’s only a few blocks away from the high school. It’s not the best neighborhood, but it’s not bad either. It’s safe enough and close enough for Chrissy to walk, if she wanted to. Better than where we were, too.
“I can’t believe this,” I say, looking around the living room. My voice echoes, because it’s completely empty, but we’ll get there.
There’s plenty of money in our account, and we’re going shopping this weekend for furniture that will hopefully be delivered same-day or next-day. I’ll pay them extra if I have to. The sooner we can get out of our mother’s place, the better. And I don’t want my sisters sleeping on the floor, so it’s best we wait until the furniture is here.
“Believe it,” Abe says as he looks out at the quiet neighborhood from the living room window. “This is real as fuck.” Heturns to look at me, raising a brow. “Are you going to become one of these bougie bitches now?”
I scoff. “No fucking way.”
“And we can have sleepovers?” He waggles his brows.
“You know you’re welcome here whenever you want, but you’re cleaning up after yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turn in a slow circle, looking around again, in disbelief that all this space is ours. The apartment is the size of three of our trailers. Three! I don’t know what we’re going to do with all this space, but I’m sure Cammy and Chrissy will have no problem filling every inch of it with stuff they swear we need but probably don’t.
“Have they seen it yet?” Abe asks.
“Cammy has. Chrissy hasn’t.”
My gaze goes to the bedrooms, each door off the inner-living room that I don’t know what I’m going to do with yet. The layout is different from what I saw in a lot of other apartments. It could be used as a second living room, but I don’t think we’ll need that. Maybe we can set up a desk here for Chrissy to do her homework?
Aside from the three bedrooms being off this room, the door to the dining room is too. Off of that is the bathroom and the kitchen.
“When are you moving in officially?”
“As soon as our stuff is delivered.”
My phonebuzzes with a rhythm that tells me it’s my alarm. I pull it from my pocket to turn it off.