Sierra
It’s nearlyeleven when the bus lumbers into the Los Angeles bus station. I jerk my head up from where it’s resting against the window, with the memory of my body pressed against glass a different way still fresh. My heart aches.
Maybe I shouldn’t have left.
What do I have here in Los Angeles, anyway? A shitty apartment with plumbing that hardly functions. A dead-end job that barely pays my bills—oh, wait, no, I’ve been fired, or quit, it’s not really clear which. A sister who barely speaks to me.
A buzzing against my side reminds me my phoneis limping along on life support. It died ten minutes into the trip from Las Vegas. As it happened, the shopping mall was only a short drive from the local bus station. Day trips between the two cities are popular enough that coaches depart every half-hour. I snagged a ticket, killed a little time picking up a cheap suitcase and consolidating my belongings, and changed out of the red playsuit into clothes more comfortable for travel.
Glad I bought those jeans after all.
Inexplicably, tears spring to my eyes at the thought. I’ll miss Lilia. I knew her for less than a day, but for a while, Lilia filled the hole in my heart created when Rae stormed out of my life. My phone buzzes again. It’s my sister. With a heavy sigh, I blink my tears away and open the connection.
“Where in the hell are you, Sierra?” she starts in without saying hello.
“Pulling into the Los Angeles bus station.”
“Your boss called looking for you. She said a man answered your phone and said you’d gotten married and weren’t coming back to work. That isn’t like you. You are the one who harped on me for dropping out of college, after all.”
There’s no missing her snippiness. I’m too tired and heartsick to deal with her shit right now. “I did quit. I’m just coming home for a couple of days to get my stuff.”
“Don’t bother,” Rae snaps.
“What do you mean?”
“Men came and cleared your place out. They said you were breaking the lease. The landlord has alreadylisted it for rent at fifty percent higher.” She laughs. “Good luck getting that much money for that dump.”
I suck in a breath. I didn’t think Nik had completely upended my entire life so quickly. “I have to get off the bus now.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. A hotel?” I say hesitantly. All I have left in the world is a suitcase of designer clothes and an overdrawn bank account. Until I get access to the ten million dollars Nik promised me, I’m broke.
“Come to my house,” Rae says grumpily. “You can sleep on the sofa until we figure this mess out.”
Ugh. She’ll gloat about what a mistake I’ve made. But what else can I do? I spent the last of my money getting home. I don’t even have enough change for the vending machine.
“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I, uh, might need to borrow money for the cab.” I wince. Outside on the concrete floor, I wait for the driver to unload the suitcase with all my worldly possessions.
“I’ll cover you,” Rae says. “But you have to pay me back. We’re not exactly flush, either.”
“I know.”
“So who is he?”
“Who’s who?” I play dumb. I really don’t want to answer this question.
“The guy you married. You never said anything about having a boyfriend.”
I wince. “It was a whirlwind romance.”
“Let me guess. He’s the kind of man you’d have grounded me for looking at? Tattoos, maybe a beard?”A hint of teasing creeps into her tone. I guess, looking back, I was a little overbearing. I just wanted my sister to do better in life than I could. But maybe I wasn’t quite as self-sacrificing and upstanding as I thought I was at the time. A reluctant smile tugs at my lips. I depress the handle on my suitcase and let the driver put it into his trunk. In the back seat of the cab, a miniature television screen plays a rotating set of ads in between news headlines.
“Pretty much.”
“Really?” Rae says excitedly. “You married a bad boy on a whim? What’s his name?”
“Nikolai Orlov. He’s from Las Vegas.” The screen shifts to a new story. Ice floods my veins when the anchor cuts away to a familiar face. It’s not Nik’s but a very close resemblance. Same square jaw, straight nose, and piercing blue eyes. The chyron readsKonstantin Orlov laid to rest yesterday morning in Las Vegas…