Tangled Threads Of Fate (Hanging By A Thread Book 1)

Chapter 1

Have you ever been violently attacked by a watermelon? I have. Twice.

Once at Ashley Michael’s eighth birthday party, when her mom tried to use a watermelon instead of a pi?ata. It was filled with grapes and lychees; her mom was one of those almond and yoga parents. I don’t think I ever saw Ashley smile, because she didn’t want wrinkles.

Long story short, Ashley hit the pinata, making the oversized yet hollowed-out fruit flail wildly. The hemp string snapped, sending the watermelon careening at my face.

I ended up with a bloody nose and a fear of flying fruit. The Fruit Ninja period of my life was rough.

The second time was today, when a watermelon rolled across the sidewalk and right under my feet, sending me hurtling toward the concrete, arms windmilling uselessly. I hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. The wail of an elderly woman—who was still clutching the handle of the overturned fruit cart she’d been pushing—was almost lost beneath the sound of early-morning traffic.

Ugh.

I looked at the sky and sighed heavily. I was definitely going to be late. Hopefully my boss would understand, but he was a bit of an asshole. Actually, he was a giant, gaping, hemorrhoid-infected asshole. He was a stickler for rules and time stamps, and he “had a business to run, and if we were spending six minutes in the bathroom, then that was a customer who was inconvenienced for six minutes, which was six dollars worth of revenue, and if every employee lost six dollars of revenue…” Blah blah blah. Dude was an asshole, but I’d worked at Java Llama for a long time. It had half-decent benefits and free coffee for employees.

And it was damn fine coffee.

Rolling onto my hands and knees, I scooped up some stray grapefruit—and the offending watermelon—while the little old lady hefted her cart back onto four wheels with the help of a dude in a business suit. The woman said something effusive, but the guy just took one look at me, and the mess on the sidewalk, before hurrying away.

I couldn’t even blame him, not really. No need for us to both be late, and I’d already resigned myself to the fact I was going to get an ass-chewing, so may as well go big.

My Java Llama shirt was a little oversized, so I used it as a basket to scoop up grapefruit, oranges, and lychees, making a bunch of trips back and forth to the elderly woman’s cart. All the while, she threw her hands up and gushed at me in a language I didn’t understand. I just smiled, hoping it reached my eyes, and tried not to look at my watch.

Finally, I’d gathered most of the fruits off the ground and placed them back into the decorative wooden boxes they’d fallen out of. There were still a few oranges on the road, but they were on their own. They’d be juice by the end of the morning rush, and no one wanted to eat dirty road fruit anyway.

She repeatedly told me to “Eff Harry’s Toe,” which I imagined was thank you in whatever language she was speaking.

“You’re welcome. Have a good day,” I said quickly, turning to rush away. I was definitely late now, and I’d have to run to not be more than five minutes late. I didn’t have to sit through the Boss Man giving me a fifteen-minute lecture about being six minutes late.

“No! No!” She gripped my hand, pulling me back with a strength that belied her frail appearance. She thrust the shiniest red apple at me repeatedly, until I took it.

“Uh, thank you?”

She mimed eating it. Sighing, I took a bite, and she smiled widely as she watched me chew. Man, old people were weird. But still, it was a really good apple. Sweet, crisp, juicy.

Before I knew it, I’d eaten the whole thing. Even the core. The old lady’s smile was infectious, and I grinned back.

“Thank you again. That was really delicious, especially if I don’t think about the fact that it was rolling across the filthy ground only moments ago.” God, I hoped she had no idea what I was saying. “Now I really, really have to go to work. Be safe.”

I hightailed it out of there before she could stop me again, clutching my purse to my side and sprinting to work. My knees hurt, and I felt like I’d jarred something in my shoulder, but I didn’t have time to do anything more than dry swallow down a couple of Advil before I slammed through the doors of the coffee shop seven minutes late.

Bob was already waiting for me. Fuck.

“I’m sorry, Bob. An old lady tipped her cart on my way to work, and I tripped over a watermelon, and I couldn’t just walk away and not help her, right? Especially when I’m wearing my business-branded shirt. What if someone saw and reported me to Headquarters for inhumanity?”

Always use the underlying threat of HQ to get your way. Surviving Micro-managers 101.

I gave him a soothing smile. “But I’ll make up the time in my lunch break.” I rushed past him, praying he’d just let it go, hopefully appeased by the fact that he only had to give me thirteen minutes of my government-mandated twenty-minute break.

Apparently, luck was on my side because he just heaved a heavy sigh and returned to his office, where he’d probably stare at an empty spreadsheet and play solitaire until one of us fucked up enough that he could come out and give us a teamwide “pep talk.”

One of the baristas, Tammy, was on the drive-thru window, and I tapped her out. She gave me a thankful smile.

“Sorry I’m late,” I puffed, throwing my apron around my waist and liberating her from the headset. “Got caught up on the walk here.”

Although my boss Bob was a festering butt nugget, my coworkers were really nice. I guess we’d all banded against a common enemy in Bob the Boss, so there wasn’t much of the workplace bickering I’d had in other hospitality jobs.

“No worries, Wren. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it, talking to people all the time. Car number four thought I should know her order just by the sound of her voice. Can you believe that?”

I looked out at car number four and indeed knew her order, because she was a regular, but I didn’t tell Tammy that. Instead, I just rolled my eyes—the universal sign of people are so annoying, especially in customer service.

Sucking in a deep breath, I got on with the day. “Welcome to Java Llama! Can I take your order?”

Then I got to work, trying to clear the backlog of cars in the drive-thru, now that there were two baristas behind the machines. Fortunately, we were purely a drive-thru coffee place, so no one had to serve on the front counter, a small mercy that I knew both Tammy and the other barista Camila appreciated.

I worked through my lunch break, even though Bob didn’t deserve it, and before I knew it, the end-of-day routine had begun. Java Llama closed its drive-thru lane at two p.m., thank goodness. The six a.m. starts weren’t so bad in summer, but in winter, they were hell.

But if I had to get up at six and not leave until six? I’d probably throw myself off the overpass on the way home.

I helped scrub everything down and did the food prep for the following morning, before leaving behind Tammy as she locked up. Bob usually went home at midday every day, because he opened the store. I mean, he didn’t do anything except unlock the door, but I guess he had to wake up early and drag his skinny ass here.

I was starving, and I’d reached the point of nausea. All I’d eaten all day was that apple, and it was sitting badly in my stomach. Or maybe it was the two double espressos I’d had during my shift, just to keep me going.

Waving at Camila and Tammy, I headed back to the street. “See you guys tomorrow.” Fortunately, tomorrow was Saturday. We were only open Monday to Friday, really preying on that early-morning commute crowd, so at least my weekends were my own. It wasn’t a bad gig, which was why I’d never told Bob to shove it.

Walking home on autopilot, my brain flicked through random, distracting topics. The kind where you thought about them so hard, you arrived at the front of your house and realized you’d been contemplating the mating habits of jellyfish for fifteen whole minutes, with no recollection of crossing any roads or making any turns the entire trip home.

Tonight was the premiere season of Lust In The Sun, a reality show filled with B-list celebs from all over the world, living on a small island near Aruba, trying to find love with lucky commonfolk. It was supremely cringe, but man, was it compelling. Which meant I needed at least one pint of ice cream to kick the season off in style.

Luckily, I already had to stop at Rossi’s on the way home to pick up a grocery delivery for my landlady, Mrs. Byrne, who was ninety, with the wit and humor of someone much younger. In a tragedy that happened far too often, her body was failing her long before her mind. When I’d first moved in five years ago, she’d seemed a lot more spry, but she was aging fast.

So we had an arrangement: I’d pick up her groceries, and she’d make me a plate for dinner. It made her feel like she was doing me a favor, and not like she needed to be cared for in some way. She wasn’t wrong; she was caring for me far more than I was caring for her.

Five years ago, back when I was a grieving eighteen-year-old kid fresh out of high school, Mrs. Byrne’s meals had been the only thing that stopped me starving to death. I hadn’t wanted to do anything, let alone cook.

My parents had been devout Catholics, though apart from getting me christened and then confirmed, they’d never pushed me into it. But when they’d gotten back from a tropical holiday and had both succumbed to some weird virus that enlarged their heart and inflamed their lungs, the last thing my mom had done was reach out to some of her church friends, finding somewhere that I’d be safe and cared for, in case the worst happened.

And it did.

Their loss was still like a stab through my heart. I didn’t think I’d ever recover from losing them both.

Mrs. Byrne had been friends with my maternal grandmother, and a member of my parents’ church. She’d been a widow longer than I’d been alive, living in a three-story walk-up where she rented out two of the three floors. She’d agreed to rent me the top floor for as long as I needed it, no matter what happened. She’d held my mom’s hand as she was dying and had sworn she’d make sure I was okay, easing a worry in my mother’s mind enough that she could let go, and stop suffering through days of pain.

Getting Mrs. Byrne’s groceries was the very least I could do. I owed her so much more than I could ever repay.

Swallowing down the emotion, I turned onto a familiar street. Rossi’s would just be winding down from the lunch rush, and I was hoping I could snag a hoagie as well.

“Wren! Are you here for Mrs. Byrne’s groceries?”

Valerie Rossi was my age, and we’d attended the same school, but we’d never been friends. Still, I enjoyed stopping for a chat, especially when I knew that I wouldn’t talk to anyone else again for the next… oh, sixteen hours or so.

I smiled politely at the elderly Mr. Lunetta trying to get a tin of tuna from the bottom shelf. Squatting down, I grabbed one of each variety and held them up for his inspection as I responded. “Yes please, Val. And do you think Uncle Antonio could make me a Rossi’s Special, extra provolone?”

“Can do, Wren!” someone yelled from the back of the store. I could only assume it was Uncle Antonio.

Old Mr. Lunetta tapped the tin of tuna in lemon, and I stood, putting it in the cart for him. “Thank you, dear,” he said. I patted him softly on the arm and wove around him, heading back toward the old-fashioned register. Handing Val the big reusable bags Mrs. Byrne gave me to haul her groceries to and fro, I helped her load the food carefully inside.

“And how is your sexy neighbor?” Val asked, waggling her eyebrows at me like she always did every time I came in.

The apartment between my top-floor place and Mrs. Byrne’s ground-floor apartment belonged to Nate, who I thought might have been her nephew. I hadn’t really had a single conversation with him in the last five years, just passing pleasantries. Sometimes, he’d help me carry my groceries to the top floor. He did all the handyman stuff and yard work for Mrs. Byrne, and I didn’t know if that was in exchange for food too.

There was one small reason I’d never really spoken full sentences to Nate.

Simply put, he was smoking fucking hot. Like, holy shit, my ovaries had started a fan club and named it the Let Nate Impregnate Us Club. Total members: two.

I mean, the rest of me kinda wanted to join the fan club too. He was universally handsome, in a rugged kind of way. Messy dirty-blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, sun-browned skin, and so many damn tattoos that I daydreamed about tracing every single one with my tongue.

Every time he was in my presence, I turned into a bumbling simpleton. So eventually, I’d decided to be cool and mysterious myself, and usually ran away anytime he came close.

Rolling my eyes, I shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t see him any more than you see your neighbors.”

Val snorted, stuffing a baguette into the bag. “That’s what you think. My neighbors are my cousin Antonio Jr. and his six hundred kids, and my aunt Valencia with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Vinnie.” She huffed, casting her eyes to the heavens. “I pray every day that I don’t see them on my way home, but inevitably, there’s a relative knocking on my door within ten minutes of me stepping across the threshold.”

Shaking my head at her exasperation, I pushed down the sad feeling that welled in my chest whenever I thought about how truly alone I was. I’d give anything for Val’s big, messy, loud family.

“Well, I’m going home to watch Lust In The Sun with my hoagie and a pint of ice cream, so I’m kind of hoping I don’t see anyone tonight either.”

Uncle Antonio appeared with my sandwich, all wrapped up tight, and put it on top of the groceries. “You tell Mrs. Byrne she should come down and see me one day soon. Maria misses their chats, though I think they just gossip about everyone at church. But they both used to enjoy it. And my Maria, she gets lonely, even with all the family.” He gave Val a stern look, and she gave him an unimpressed expression in return. With a sigh, he turned back to me. “I can only imagine how lonely Mrs. Byrne must get.”

She always seemed happy enough to me, but I knew she was getting on. The meals she slipped me now were more often just meat and potatoes, and even the meat was questionable. How she hadn’t given herself food poisoning was beyond me, though she’d been brought up in a harder time, that was for sure. Cast-iron stomach.

I’d offered to cook for her once, and I’d never forget the outraged expression on her face.

I grabbed the bags up in my arms. “I’ll tell her, Uncle Antonio. Give my love to Zia Maria.” I hustled it out of Rossi’s before I got trapped there for another thirty minutes. Rossi’s was an institution, and if you’d lived in the neighborhood a while, everyone knew everyone.

The bags were heavy today, and I shifted them up my body to get a better grip. It wasn’t a long trip home, but I’d swear some days, Mrs. Byrne ordered bricks. I was red-cheeked and out of breath by the time I made it to the front door, which whipped open before I could put the bags down and get my key out.

Nate stood there, his face stormy as always, though I was fairly sure that was just his natural resting dick face. He was wearing a tight black shirt and jeans that were actually well-worn, rather than bought pre-distressed. His tattoos were on full display, swirling patterns that ran up his muscular forearms and always transfixed me like a moth to a flame.

The tattoos, not the forearms.

Well, maybe the forearms, just a little. Especially when he flexed.

I pasted a smile on my face and hoisted the bags higher. “Hi, Nate. How are you?”

He grunted, but reached out and took the bags from me, ignoring my protests.

“Seriously, you don’t have to. They’re only going over to Mrs. B, and I’m sure you’re going out somewhere…”

“It’s fine,” he grumbled, already turning toward Mrs. Byrne’s door. He shifted both bags to one arm, making his bicep bulge, like someone had over-inflated an inner tube, then knocked with his free hand.

I stood behind him, like an idiot. I didn’t want Mrs. Byrne to think I was slacking off on my job, though I doubted she would anyway. So I’d just loiter here, looking like a weirdo. It always took her ages to get to the door—had I mentioned she was, like, ninety?

I stood there in awkward silence with Nate. I didn’t do awkward silence. Well, the silence part. I did awkward just fine.

“So, how’s work?”

Fuck, I didn’t even know if he had a job. What if he didn’t and that was a sore spot for him and I’d just put my foot in it?

“Actually, that’s presumptuous of me. I didn’t mean to insinuate that you only have worth if you have a job. I’m sure whatever you do is amazing. So I guess, uh, how’s life? The yard looks good, and the handrail at the front is looking amazing since you repainted it. The stairs in this place are so old, I’m surprised that it’s only the outdoor ones that need fixing. Actually, the third step from my apartment landing is squeaky, so if that wakes you up, I’m sorry!”

Just murder me now and throw my body in the bay.

“Don’t hear it,” Nate grunted as the door swung open.

“Oh, Nate, my boy. How have you been?” Mrs. Byrne gushed, waving him into her apartment. It was a proper old lady apartment, filled to the brim with ruffles and knick-knacks of a life well lived. As Nate got his big shoulders through the doorway, she finally spotted me. “Sweet Wren, there you are! I was beginning to worry, I was. Come in. I have some supper for you, girl.”

“Thanks, Mrs. B. How did you go with the doctors?”

Mrs. Byrne had no family close by, except Nate, so I tried to keep tabs on her medical issues, in case she passed out one day and the paramedics asked me hard questions. Someone needed to know the answers, right?

Mrs. Byrne’s face fell, and my heart thundered in my chest. Oh no.

“Oh, my darling Wren. It was awful news today, me’girl.” She reached out and held my hand. “They diagnosed me with this terrible condition… Old age.” She threw her head back and cackled. I frowned at her, but already, my lips were turning into a smile.

“Not funny, Mrs. B! You had me worried.”

She passed me a plate of food from her fridge, covered with plastic wrap. “Oh, let an old lady get her kicks somewhere. I have one foot in the grave, and no matter what they tell me at the doctor’s office, my time isn’t coming any sooner than it was supposed to.”

I really didn’t like to think about Mrs. Byrne dying.

Nate finished putting away her groceries, then folded the bags and handed them back to me. He leaned down and kissed Mrs. Byrne’s cheek, before giving me a respectful nod as he left.

She watched him go with a frown, then turned back to me. “Wren, I know I tease, but when I go, ya must know that this house goes to Nate, and he’ll ne’er kick you out as long as you want to live here.” There was always something comforting about Mrs. Byrne’s soft Irish accent.

“I know, Mrs. B. But you’re going to live another sixty years, because you’ve been pickled from all that whiskey you keep in your kitchen cabinet.”

She chuckled. “Aw, away with you. It’s time for Judge Trudie.”

Kissing her on the cheek, much in the same way as Nate had, I closed her door, making sure it was locked first. She was vulnerable down here on the first floor, but she liked her independence, and she couldn’t manage the stairs.

A wave of exhaustion swamped me, and suddenly, Judge Trudie and suspicious-smelling pickled pork sounded like a great idea. The step outside Nate’s door squeaked, but I didn’t have to worry too much about disturbing him. I was pretty sure he’d left after putting away Mrs. Byrne’s groceries.

As I dragged myself up to my apartment, my stomach cramped, and I sighed. Great, I was getting PMS on top of being tired. My ovaries hated me, for sure. Still, I made it to the couch and flopped down, grabbing the remote and flipping on the television. I’d just have a little nap, and then I’d get up for dinner.