Chapter Four
Juniper
R eena leaned her head on top of mine for a second and sighed. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You’ll be on your honeymoon.” I got all teary. “You won’t even think of me.” What was I going to do for two weeks without her? She’d been my one constant since I’d wound up in Miami.
Her arm went around my waist, and she stared at us in the grainy mirror of the shitty bathroom. “I’ll always think of you, my friend.”
“You said bestie wrong.” Uncomfortable, I half hugged her back and sucked in a breath, but something tickled at the back of my mind. “And no mushy crap. I drank way too many shots of….” I looked up at her and narrowed my gaze. “What were those things, anyways?” What was tickling? “Were you trying to poison me?”
“Bazooka Joes.” She giggled. “And no, I’d never poison you. I want to help people, not harm them. Remember?”
How could I forget? “Yeah, yeah, irony of all ironies, you’re studying to be a nurse to save lives while you get us shitty drunk during the day. Or afternoon. Whatever.” I didn’t know what time it was anymore. “And I still have no idea what those shots were, but if I puke milky-blue-colored shit later, I’m taking pictures and posting them on your Insta. Hashtag Reenie tried to kill me. Hashtag Bazookas.” An idea brewed. “Oh! Then I’ll take a picture of my boobs and post that too. Bazookas . Get it? In fact….”
I reached for my cell, but it wasn’t tucked into the top of my bra where I usually kept it. All that was there was a single house key that wasn’t mine. “ Oh shit .” I looked at my bestie as panic hit. “We left our phones out there.” This time, I grabbed her. “Oh my God, Reena! You’re supposed to be the responsible one.” I tugged on her arm. “We need to get back to the table, like, now.”
Seemingly unconcerned, she checked her hair in the mirror. “They’ll still be there.”
Was she high? “Did you start doing drugs and not tell me?” This bar was low rent even for me. “We’re like, in crackhead central. Come on. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon .” I gave up pulling and pushed her toward the door. “I can’t afford to replace my phone.” I could barely afford the monthly bill.
She glanced one more time out the window, then finally let me shove her toward the door, but she didn’t say anything else.
My brain did that tickling thing again, but I was already in the hall.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her behind me. “How can you not be more worried about this? You worry about everything. And coming from me, that’s saying a lot.” I was the one who was currently without a job. Or family or friends other than her. And major trust issues, and then there was the whole…. I shoved the thought down. I didn’t think about that , not even when I was drunk as hell. But the whole job thing I did think about.
I had, like, half a dozen applications out to shitty minimum wage places that didn’t seem like they bothered to run background checks or necessarily file tax forms, and I needed money. Bad. I was down to very low triple digits in my bank account, and my car was almost out of gas.
“Please, please, please let our phones be there.” I hadn’t realized I was chanting out loud until she replied.
“They will be. If not, I’ll just buy us new ones. They have this—”
We both stopped short at the empty table.
“Color,” she finished quietly as we stared at the sticky two-top.