Chapter 49
U NABLE TO PROCESS.
“What the hell?” I mutter, looking at the ATM screen in complete horror. I’ve never seen this message in my life. Did I enter the pin wrong?
“Daddy cut your cards,” Crue says with a yawn, his hands in the front of his hoodie.
“No. He wouldn’t do that.” It hasn’t even been twelve hours since I left.
I repeat the whole process of sticking my debit card in and punching in the pin number nice and slow so there’s no mistakes.
I wind up getting the same message: UNABLE TO PROCESS.
I try my other cards, none of them working.
Pulling out my phone, I dial my father’s financial advisor. Unlike last time I did this, the line rings and rings before eventually going to voicemail.
I hang up without leaving a message.
He cut me off? No matter how mad I’ve made my father, he’s never gone to this extreme before, only limited the amount, as well as accounts, I have access to.
How am I supposed to do…anything?
“How am I supposed to eat?”
“That’s why you dragged me out of bed? I could’ve made you breakfast at the house.”
“You can cook?” He made us dinner once but it was just chicken breasts. And he overcooked them.
“Not everyone grew up with a chef, Ever.”
“I’m aware.” The heat on my face spreads down my neck as I think of a lie. “I just…wanted to take you out to breakfast…as a thank-you for saving my life—”
“I prefer gratuity in the form of sexual favors.”
I stare at Crue.
He stares back at me.
Neither of us blinks.
“From who?”
He breaks first to roll his eyes. “Oh my God. I was joking…kind of. But I meant from you. Only you.”
I’m in the middle of a breakdown right now and he’s making jokes.
I continue as if he didn’t interrupt me, saying, “I wanted to buy myself some new clothes, too.” At least that part is true. The only clothes I have are the ones on my body.
“You can wear anything of mine.”
“Not for interviews and stuff.” No one’s going to want to hire me in my schoolgirl outfit. At least no one I want to work for.
“You gotta fill out some applications before you go on interviews.”
He must think I’m such an idiot. I feel like such an idiot. Why did I think my father would continue to support me financially?
Because that’s the only way he’s ever supported me.
“Well, how am I supposed to do that looking like this?” I ask Crue. “I don’t even have makeup on.” Thankfully, no bruise ever fully formed from yesterday’s slap, and the swelling has already gone down, but that side could still use some coverage.
“You don’t need makeup to fill out forms online. You don’t need makeup, period. You’re naturally beautiful.”
He thinks I’m a beautiful idiot. A naturally beautiful idiot.
“Crue,” I say when he turns away, heading to his Bronco as if my life didn’t just implode before his eyes.
He stops to glance back at me. “What?”
“I think…” I shuffle from one stiletto to the other. “I’m poor.”
Crue plugs his nose, and in a nasally voice, says, “I thought I smelled something.”
I deserve that. And so much worse. I’ve been terrible, even when I was playing up my role as the Munreaux princess. I took things too far. Said things I had no business saying. I didn’t understand anything about anyone. I never even bothered putting myself in anyone else’s shoes to try.
I was a top-tier snob, just like my father.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask both him and the universe because I don’t have the first clue. If nothing else, I always knew I could rely on having money.
Luckily, Crue drops his hand but doesn’t turn and run from me while he has the chance. I’m too defeated to run right now.
“Come home with me and let me feed you. We’ll figure out a game plan after. It’s only Saturday. We have the weekend to come up with something.”
“Can we shower, too?”
His lips spread into a cheesy grin. “To wash the stench of poor off you?”
“Actually, I have a couple bucks around here somewhere.” I pretend to check my pockets even though this skirt doesn’t have any, then brandish my lovely middle finger for Crue, holding it up on my way past him to the Bronco’s passenger side.
With my ex-bodyguard too busy chuckling, I open my own door for once.
All noise stops as he comes over to immediately close it before I can even get in.
Bending so he’s right in my face, he says, “I don’t care how much money you do or don’t have, I get the door for you.”
Major Danger’s come a long way.
We have ourselves another tense stare-off until I say, “I love you, Major.”
“I love you, too, little bat,” he counters with the same no-nonsense tone, then opens the door and jerks his head to the side. “Now get your broke ass in the car.”
After Crue makes us egg-white omelets—that are only slightly runny in the middle—we migrate over to the living room sofa, using his laptop to search for job listings in the area with immediate availability.
“How about this one?” Crue asks, rotating the laptop in my direction.
“Retail associate?”
“Selling clothes. You love clothes.”
Do I? I know a lot about clothes, but I don’t know if I love them. I’m not passionate about them, that’s for sure. I’ve had to pretend to be, for the clones, and for…everybody. But I haven’t felt like doing that for a while. I don’t think I ever want to do it again.
“What happened to the cheer coach idea?”
“I looked into it a little bit. You need experience for that.”
“I cheered all my life.”
“Coaching experience. Plus, it helps to have some kind of degree.”
Well, shit. Every plan from last night has already bombed and it’s only ten o’clock in the morning.
“Retail associate, it is,” I say with a sigh, taking the laptop from him.
Literally after the first question of Name, I freeze up. What address do I put? I’ve only ever had one, but the manor’s no longer my home.
I can’t put Crue’s. I was only invited to stay here for the night, not move in permanently.
I don’t have a home.
After sitting with that fact for a moment, I scan the rest of the form.
This job wants to know my experience, too. I don’t have that. I don’t have personal references either. I don’t have any of this. I don’t even have a car.
Even if by some miracle someone takes pity on me and hires me, how am I supposed to get there?
I check the store’s location. Too far away to walk to.
I squint my suddenly swimming eyes at the screen, but it doesn’t help make it any clearer.
“All I know is my name and social security number,” I admit.
“You can just put that…”
I type in the nine numbers.
“…and I’ll help you with the rest.”
He’s going to put down his address and he’s going to offer to drive me to work and I’m going to become another excuse keeping him from living out his dream.
Just as the first tear falls, I announce, “I have to go to the bathroom,” then shove the laptop at Crue before rushing to the back of the house.
What we’ve been living isn’t reality. We can’t just stay cooped up in a single room all day, every day. This is the real world now and I have to be an active part of it. I can’t rely on other people anymore. I don’t want to. I want to work. I want to support myself, not be a burden, especially not to Crue. Or his family.
But how? I’m broke. I’m homeless. I’m jobless. I’m friendless. I’m…
My father’s words echo in my head.
“Because this is all you’re good for.”
“…this is all you’re good for.”
“…all you’re good for.”
I’m worthless. I have nothing going for me. I’ve spent the majority of my life focused on cheer, a sport that once it ends, it just ends. There are no professional careers in cheer like there are in football or basketball or tennis. Even the cheerleaders that perform at other professional sports games are not considered real cheerleaders, not like the kind of cheerleader I am. Those are more like dance teams made up of models.
Crowdleaders is what we call them and they tend to be more along the lines of what people think of when they envision cheerleaders. Crue did.
Crue. I don’t know what to do. He likes taking care of me but I can’t ask him to give up his dreams to do it. I need somewhere to live, something to drive. I need clothes, food, water. I need an entire fucking life. Unfortunately, I never learned how to have one of my own and now I don’t have the first clue where to begin.
Money. That’s the beginning, middle, and end. You can’t do anything without money.
My car’s worth a lot. The keys are always hanging up in the garage…somewhere. I never paid close attention but I’m sure I could find them if I looked hard enough. Then if I sell that, I should have enough money for an apartment. Maybe even a cheaper car to get around in.
That’s where I’ll start.
“Can you drive me to the manor?” I ask Crue back out in the living room.
He doesn’t even look up from his laptop to tell me, “No.”
I’m almost at the front door before Crue notices and jumps up from the couch, putting himself in my path.
“Where are you going?”
“Munreaux Manor.”
“Your dad—”
“I’m not going there for him .”
“Why do you want to go there?”
“For my car.”
“Arthur cut your credit cards. You think he’s just gonna let you take a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar car?”
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? That might be enough money for Crue to move.
“I wasn’t going to ask him for it.”
“You’re gonna steal it?”
The doubt in his voice is insulting.
“I stole yours, didn’t I?”
“No, not really. The keys were in it.”
At the time, he sure acted like I stole it though. He was enraged I did.
“The keys might be in mine, too.” They won’t be.
I attempt to sidestep him, but he puts a hand up in front of me.
“I can’t let you. Your father put his hands on you and—”
“I won’t go near him.”
“Ever. You had a fucking…fit…thing…last night at the thought of going back there.” His expression softens. “Butterfly, don’t go anywhere near that house. I don’t want you to go through that again.”
That. My panic attack. I don’t want to experience that again either but it didn’t seem like I had much control on whether or not it happened in the first place. It just did, and thankfully, Crue helped me out of it. If it does again, I know what to do. Think about Crue.
“But I need—”
“If it means that much to you, I’ll go get you your car.”
“How is that any better? You can’t get within a hundred yards of the manor!” I shout, my hands airborne and turbulent.
He shrugs. He shrugs .
“I’m less than a hundred yards away from you right now.”
“I was listed on there, too?”
“Your last name’s Munreaux, isn’t it? I’m not supposed to go near anything with the Munreaux label on it.”
“You shouldn’t have come last night. You put yourself in jeopardy.”
“You put me in jeopardy the moment you approached that cliff.”
“Maybe if you weren’t a stalker—”
“Says the creep who used to sneak into my room to watch me sleep.”
I scoff. “I didn’t watch you sleep.” For long.
“What did you do?”
“I just…” I gesture at him. “…would lie behind you and get my face as close as I could to the space between your shoulders without actually touching you.”
“Because that’s where you felt safest?” he asks, referring to what I told him last night.
“Yes.”
“That’s where you still feel safest?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay here. Let me keep you safe.”
“I won’t even see my father. I’ll be in and out.”
“Even if that were true, theft is a crime, too. If you’re willing to go to jail, so am I.”
My ex-bodyguard is truly infuriating. First the cliff, now this.
He’s constantly putting others before himself. It’s his saving grace and his biggest detriment. That’s why he hasn’t left Sea Haven yet.
I never thought I’d agree with my father on anything, ever, but…
Crossing my arms over my chest, I say, “You can’t steal what you already own.”
Crue’s laughter shocks the hell out of me.
“What’s so funny?”
“I saw the registration for the Sapphire. You don’t own it.”
“Yes, I do. My father bought it for me.”
“He bought it for you to drive, but legally, it’s not yours. Your name is only on the insurance.”
I spin to hide the newest onslaught of tears. How can one person cry so much in a twenty-four-hour period?
“So I really only have this one outfit?” I muse to myself.
Crue wraps his arms around me, saying into my neck, “And me.”
But at what cost? I’ll have Crue…and his future. We’ll both be stuck here. Forever. And one day, those headlines everyone knows us for will become our epitaphs.