Chapter 19
Nineteen
DARIA
My new employment arrangement doesn’t start until next week. I’m already dying to start working for Good Vibes. They have a lot of cool projects lined up, but for now, I’m busy wrapping up the last items for Mandy.
“Guess you were never going to get the temporary assignment,” Arnold says from behind me.
The wheels of my chair whir over the plastic mat covering the gray carpet as I spin around and glare at the alpha blocking my cubicle door. The job offer does mean I won’t be getting to fill in for Keisha while she’s out on maternity leave, but the year-long assignment has its benefits. I’ll learn how to deal directly with the client, figure out how to build campaigns that suit their needs, and learn a new market. It’s not like I’m quitting.
Still, I hate that Arnold gets a win.
“What do you want?”
He scowls at me. “You know, you’d be a lot prettier if you wore different clothes and shut your mouth every once in a while.”
This. Mother. Fucker.
“Arnold,” I say as sweetly as I can. “Don’t take out your inability to get your dick wet on me.”
“Says the omega who will be too busy on her back to further her career.”
I suck in a sharp breath, but before I can lay into him, Mandy appears like some angel—or maybe like a bull charging toward a red target. Her eyes are nailed to Arnold, who straightens and pastes a fake smile on his face.
“Hi, Mandy. I was?—”
“Save it,” she snarls. “I heard every word. Head to HR.”
His mouth drops open. “You can’t?—”
“I just did, Arnold. If you read the employee code of conduct, which was in your orientation paperwork, you would’ve known that Moon & Rock has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment.”
“Sexual harassment?” He gapes, giving me a horrified look. “I wouldn’t sexually harass that .”
I know everyone has their own tastes. I know that, when I look in the mirror, I love what I see. Regardless, those words cut through me, and I look away, refusing to let him see my hurt.
“That’s enough, Arnold. Go to HR before I decide to call every marketing firm in the city and tell them not to hire you.”
“Fucking cunts,” he growls before storming away. His putrid scent lingers in my cubicle, and I hate it.
“Hey,” Mandy says softly.
I blink hard a few times before smiling at her. “Thanks for coming to the rescue.”
She searches my face. “Don’t let his words get to you, okay? He obviously has horrible taste. You’re gorgeous and you’re a hard worker. You deserve this opportunity.”
Nodding, I whisper thanks. I know my presentation was amazing, but the shock of finding my scent matches and Arnold’s horrible words overshadow that fact.
“Do you want to take the day off?”
“No, I’m good,” I promise her.
She nods. “All right. I need to go deal with him and figure out who will cover Keisha.”
“For what it’s worth, I think Jane might be a really good candidate.”
Mandy grins. “I was thinking the same thing.” She taps the edge of my cubicle door and heads off to finalize firing Arnold.
Focusing on work is impossible after that interaction. I pull out my phone, stomach dropping when I see more than a few missed calls from my mom and several texts from Marco, my half-brother.
Marco
Can you come over?
I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t serious.
Mom hasn’t paid rent or utilities, and the landlord says, if she doesn’t pay today, he’s evicting us.
Heart clenching, I tap out a quick response. Guess I’ll be taking the time off that Mandy offered.
Mandy, the angel that she is, didn’t even bat an eye when I sought her out and asked if it was still okay to take the rest of the day. I didn’t tell her my family drama, and she didn’t ask. She simply nodded and sent me on my way.
My car makes a clunking sound as I stop outside of the dilapidated structure that is posing as a home. A broken shutter hangs off one of the first-floor windows. The screen door’s wire mesh is broken and flapping in the wind. The small stoop is surrounded by broken furniture and a couple bags of trash. Marco insisted on coming over to my apartment for our Friday-night-movie marathon, and now I can’t help but wonder if this was why.
How long has it been since Mom paid for waste management?
With my stomach in knots, I climb out of the car and make sure it’s locked before heading to the door. My old beater isn’t nice, by any means, but I can’t afford to have it stolen.
I don’t bother knocking. My nose wrinkles as I open the door. As the stench of curdled milk hits me, my stomach turns. Mom is shouting in her bedroom, cursing out someone named Ron. A deep scowl tugs at my features. Marco is sitting on the couch, earphones in. He probably has the music turned up loud enough to drown her out. I taught him that trick.
The inside of the house is mostly clean, and I know that’s not because of Mom. She couldn’t care less. The carpet is disgusting, stained and littered with cigarette holes, and there are a few pipes scattered across the counter, only one of which is for pot.
Fucking hell.
My eyes fill with tears, but I force them back and head over to Marco. I tap his shoulder, and the way he startles at the simple contact has me seeing red. The fear quickly bleeds from his eyes. But I saw it.
What the fuck has been going on?
“Daria, you came.”
Marco’s lilac perfume is the only good thing about this place. He’s a young omega, so his scent is faint, but it’s enough to erase the other putrid odors filling the house. Although Marco’s dad isn’t in the picture, I imagine my half-brother is the spitting image of his father, with a rich, medium-brown complexion, dark eyebrows and hair, amber eyes, and a charming smile—that is, when he’s smiling.
Right now, there’s a hard line between his eyebrows and sadness in his eyes that weren’t there before.
“You asked,” I tell him with a watery smile.
He spots the tears and looks away. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Mom’s scream carries from deeper inside the house, and a gruff voice snaps back at her.
“Ron?”
Marco nods in answer. “New boyfriend.”
Scoffing, I drop onto the couch beside him, ignoring the immediate feeling of being covered in filth. I refuse to make Marco feel bad. “What bills are we paying today?”
His shoulders hunch, and he grabs a stack of envelopes from underneath the couch cushion. “You don’t have to,” he says, hands shaking as he hands over the notices.
“I can’t have you living on the streets,” I tell him.
As Mom and Ron make sounds I’d rather not think about, I quickly flip through the bills, sorting them by company, and pay off the most important ones—like electricity and water—then move on to rent. Since the landlord has a company that manages their properties, I use their site to pay the rent, despite the panic fluttering inside of my stomach as my bank account is quickly drained.
There goes my own rent payment, but if worse comes to worst, I can crash with Jane for a bit while scraping together enough money for a new apartment. I don’t have enough money to cover waste management, and my credit cards are already maxed out, so for now, that’ll have to do.
Marco clutches the paid bills in his hands and stares at the floor. I slip the waste management bills under the couch cushion, knowing Mom would only rip them up if she saw them, like that would magically make them go away.
Mom moans loudly, and Ron grunts like some sort of beast.
I cringe. “Gross.”
“I hate it here,” Marco whispers, swiping at his cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he snaps, then takes a breath. “It’s her fault,” he finally grumbles.
“Do you want to go on a walk?”
He jumps up and rushes out the door. I follow him, glaring down the hall while Mom and her flavor of the month go to town. She’s too busy fucking and gambling and now, apparently, doing hard drugs to take care of her own kid.
But that’s nothing new.
I gently close the door, so as not to alert her, and join Marco on the broken sidewalk. We head to the left, away from the meth house at the corner of the street. My fists clench, hating that Marco has to live in a place like this, but I’m not in a position to take care of him, especially not after paying Mom’s bills.
If I get kicked out of my apartment, what then?
And how am I supposed to get him to school? He lives all the way across town, and the best part about Mom’s house is that he can walk to school, where he can get a good meal every day. I can’t take a steady food source away from him.
“How’s football?”
“I’m not playing anymore.”
I almost trip over a tree root that’s pushed up the sidewalk, breaking it into several jagged pieces of concrete. “What? Why? You love it.”
“I couldn’t afford cleats,” he says softly.
“Marco, why didn’t you tell me?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets, and we stop and wait for the cars to pass before crossing the street. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
My heart aches for him. “You never bother me.” I hate that I see so much of myself in him. He deserves so much more than our mom is giving him.
A late-August breeze coasts down the street and ruffles my hair. “I’ll get you some cleats.”
“Pre-season has already started.”
“Then, there’s still time.”
He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
Putting my hand on his arm, I pull him to a stop and face him. He’s taller than me now. When did that happen? “Let your big sister get you shoes, huh?” I arch an eyebrow. “Besides, I’ve already been working on my sign.”
He groans. “I hate those signs.”
“Liar. I’ll get you shoes this weekend, okay?” I don’t know where I’ll find the money, but there are a couple of thrift stores that have their own section for used sporting goods. “So long as you’re okay with them being used?”
“Uh, yeah.” He swallows and averts his gaze.
My shoulders fall. Of course he’d want new ones, but I don’t have enough money for that. Hell, I don’t even have money for a used pair. I’ll figure it out, though.
Marco catches my crestfallen look and swallows. “Used will be great, Daria.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, my throat thick with emotion.
He shrugs and shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
But it’s not. It’s really not. “Tell your coach you’ll have cleats by Monday.”