Chapter Two
CIERRA SPENT THE next twenty-four hours locked in the apartment without talking to a soul.
Harry, the man she thought would never leave her in a million years, had done so in just six.
What had she not seen? The news must have spread quickly, because when she woke up the next morning, she had missed calls from Mia, her closest friend.
Distraught, she called Mia back.
“Hey, babes,” Mia said on the other line, “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” There was an awkward pause. Mia was one of her favorite people in the world, but she wasn’t the best with emotional stuff.
“I’m glad to hear you’re alive. Looks like you haven’t left your house since yesterday.”
Cierra laughed, knowing her friend watched her smartphone’s location like a perverted hobby. “I just need some time alone. What’s up?”
“Just checking in on you,” Mia said in a singsong voice, attempting to mask her tone of concern. “Have you talked to your family yet?”
“No, I can’t even think about that right now. But don’t worry, I’m not planning on jumping off a cliff or anything. I’m just clueless and having a quarter-life crisis and seriously re-thinking all my major life decisions.”
“Ah, well, if that’s the case, then I guess I’ll just let you get back to it.”
They both laughed a little, which felt good.
“Thanks for checking up on me. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. I thought that maybe we could have a girls’ night and watch movies, or go to a spa, or we could go out?”
“I’ll let you know. Maybe later this week.”
“Okay, well, text me. Okay? I love you. I know it’s hard right now.”
“Love you, too.”
“Are you alright? Do you need anything?”
“Nah, I’m fine. Really.”
“Alright. I’ll let you go then. Bye, hun.”
Cierra clicked off her phone and drifted off to sleep again.
Taking a shower or eating a full meal was something she’d have to do eventually, but for now, the best she could do to keep from going crazy was retreat into subconscious bliss.
A new job. A new apartment. A new existence. It could all wait until tomorrow.
Mia showed up two days later with wine, flowers, and pad thai.
“I’m here. Deal with it,” she said with a flip of her hair at the doorway. She embraced her friend in a warm hug. “Oh, honey, we need to get you into the shower. Respectfully.” At this, Cierra sniffed her own shirt. “Also, I’m so sorry, honey. Harry is a fucking idiot.”
“Hello to you, too, Mia.”
Even though they came from completely different backgrounds, the two women had been inseparable since their first year of college.
Mia hadn’t held a job for more than two months since graduation; you didn’t need to when your bank account dwarfed the CEO’s of whatever company you worked for.
Her family’s source of wealth was murky, something to do with international trade and bespoke goods; Cierra was happy to remain willfully ignorant.
Mia was tall, with lanky, toned arms and legs and dark brown hair, the color of espresso, which was in stark contrast to her fair porcelain skin and round, baby-blue eyes.
She always kept curtain bangs, framing her doll-like face like a modern Snow White.
By five o’clock, following three episodes of Too Hot to Handle and two bottles of wine, both women were lying on the couch, restless.
Cierra had saved about twenty jobs she was going to apply for but knew that realistically she’d need to visit each restaurant in person for them to even notice her.
The thought alone made her feet hurt. She knew people would also be curious about why she had quit.
Nobody quit Terra. Cierra had ascended to senior chef at one of the most prestigious restaurants in New York in under three years, which was virtually unheard of.
The next step would have been sous chef, which was Cierra’s dream when she first started.
But cleaning a kitchen until late into the evening, having zero creative control, and always being hidden and next in line .
. . it was far more demoralizing than Cierra could ever have imagined.
Maybe that’s why she had finally snapped the other night.
Cierra’s old job had made her feel trapped, like she had dug a hole too far down and learned that this was as good as it got.
She was so burned out that she didn’t even cook for herself anymore.
She hadn’t tried a new recipe for months.
When she had first started out, she remembered trying a new recipe almost every week.
“Hello, Earth to Cee-air-ahh,” Mia said, waving her hand in Cierra’s face.
“Ah, sorry, was just zoning out there.”
“Did you even hear what I said?”
“Uh, no. What’s up?”
“I said, if I watch one more episode, I’m gonna end up getting eyelash extensions and bleaching my hair.”
“Oh, God, don’t do that.”
“How about we go out to a cute bar or something? Put on real pants?”
The concerted efforts Mia was making to get her heartbroken friend out of the house were valid.
Cierra looked at her computer — progress was visible.
She had revamped her resume, written a cover letter, and even updated her personal website, which showcased her experience and professional shots of some of her best recipes.
Plus, she had made a spreadsheet of all the restaurants she was going to reach out to in the coming week.
“I’m down. Let me see what’s good around here.
” Unsurprisingly, Cierra had the pulse of what was worth going to and any new place worth knowing about.
There were perks to working in the restaurant industry.
Off-menu access and industry nights . . .
there was no VIP club that could top a dive bar on a Tuesday.
It was exclusive in a way that money couldn’t buy, which made it so much more satisfying.
“All right, there’s a new tiki-themed bar that opened last week in NoHo. Snacks, hot servers, pineapple wallpaper. What do you think?”
Mia blinked at Cierra with an incredulous half-open smile.
“What?” Cierra asked.
“It’s just, I don’t remember the last time you said ‘yes’ so quickly to going out on a weeknight. I feel like I’m talking to the old Cee.” Mia got up from the couch, adjusting her pants. “If I had known this, I would have hired someone to kill Harry years ago.”
Cierra laughed, keenly aware that Mia was exactly the type of person who was too rich to go to prison for murder.
Harry was more of a two-beers-max, weekends-only kind of guy, which Cierra didn’t mind — the rigid routine was part of what she’d liked about him.
Stability. They never had any crazy, terrible nights out.
They never had any great ones either. Their nights out were always, without fail, seventy-five percent fun.
“Wait, Cierra, do you know what this means?”
“That we’re gonna have pina coladas?”
“Nope, this will be our first time this decade going out together as single women.” Mia was moving her shoulders and eyebrows in a disjointed pattern that Cierra could tell was meant to be coy.
“We aren’t going out. We’re grabbing a drink. On a Tuesday. It’s not even dinnertime. Also, it’s been three days.”
“Whatever you say,” Mia rang out in her singsong voice. Cierra was glad she didn’t have a job to go to early the next day, because she already knew they were going to have a long night ahead of them.
Unfortunately, the new tiki bar had succumbed to one of the worst fates imaginable: It had gone viral on TikTok.
Its bright tropical colors and killer interior design were social media catnip, so within the week, it had become a watering hole for hordes of half-dressed college students.
Even the guys were in teeny tanks. Cierra, who still considered herself to be a youngish adult, felt like she and Mia had accidentally stumbled into an alternate universe, where everyone wore bright-colored stickers on their face and either looked like an anime character or was full goth with clothes five times too big.
There was simply no in-between. It was disorienting, to say the least.
“Uh, Cee, I know you’d never lead me astray, but I think this might not be our scene, babe.” A tall hunk wearing a crop top brushed past Mia, sending a red flush across her cheeks. “Actually, let’s stay for one drink and then we can try somewhere else.”
Mia looked with fascination at a twenty-something’s perfect under-ass curve peeking out from a miniskirt.
“Oh, okay, I have an idea,” Mia said with a mischievous grin. “I’m gonna get us each a drink and a shot, and the last person to finish has to wear one of those miniskirts to game night.”
“Mia, you are out of your mind if you think I’m doing that.
” Besides, there was a good chance she’d be skipping out this month.
Harry’s friend, James, the same person Harry had stayed with when he left with his pre-packed duffle bag, hosted the game night.
Although their friends had merged over the years, and she hadn’t been technically uninvited, game night felt like Harry’s post-breakup territory.
“Then you better drink fast, bitch!” Mia exclaimed. A bartender with half black, half red hair and a piercing between their brows came up to Cierra’s deranged friend. “Two Painkillers and two shots of tequila, please,” Mia asked proudly.
The bartender looked at the two women with an unimpressed smirk. “You got it.”
“Hey,” Mia said to Cierra, pulling out her phone’s camera, looking for the optimal bar wall backdrop, “mind taking a few pics for me? ”
“Yeah, of course.”
With assured confidence, Mia leaned against the bar and began turning her head this way and that — making subtle shifts to achieve the ideal candid-not-candid pose.
Her life of excess and striking looks had garnered her thousands of followers over the years.
Not that she ever tried to capitalize on it — she did it for the love of the game.
“How do these look?” Cierra asked, handing her phone over.
“Perfect. Do you want one?”
“I’m fine.”