Chapter 2
TWO
HARPER
Two months later, and Z and me have finally got some shit semi-together.
As in, we’re not sleeping at the shelter anymore—and the shelter had been a level up from the two weeks we spent sleeping in parks and avoiding cops while we were wait-listed for the shelter beds.
We leveled up again, getting really lucky when our boss at the taqueria where we wash dishes offered us one of the rooms she rents out at the back of her double-wide trailer. A much nicer trailer than anything back in Shelbyville, that’s for damn sure.
Dani has central air. Do you know how many times growing up I vowed I’d sell my own soul to be able to sleep with central air conditioning?
Z even managed to snatch a higher-paying job as a cook when Raul split in the middle of his shift a couple of weeks ago.
Z always was quick at learning new things.
He’s smart, but never really applied himself to anything before.
It’s like he’s got this whole new energy now that it’s finally us out on our own.
I’m having a little more difficulty with… enthusiasm.
Sure, my job’s far from glamorous, but I don’t mind it. After an hour-long bus ride each way, yeah, I get to bus tables and run the industrial dishwasher in a kitchen that’s hotter than Satan’s asshole during lunch rush.
But I don’t actually mind that much. The work keeps my hands busy and my brain blessedly empty.
Plus, I’m so fucking exhausted at night by the time I collapse into the narrow twin bed Z and I share, that I sleep like the dead.
Which is exactly what I need right now. To be dead to the world. Dead to memories of Caleb’s hands on my skin. Why didn’t I say it back when he said he loved me? Why the fuck couldn’t I just get it out of my mouth to say it fucking back?
Don’t think about it, Tucker.
I’ve made it clear to Z that whatever happened that night I got black out drunk… I’m just not ready for something like that again so soon.
Even if this is life now.
Us. Z and me against the world, just like we always planned.
I mean, I’m sure we’ll fuck again, eventually. Probably. Maybe even soon.
We’re basically together now.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for, since we’ve already crossed that line. I’m still just not ready for that kind of… physicality. Again, anyway.
For the most part, Z accepts it, even if I can see in the way he looks at me that it hurts him when I push him away.
And it’s especially difficult, considering we sleep in the same tiny bed since we can barely afford the one room to rent with both of us splitting the cost.
I offered to sleep on the floor.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Z said, and held up the sheet on the skinny mattress for me to get in with him. “We’ve always slept together. Peas in a pod, remember?”
So we sleep together without… you know, sleeping together.
Side by side, sometimes entwined, just like we used to all growing up when I’d climb in his bed to escape things at home.
If I wake up in the morning to a hard-on poking me in the ass or belly, well, that’s just biology.
Nobody ever said pulling yourself up by your bootstraps was going to be easy.
I shove through the kitchen’s swinging door, balancing a precarious tower of dirty plates.
The lunch rush is in full swing—the kind of controlled chaos that makes my pulse spike in a weirdly good way.
Salsa music blares from the ancient radio perched on the shelf above the prep station. The line cooks are shouting in rapid-fire Spanish I’m still barely learning to follow.
I catch maybe every seventh word, and only because it’s, “?Orden, orden, orden!— ?Llevénsela!”
Steam rises from pots of beans and rice, mixing with the smell of cilantro, grilled meat, and the ever-present scent of corn tortillas on the plancha.
“?Mija!” Rosa, one of the line cooks, calls out without looking up from the meat she’s chopping. “More plates! We’re running low!”
“On it!” I call back, scraping the food scraps into the compost bin with practiced efficiency.
The dishwasher’s already running—that industrial beast never stops during service—but I’ve got maybe thirty seconds before the cycle ends and I need to unload. I dump the dirty plates into the designated bin, spray them down with the high-pressure hose, and—
The smell hits me like a freight train.
Grease. Refried beans. Plus the scent of cooking barbacoa and chorizo drifting from the other side of the kitchen, which usually has me drooling.
But all the sudden—
My stomach lurches violently.
Oh no.
I drop the spray hose and bolt for the back door, barely making it outside before I’m puking into the dirt beside the dumpsters.
“Ay Dios,” I hear Ximena’s voice behind me. A cool hand touches my back. “Harper, you okay?”
I spit, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and turn to find Ximena standing there with a bottle of water and a look of concern.
Ximena’s become a really good friend in the month-and-a-half I’ve been working and living at Dani’s. She’s Dani’s niece and shares a room with her boyfriend David as occupants of the second room for rent in the trailer.
Ximena’s nineteen—only a year older than me—but she’s got this put-together vibe I’ll never manage. She’s going to Austin Community College and waitressing thirty hours a week. She’s so damn… peppy all the time—just like, a naturally happy person.
She’s wearing her usual uniform: black jeans, the taqueria’s branded t-shirt, hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, and heavy, artful makeup that somehow stays perfect even in the chaos of service.
“I’m fine,” I lie, taking the water. “Just—something I ate, probably.”
“You’ve been looking green all morning.” She crosses her arms, leaning against the brick wall. “And you barely touched breakfast.”
Our shifts were concurrent today, so we ate and caught the bus together from home.
“I was running late—”
“You made coffee and then didn’t drink it.” Her eyebrow raises. “Dani noticed, too. She asked me to check on you.”
Of course she did. Dani notices everything. She has a soft spot for strays, lucky for Z and me.
“I’m fine,” I insist, taking a long drink of water. The cool liquid helps settle my stomach. A little. “Probably just a stomach bug or—”
The back door bangs open and Z appears, looking annoyingly perfect in his cook’s whites despite the heat.
His dark hair is tied back. He’s hit that last growth spurt guys sometimes get, his shoulders and his chest widening out—as if the rest of his body is finally catching up to his six-foot-two height.
“Harp?” His eyes scan me, immediate concern replacing his usual cocky expression. “Rosa said you ran out here. You good?”
“She’s puking,” Ximena supplies helpfully.
“I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “Can everyone stop—”
The dishwasher beeps from inside, signaling the cycle’s done. Shit.
I push past them both, ignoring Z’s protests, and head back into the inferno of the kitchen. The dishwasher’s door hisses as I open it, steam billowing out. I grab the rack of clean plates—hot enough to burn my fingers even through the towel—and start stacking them on the shelf.
Stack. Stack. Stack. Don’t think. Just work.
Ximena appears at my elbow, taking over the stacking with practiced ease. “You should go home.”
“I can’t afford to miss a shift. We’re trying to save up for a place of our own. I’m fine—”
“You just puked by the dumpsters, and you look like you’re about to pass out.” She keeps her voice low, probably trying not to attract attention. Too late—Rosa’s already giving us the side-eye from her station. “When’s the last time you ate anything that stayed down?”
I try to think. Yesterday? Maybe? Damn it, Ximena’s right. The coffee this morning made me nauseous, and the last time I ate was… I can’t even remember.
“Harper.” Ximena’s voice drops even lower. “When was your last period?”
I start to laugh at her when my hands freeze mid-stack.
Because what she’s speculating literally isn’t possible. I got an IUD put in when I was fifteen at the local clinic. If there was one thing I was going to be damn sure of, it was that I was never going to be a pregnant teenager like my mother.
But still. I frown.
When was my last period?
Everything’s been so crazy, not even having a place to live for the first few weeks after leaving Dallas—God, the last thing I was thinking about was tracking my period.
Z and I are still sharing a single phone, for Christ’s sake.
Life is way too nuts to think about anything so mundane as—
“I—” The kitchen spins a little. “I don’t—”
“Come on.” Ximena grabs my elbow, steering me toward the back hall that leads to a little office and bathroom. “We’re taking a break.”
“We’re in the middle of service—”
“Rosa can handle it for five minutes.”
Ximena practically shoves me into the tiny bathroom—barely big enough for a toilet and sink—and follows me in, locking the door behind us.
“Ximena, seriously, I have an IUD,” I explain. “There’s no way—”
But she’s already digging in the small cabinet underneath the sink, pulling out a familiar blue and white box. Clearblue. The same brand they sell at every dollar store and pharmacy from here to fucking Canada.
“Aunt Dani started buying them in bulk after our other cousin, who used to work here, got knocked up. She keeps them here and in the office because girls working service always seem too busy or stressed to keep track.”
The test feels like it weighs a thousand pounds in my hand.
“I have an IUD,” I repeat, hearing the desperate edge in my own voice. “I got it when I was fifteen. It’s good for like, ten years or something.”
“Nothing’s 100%.” Ximena’s voice is gentle but firm. “Just pee on the stick, Harper. Then we’ll know.”
“But I—” My voice cracks. “Z and I, we haven’t even— Not since that one night I can’t even remember, and that was two months ago—”
Fuck.
Two months ago.
The blackout night back in Waco. Three nights after the day everything went to hell.
The night I don’t remember.