Page 79 of Chicago Sin

“Is this all worth it? Is he good?” Josie asks in a teasing voice as she pulls a tired bouquet out of the cooler and dumps the water in my industrial sink.

I have the usual anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach that I always have when she’s working, but even so, I’m relieved to hash through the details of Armando with her.

My eyelids flutter. “So good. Like three times yesterday and once this morning good.”

“Oh damn. That’s so hot. So is it like… an arrangement? Like you pimped yourself out for the rent? Or what?”

I hurl a dead rose at her head. “Bitch, I did not whore myself out. He just offered to pay the rent. And I accepted the offer.”

“Mmm hmm. And how did that go down, exactly?”

Okay, crap. I can’t tell her the real story. “All right, yeah, I pimped myself out,” I mumble, like I’m coming clean.

Josie’s eyes pop. “Oh, that’s hot. I think that’s so hot. And he just ponied up the money and said get in my bed, bitch?”

I snort-laugh. “Yeah, just like that.”

Josie eyes me with unveiled curiosity. She’s as tall as I am short—six foot one, and the shortest of all her siblings. And yes, they all played basketball. Her family immigrated from Brazil when she was four. Dark-skinned like me, she’s beautiful, with bleached-blonde hair blooming in a halo around her head. She’s the reason I bleached the ends of my curls although I didn’t go quite as light as she did.

She cocks her head. “I can’t decide what I think about all this.”

“What do you mean?” I may sound slightly defensive.

“I don’t know. You look happy. Happier than you have in a while. But this is so out of character for you, I feel like I might need to call an intervention or something.”

My face grows warm. “I like him, Jos.”

She points a stern finger at me. “Don’t tell him that. And do not cry! Please tell me you haven’t already cried.”

I cringe a little. Josie knows how relationships always end for me. We’ve been friends since high school—and there’s definitely a pattern. I get attached too quickly—assign too much meaning to things. Then I blurt, “I love you!” or some other such clingy thing. Or I burst into tears or somehow over-emote about something, and then it’s over. The guy hightails it away from me. I’m way too much for him.

“Well, I did cry,” I admit. “—It was after sex, though!” I add quickly when Josie shoots me the It’s all over look.

“Uh huh. And how did that go?”

“Um.” I consider. “Actually not horrible. He rolled with it. Like he didn’t seem to think it was that big a deal.” Now that I’m saying it, I’m surprised. Why didn’t he get uncomfortable or try to fix it or think I was nuts? “I don’t know…maybe women routinely cry after sex with him,” I joke, but thinking of him having sex with other women makes the words turn sour in my mouth. “He is that good.”

Josie puts her hands on her hips. “When was this?”

The cringey feeling returns. “Yesterday… maybe the day before that too.” And this morning, he abruptly ended our joined-at-the-hip thing.

He left while I was still asleep in bed. Just kissed my forehead and said he had to go to work. Like it was no big deal, and I hadn’t just been his prisoner for days. He told me a man would be outside the shop all day, and to not leave without someone with me. But he wasn’t sitting on me anymore. He told me he’d check in later as a normal couple would do.

I’d been thinking it meant he finally trusted me, but maybe it was the crying. Or me. Being too much, as always. He was bailing.

The bells on the door jingle and Jack, the FedEx guy comes in. “Package for you, young lady.” He beams at me in a fatherly way as he hands over a padded envelope. “You have to sign for this one.”

Perplexed, I sign his electronic clipboard and examine the package. I haven’t ordered anything since I don’t have any credit left on my credit card or cash in my bank account—unless I count the money Armando put there.

I tear open the packaging to find a tiny jewelry box. “Oh wow.” My pulse quickens. He bought me a gift.

A gift.

That means something, doesn’t it?

Josie makes an excited humming sound. “Somebody likes you.”

“Oh wow,” I murmur again, prying open the small lid with trembling fingers. “Wow.” It seems to be the only word I remember how to say. I crack open the box. Inside is a gold nose ring with a diamond on the end.