Page 3 of Mating of Convenience

“Fine, have it your way,” Jared finally gave up. “I’m closing the studio. Time to get your ass home unless you want to spend the night.”

“Yeah, no way.” I got up and put the cleaning supplies away. “See you tomorrow, Jay.”

“Try not to bore yourself to death tonight,” he called after me as I left.

Whatever.

I needed to talk to my dad tonight. My sister had said some worrying things during our last conversation. She and my younger brother were still living with my dad. They were both teenagers now, but to me, they’d always be the little children they were the day our mom died in a traffic accident.

I didn’t care if Jared thought I was boring.

My family came first.

* * *

The momentI reached home--a small apartment in the second-cheapest part of the city--I kicked off my shoes, flopped on the old but comfy couch I’d found on a nearby curb one day and dialed my dad’s number.

He picked up after only about three rings--probably because he knew that I would be on his ass all weekend if he tried to ignore me.

“Raphael, so nice to hear from you, son.”

“Cut the crap, Dad. Kendra told me you’re running out of money. How are you running out of money? You have a good, steady job.” I knew because I’d helped him get it before I went off to college. He’d promised that he was gonna do better, and for a while, he actually did. Of course he still needed the occasional ass-kick every now and then, but still…

“Well,” my dad started. “They fired a bunch of us.”

“Why would they do that?” And why was I only told now?

“They’re downsizing.”

“Bullshit. FedEx isn’t downsizing.”

“The economy--“

“Don’t give me crap about the economy. There’s more people ordering online than ever.”

“But--“

“The truth, Dad!” I demanded. “Why did you lose your job? You know, what? Actually, I don’t care. Just get a new job and pay those damn bills on time.” Just the week before, my little brother had whined at me about losing a computer game because the power went out--and then didn’t come back on for days.

“No one’s hiring.”

“There’s always someone hiring, you just gotta be willing to do the job.”

“Even if I was, I’ll never find anything that pays me enough to clear all this debt.”

I paused, because I’d never heard my dad sound so genuinely defeated.

“I didn’t tell you this,” he confided, “but Kendra had a relapse a couple months ago.”

“What?” Ice spread in my body and slowly froze the blood in my veins. Why hadn’t I heard about this? “What happened? Is she okay?” Kendra had been in the car with our mother the day of the accident. She’d survived, but she’d been in and out of hospitals a lot since because she kept having seizures. Those had seemed to stop a few years back, though. She was supposed to be fine now.

I never would have left if I’d thought otherwise.

“She’s totally fine, calm down.”

“Calm down? How can you tell me to calm down when--“

“We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d freak, and there’s no reason to. I took care of it.”