Maybelline kept holding my hand tight as she held my eyes.

“You need me, I’m there,” she declared.

I smiled, let her hand go, and leaned back. “You always are.”

“Okay, no. What I meant to say, you need me or not, I’ll be there,” she amended.

My head tilted to the side in confusion. “What?”

“Me and Wanda, we’re gonna be on the case,” she announced.

I was still confused. “On what case?”

“Don’t know this boy. Gonna get to know him real quick. Gonna keep our fingers on the pulse. Make sure he doesn’t play games with our girl.”

I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

“Maybelle—”

She lifted a hand my way, palm out. “Love you, baby. You know it. Wanda thinks the world of you and you know that, too. But you’re not out of that hot water yet. We’re gonna make sure you don’t drown in hot guy.”

I leaned in again. “Maybelle, seriously, honestly, I’m not pulling wool. He’s a good guy.”

“He left you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Left you but kept you, then let you walk away from him.”

“This is true, but—”

“Boy’s gonna have to prove to me he’s a good guy.”

I sat back again and let it go.

Maybelline and I graduated from shopper and shop owner to meeting for coffee to having a gab over drinks to talking on the phone for hours about her boy-crazy daughters and man-eating sisters to her having me over to dinner twice a week so she could ascertain I got a decent hot meal in me so she could strike at least that worry off in all her worries about me. In other words, I knew her. I could talk for days and she’d still do whatever-it-was she was going to do with Wanda to keep an eye on Ham.

“Just don’t get me kicked out of my new pad. It’s the shit,” I said.

“You can move in with me and Latrell, that happens.”

“Latrell would lose his mind if the female quotient of his house upped from four to five,” I returned.

“This is true,” she muttered. “But I’ll give him regular foot rubs. He’ll get over it.”

Latrell, I knew, liked his foot rubs and Maybelline got away with a lot in utilizing them strategically.

Still, I thought it important to warn again, “Don’t get me kicked out of my pad, Maybelle.”

“We’ll go easy on your supposed good-guy hot guy.”

This was, most likely, a big fat lie.

Therefore, I repeated, “Don’t get me kicked out of my pad, Maybelle.”

That was when my phone on the table started ringing.

“It’ll all be good,” she assured me, getting up. “Now, I accept your resignation. Grudgingly. Get your phone. And you’re on register three when you’re done with your break.”

She gave me a finger wave and took off.

I looked at my phone and took the call.

“Hey, Arlene,” I greeted.

Arlene was the dispatcher at the local taxi company in Gnaw Bone. She also part-owned it. She’d inherited it when her husband, who had part-owned it with his brother, passed. Since Gnaw Bone wasn’t a thriving metropolis and taxis were needed sometimes for tourists but most times about thirty minutes after last call, this meant she spent her days having plenty of time to get in everyone’s business.

I could see it was now my turn.

“What’s this I hear you movin’ in again with that Reece guy?” she asked instead of saying hi.

“Arlene—” I tried.

“Didn’t that boy leave you high and dry years ago?” she pushed.

“Well, not exactly high and dry. I knew he was a rolling stone and it was a matter of time. But that’s not what this is. We’re just roommates. The place I was stayin’ at wasn’t safe. His place is. He’s just makin’ me safe.”

“Know that about that dump you lived in already, Zara. Told you you should never move in there. It doesn’t even have a blasted peephole.”

My eyes rolled to the ceiling.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Whatever. We’re meetin’ for drinks tonight at The Dog. Seven thirty.”

“Arlene, I’ve got boxes to unpack.”

“So? Unpack ’em tomorrow night. Seven thirty. See you there.”

Then she hung up.

I guessed I was going to The Dog that night.

Oh well, this wasn’t a bad idea. Outside of moving me in, I hadn’t seen much of Ham and we needed to iron some things out. Like rent and utilities.

I had two hundred dollars. I could afford a drink.

So The Dog it was.

I put my phone away in my locker and hightailed my ass to register three.

* * *

At a quarter after seven, I walked in to The Dog, saw Ham behind the bar, and caught my breath.

I hadn’t seen that in eight and a half years.

And I missed it.

Both my sister, Xenia, and I wasted no time getting out from under our parents’ roof the minute we could.

For me, this meant hostessing at The Mark from age eighteen to twenty-one when I could legally serve alcoholic beverages. It was then I moved to The Dog and went from existing on practically no dough and living with a girlfriend in an apartment that was a half step up from my studio to having loads of cash in my pocket every night and getting my own place that I kept until I moved into my house, even through the time when I’d all but moved in with Ham.

So I’d had three years at The Dog under my belt before Ham got a job there.

Looking back, I’d fallen for him on sight. But he capped it being not only hot but cool and fun to work with. I never expected anything to happen. He was eleven years older than me, and back then, that was a lot. Even now, it still seemed like a lot.

But it happened for us. It didn’t take long. My parents never really got done screwing with me or Xenia. Not until they did it when Ham was around, he took my back, as he said, I landed in his bed, and he took care of that situation for me.

Not for Xenia, unfortunately. By then, Xenia was beyond anyone taking care of her, even professionals with years of training and experience.

I turned my thoughts from my sister like I always turned my thoughts from my sister but doing it meant I caught the sexy smile Ham threw at me when he caught sight of me.

Yes, this was going to be a struggle.

He moved down the bar when he saw I was moving in that direction.

I hefted my ass on a stool as he hit the bar in front of me.

“You didn’t tell me you were comin’ in,” he said as greeting.

“Command performance,” I explained. “Arlene.”

He smiled another sexy smile as he muttered a throaty, sexy, “Ah.”

I ignored the sexy, throaty “ah” and smile as well as my mild surprise that Ham obviously remembered Arlene from back in the day (then again, Arlene was unforgettable), though there was the possibility she’d been in since he’d been back, and stayed on target.

“I got home, unpacked some stuff so your head wouldn’t explode at the mess, and headed out or I would have called to let you know you needed to have a cold one waiting for me.”

Without hesitation, he moved back two steps, bent, pulled a cold one out of the glass-fronted fridge under the back of the bar, twisted off the cap, and came back to put the bottle of beer on the bar in front of me.

I grabbed it and took a deep pull.

When I dropped it, I noted, “Just to say, I only got a few boxes unpacked so don’t let your head explode. I’ll finish tomorrow.”

“Tell me you unpacked the dishes,” he ordered.

“Seein’ as you got paper plates, a weirdly ample supply of chopsticks, and that’s all, not even mugs, yes. I prioritized unpacking the dishes.”

He grinned. “Then my head won’t explode.”

“Good,” I mumbled and took another pull from my beer. When I dropped it, I asked, “You got a second to talk before Arlene gets here?”

“Jake’s out back, so I do but I do only if no one needs a drink.”

“This’ll be fast.”

His brows went up. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk about rent, utilities, stuff like that.”

“Why?”

I blinked and repeated a perplexed, “Why?”

“Well, seein’ as you’re not payin’ either, nothin’ to talk about.”

I didn’t blink then. I stared, wide-eyed and with lips parted.

I pulled it together to ask, “I’m not payin’?”

“Babe, told you, helpin’ you get on your feet.”

“But—”

“To get on your feet, you need cash.”

“Yes, but—”

“Yo! Barman!” a man’s voice called.

I looked to the right and saw a man holding up a ten spot.

“Be back,” Ham muttered and moved to the man.

I took a pull of beer, thinking about our brief discussion and how I felt about it.

Then I decided how I felt about it.

Luckily, Ham was quick getting beers for the guy, making change, and getting back to me.

“We good?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Zara—”

I leaned in. “Please, listen to me.”

Ham held my eyes. “I’m listenin’.”

“I can’t let you do that. Even if we were together, I couldn’t let you do that. I’ve made my own way since I was eighteen.”

“Darlin’—”

“Please. Listen,” I urged.

Ham shut his mouth.

“We have to work something out. I know what it costs to rent there because I checked it out when I was moving. It was totally out of my range and I wasn’t even looking at two bedrooms with three balconies. I suspect half of your rent is more than my rent on the studio so, it sucks, but I can’t hack that. But I have to do something and you have to let me, Ham. I’m moving right back out if you don’t. Maybelline said I could stay with her and her husband if—”

He cut me off. “Half utilities, a hundred dollars the first month, a hundred fifty the second, two hundred the third, we stick with that for the next three and see where you’re at.”