Page 154 of Little Sunshine

Juliet studied me for a moment. “Is letting him buy you stuff a rule?” She raised her eyebrows with meaning.

“Yes.”

“That was a hard one for me to get used to.”

“How did you?”

“Because it makes him happy. And with everything he did for me, I wanted to make him happy however I could. And if that meant being selfless enough to accept jewelry and clothes and…” She gave a small laugh and shrugged. “It sounds stupid, but it helped.”

We were both quiet for a moment before I tried to hand the bag back to her. “I still don’t have anywhere worthy to wear a dress this beautiful.”

“Wear it on Friday.”

“Friday?”

“Didn’t Ash tell you about the boxing event? I figured with as much work as he’s been doing for it, he’d have mentioned it.”

“He did, but I’m not going. He’ll be working.”

“They all will. That doesn’t mean they can’t watch.”

“I still don’t think?—”

Marco cut in. “Ash said he was going to talk to you later, and you’re going.”

“Oh. Okay.” I knew nothing about boxing. I’d never watched it on TV or anything. But I was still excited—especially since it gave me an excuse to wear the dress.

We moved to lighter topics. That was usually the place I loved conversation to stay, but I wanted to talk more.

Speaking quietly, I asked, “That’s really how you grew up?”

“Yup.”

Rather than discussing more of the Daddy stuff like I thought we would, Juliet and I talked about our lives. First, about her physically abusive and neglectful father and how Maximo had saved her—though she didn’t share the specifics. Then, about my emotionally abusive and neglectful mother, my life as a child bandit, and why I’d gone on that poolside sprint.

And even though the topic was different, Ash was still right. It was nice to have someone to talk to who understood.

After a couple of hours Juliet asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” I said instead of doing what I’d usually do—pretend I wasn’t so I wouldn’t put anyone out.

“Me too, but I have no idea what I want. You?”

I thought for a second. “What were you saying about a cheese plate?”

Juliet smiled.

And she wasn’t the only one.

In the first sign of emotion since I’d gotten out there, Marco smiled, too.

Or maybe it was an involuntary twitch. I wasn’t totally sure.

Ash

It’d been a motherfucking day.

Between the billionaire who wanted to go through each line of his already itemized bill and the aging movie star who didn’t understand why he couldn’t do blow at the high roller poker table, I’d put out a hundred other fires. Everyone was finally as happy as I could possibly make them short of tucking them in, reading them a bedtime story, and kissing their foreheads.

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