Page 67 of Frozen Hearts
The screen goes black before I hear my mother’s grating tone.
“Send me that money, Riley.”
“I will,” I respond, utterly defeated and stripped raw. “You’re still coming up here next weekend, right?”
“We can’t.”
“What? Why?” I begin to protest. “You canceled the last two meetings, Mom. You can’t keep doing this for the next three years!”
“It’s not my fault, Riley. That piece of crap car you bought me won’t start.”
“Well, have you taken it to the mechanic?”
“And how do you think I’m going to pay for that? Not all of us are so willing to offer up our bodies as payment.”
I close my eyes and count to three.
Fucking hypocrite. She might have never danced on a stage for tips, but offering up her body in exchange for a lifestyle upgrade is exactly what my mother has always done.
More than that, I have to get up on the stage at Lux every weekend becauseshepoint-blank refuses to get a job, meaning I’m left to provide for myself, my daughter, and my good-for-nothing mother, all while attending college full-time.
“I’ll send you the money to get it fixed,” I grind through clenched teeth, even as I mentally tally up the amount in my bank account. I might be able to scrape by if it isn’t too expensive. Worst case scenario, winter break is only a couple of weeks away and I have no plans other than to work every available shift I can get, so that should help tide us over for a while. Assuming my mother can stop demanding extra money each month. “It better be fixed by the next visitation,” I tell her, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. “I want to see my daughter on Christmas Day. And get her hair cut! It’s getting straggly.”
“Yes, yes,” she retorts off-hand. “We’ll see what we can do. Don’t forget to send me that money.”
On that parting note, she hangs up, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to launch my phone across the room.
Agitated and emotionally wrung out, I know exactly where I’ll be spending the rest of my afternoon before I have to go to work—the dance studio, attempting to work out the impact of this particularly grueling day from my system.
17
ROYCE
“Yo, man, hold up!”
Fuck.
Ignoring him, I continue walking, even though I should have known it wouldn’t do me any good.
A moment later, I hear the thundering of footfalls as what sounds like the entire football team approaches.
Just fucking great.
“King!”
A thick, heavy forearm is thrown over my shoulder a moment later.
“It is you.” Todd pulls me to a stop as the rest of the team surrounds us. “How you been, man?”
“Fine.” Todd and I are both seniors. We were on the football team together, both competitive as hell and gunning for the captain position. Glancing down at his Halston U hoodie, I notice the wordCaptainstitched beneath the husky mascot, with the academic year written beneath.I guess he got the position.Unsurprisingly.
“Yeah? What you been up to? We never see you anymore.”
“I’ve been busy,” I grit out, uncomfortable as fuck with the questioning eyes of every player from the team on me. There was once a time when I would have lapped up having everyone’s attention. When these guys felt like brothers to me, regardless, those days are long gone now.
Todd’s eyes bounce between mine. “You coming to the party after the game?”
“Nah, not my scene anymore.”
