Since she had sacrificed so much to practically raise me, I did my best not to complain about the situation. This was getting old, though. Something had to be done.
Our bills were piling up with utilities at risk of being shut off and we couldn’t afford a single reconnect fee right now.
Isabel was let go from her cashier job nearly a month ago and my measly pay was nowhere near enough to keep a roof over our heads and our stomachs full long term. Being thieves was not the solution—they weren’t even good at it.
This time one came back with a flesh wound, before this my sister had nearly broken her leg. Call it intuition or a sixth sense, but I knew if this continued the outcome would eventually be something dire—death or prison.
Armed with this knowledge and determined to find a solution, I found myself wandering the aisles of a local grocery. Our town was nothing more than a giant square, so we only had two to choose from and I worked at the other.
The generous ten percent discount I got from being a valued employee of Wholesome Goods wasn’t worth seeing my co-workers on my day off. I mentally added and subtracted items as I pushed my buggy down another aisle.
Tough times called for penny-pinching, but if I was going to stage an intervention, snacks were a must. I’d lure them in with things we now considered a luxury to eat and force this conversation to happen if it was the last thing I did.
After grabbing a bag of tortilla chips, I began perusing the various kinds of salsa and queso. There were way too many of the same damn thing.
I selected the cheapest options and turned to sit the jars in my cart, catching in my peripheral one of the finest men I’d ever seen coming down the aisle.
It didn’t register who I was looking at until eyes the color of seafoam met mine and his perfect lips lifted into a friendly smile.
“Adelita, it’s been a while,” he greeted warmly.
What the hell? No way. He looked the same as he had three years ago, only somehow more gorgeous. That wasn’t a word I casually tossed around to describe just any run-of-the-mill guy. There were certain qualifications a man needed to meet to earn the accolade. Draven Alistair surpassed nearly all of them. I once had a thing for his name alone.
“You remember me?”
His pristine teeth made an appearance as his smile grew.
“How could I not? You were the first person to befriend my cousin after she switched schools.”
“Well, me and a few others. How is she?”
“She’s good, much better where she’s at now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I appreciate how genuine that sounds coming from you.”
“Of course,” I replied with a smile.
I’m sure he got loads of fake sympathy from people who only inquired about her because they needed something to gossip about. I for one had honestly liked Gwyneth.
She had come rolling into Pravus Prep in the middle of my freshman year, resembling an actual barbie doll with the bubbly personality to match. Me and two of my closest friends brought her into our fold. All was fine and dandy until senior year. She had an epic meltdown in the locker room after volleyball practice.
The girl screamed about rituals, the woman’s body, and the consumption of flesh. Half of us were shocked and the rest were terrified. It had been like something from the exorcist movies.
Draven was always the one who picked her up at the end of the day. Once she lost her shit, I never saw her or him again. That was honestly for the best. Our school was full of over-privileged bitches that would’ve ostracized and bullied her for the rest of her years.
I’d tried to check on her a few times after graduation, but the Alistairs lived within a gated community that was better armed than Fort Knox. On top of that, her phone had been disconnected.
It was all quite weird. Not the gated community thing. Unlike me who had gotten into Pravus thanks to my grades earning me a scholarship I damn near sold my soul to obtain, the Alistair family was loaded.
It was her vanishing into thin air I found concerning. I guess when you had money you had options to do things like that.
“Special occasion?” Draven fluidly changed the subject, gesturing to the contents in my cart.
I almost scoffed. “Something like that. What about you? That is a lot of meat. Do you have something going on at the church?”
“I do. We’ve found the location for our new expansion so now we celebrate.”
“You’re expanding?”
I had heard through the grapevine that he was looking to do just that, but I didn’t put much stock in the rumors around here. It was said that the Rothwell church was so big it couldn’t fit on any plot of land in Cottonwood. Supposedly that’s why it had been built just outside our township lines.
I couldn’t verify this info. I had driven by a sign for the place once or twice, but I’d never seen the building itself.
“There’s been some heavy interest from others.”
“Oh, that’s good…”
An awkward silence stretched between us after that. The polite thing would have been to ask about his church, but I just couldn’t bring myself to dredge up the necessary enthusiasm.
My father had been super into religion before his early passing. The guy thought he was an actual deity himself. One of my most vivid memories was him forcing me to write scriptures over and over to ‘repent’ for my daily sins.
It never aligned with the usual seven you would find in a bible. No, dad has his own version of right and wrong and rules to be followed. Call me heartless, but I was one of the only people who didn’t shed a tear at his funeral.
I wasn’t sure which faith Draven and his family adhered to, but I knew it didn’t include an open-door policy into his congregation.
He certainly didn’t look like any other priest, pastor, reverend, or whatever he was deemed.
He had a jawline that could cut glass, a dimpled chin, and hair as dark as a starless sky always groomed to perfection.
Those pretty eyes of his were like a silent lure. He always smelled good too—like spice and something woodsy and warm. I had never seen an inch of his body beneath the suits he wore, but I imagined whatever was covered by the perfectly tailored fabric was just as visually appealing as the rest of him.
Draven, being such a respectful soul, simply stood there and let me ogle him as if I’d never seen a man before. When I realized what I was doing, my face exploded with heat.
Now more than ever I was grateful for being blessed with my parents’ naturally warm skin tone.
“Well, it was good seeing you,” I said politely, grabbing for the handle of my cart.
I barely took a step before I was stopped by his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.
His grip was firm but gentle. I looked up and met his suddenly intrusive gaze.
“Are you okay, Adelita?”
The genuine concern conveyed in his tone and written all over his face brought about an unexpected bubble of emotions. It had been a long time since someone asked me that. It was such a simple question that meant more than he could ever know. I was both touched and mortified. I knew I should’ve worn a beanie and shades.
“I think I’m just having an off day. I didn’t sleep much.”
“We all have those,” he replied, bringing his hand back down to his side. “But you’re far too beautiful to ever look bad, even on those off days.”