Arranged(22)

Her face fell. “I’m staaaarving, but I went over my calorie count at like nine a.m.”

“You’re only fourteen. You’re probably having a growth spurt. You need extra calories to grow. You should eat.”

She studied me like she was trying to figure out whether I was putting her on. “You think? I’m only five eight. I’d love it if I could grow three more inches. I hate it when other models tower over me.”

I nodded. “I bet it is a growth spurt. I kept growing until I was seventeen, and those extra inches are an advantage. Let’s go get dinner.”

We went to a tiny pasta place in Little Italy that Chester recommended. He’d been trying to talk me into going there for weeks, but since pasta was my favorite food and the bane of my existence, I’d been using all of my self-control to avoid it.

That night I indulged, and it was worth all the extra work I’d have to put in later.

Jovie and I shared a plate of manicotti that literally made my eyes roll up into my head with every bite.

“Oh my God!”

“Can we swing by my boyfriend’s place after this and grab some of my stuff? I’m afraid if I leave it there too long, he’ll just throw it away.”

“Of course,” I said, glancing at Chester, who’d been silent while he ate enough food to feed a small village of models.

He shared a look with Vincent, who was also packing in food like he’d been starving along with me.

“I’ll go in with her and help her carry everything,” Chester told me. “But you’ll need to stay in the car.”

I stared him down. “Why?”

“This is a break up thing, right? That sort of thing can go badly. The boss wouldn’t like it if you got caught in the middle of some domestic dispute.”

When he said boss, I never really knew who he meant. My husband or father-in-law? And I never asked, because it was humiliating that I didn’t already know.

“Raoul probably won’t even be there,” Jovie assured him. “He’s a club kid. He likes to go out late like every night ’til five a.m.”

“How old is this Raoul guy?” Vincent asked her.

I eyed him warily. Vincent didn’t talk much, so when he did, everyone paid attention.

Jovie shrugged, but it was a tense movement. The question made her uncomfortable. “Twenty-five or twenty-six? It doesn’t matter. I’m never speaking to him again.”

“And how old are you?” Chester asked her, his words coming out very slowly.

Uh-oh. The guys’ hackles were up. So were mine, for that matter, but the last thing I wanted to do was scare Jovie off.

“Almost fifteen,” she said, looking back and forth between the two men.

Vincent spit over his shoulder.

Chester started cracking his knuckles.

Not good. “Guys, tone it down,” I told them firmly. The last thing we needed to do was push her back to the creep.

Jovie was looking back and forth between the two of them. “You know, never mind.”

“They won’t do anything,” I told her. “They’ll help you grab your stuff and that’s it.”

“I hate violence,” she said slowly.

“There won’t be any violence,” I told her.

“You promise?” she asked, still looking at the guys.

They both mumbled out that yes they promised.

“We won’t touch him tonight,” Chester added with a bland smile.

Well, that did not bode well for Raoul the Creep, I mused.

It took her less than twenty minutes to grab her stuff from the creep’s apartment, and he never made an appearance, thank God. Chester threw two overstuffed suitcases in the trunk as Jovie slid back into her seat beside me.

“That’s all your stuff?” I asked her in surprise.

“I’m a minimalist. It suits me. You never know when you’ll need to bolt.”

I used to be like that. Before the wedding, my life could’ve fit into two suitcases, as well, so I don’t know why it threw me off. Perhaps because I couldn’t travel overnight without more junk than that nowadays. How quickly I was becoming accustomed to my strange new extravagant existence.

The instant Jovie entered my apartment something changed. Something about the space and something about my life. Both became more full of an intangible something I hadn’t known I’d been craving. Chester and Vincent were great company, all things considered, but Jovie was something else. Her vivacious energy was food I hadn’t known I was missing.

We stayed up way past my bedtime talking for hours and doing all the fun girly shit we could think of.

I got her hooked on DramaFever and she got me hooked on BTS. It was very easy. Both were highly addictive.

“Where’s your husband?” she asked at some point. We were drinking unsweetened green tea kale smoothies and she was braiding my hair.

I shrugged. “Working probably.” It was only a little lie.

“Did you tell him I was staying here?” she asked, pausing her quick motions against my scalp.

I shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. He rarely stays here. This place is mine.” I felt pleasure as I said it even if it wasn’t strictly the truth. It was true enough.

She was quiet for a while. “That’s cool,” she drew the words out. “But if he doesn’t stay here, where does he stay?”