Page 5

Grabbing my phone off the desk, I dial one of the few numbers saved.

Olive attempts to stop me, to tug me back around, but she’s too late.

“Cinnamon it’s the middle of the night.” My Aunt Sherry sounds exhausted.

I wince at her tone. “Sherry! I came up with a great solution to my unemployment problem! Well, Olive did—”

“Keep me out of this!” Olive snaps, grumbling her way back to the bed.

“Cinnamon, it couldn’t wait?” Sherry sighs, but I can hear the humor in her tone.

“What if I just work for myself? I’ll be a knife for a hire! A private chef.” The plan develops in my brain rapidly. I could charge a low amount, have the clients provide the supplies starting out, cook in their kitchens.

“Cinnamon, why don’t you just come work for me? Move back home while you’re at it.”

I wince at the suggestion. My studio apartment might be small, but it is mine.

And it’s not the first time Sherry has tried to get me to join her in her pharmaceutical endeavors. Except…it was the most boring job I could think of.

“What about this, you pay for me to get my website up and running—it should only be a couple hundred dollars—and if I can’t pay you back with interest in the month, I will sell at least one new product for you.” I can already feel the regret creeping in with the words, but I hold it at bay.

“Fine. But you’re selling the new toe fungal medication. Use the emergency card. And Cinnamon?” Her voice twists, and I know what to expect.

Over our years together, there was one constant.

I was always causing problems for her, because bad luck seemed to follow me wherever I went.

“Yeah?” I ask.

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. Sometimes the universe works in a mysterious way and perhaps it is leading you down a path you have been trying too hard to escape,” Sherry placates me.

It isn’t the first time.

I know it won’t be the last.

“I love you, Sherry.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. Now go get some rest. You have a month!”

She disconnects the call before I can respond, and when I turn back to my bed to share the good news, I find Olive passed out next to Durian.

3

Haunted By Our Broken Rouxs

Reuben

My fingers catch in my hair as I run them through it.

“You need to chill out.”

My attention flashes to my cousin, the one I had been stuck with for far too long. The one who I had to take in only weeks after my wife died.

He stands in the doorway of my office. The leather pants he wears are caked in mud, he’s shirtless, showing off countless scars and several splashes of crimson drops freshly spattered across his torso.

I raise a brow on them, but don’t comment. Not yet.

“How can I ‘chill’ out? The same laced drugs are back on the streets again. Six months and we aren’t any closer to stopping them. The same drugs that killed my wife. That killed your father. The ones that are untraceable.”