Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Oh, I did, yes.” Bitty yanked out the tie and fluffed the lengths around, the reds that had been streaked through the darkness gleaming copper and pink. “Just some highlights. Sabine did it. What do you think?”
The shy pride in the female’s heart-shaped face was a reminder that they were not the same.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Nalla answered gently. Which would have been her reply even if the dye job had been god-awful.
It wasn’t, but Bitty didn’t need the tinting. With all her dark hair, and a face that didn’t need makeup, she had a natural glow to her that was worth so much more than the glamour shit the pick-me females and women plastered on themselves.
“Is that why you want to go out tonight?” Nalla grabbed her brush and started yanking it through her own wet tangles. “There are so many better places to go than Bathe.”
Industrial accidents. Active volcanos.
Driver’s license renewal lines.
Bitty regathered the waves and twisted the band back on. “That club is where everyone else goes, though.”
“Popularity with the group you’re talking about is not necessarily a great endorsement, in my opinion.”
Ducking her eyes, Bitty focused on her phone. “I don’t know why you dislike them so much. We’ve known them all our lives.”
Yeah, well, we didn’t choose “them,” she wanted to say. The young of the other Brothers and fighters were family, sure. But any human movie about the holidays proved that just because someone was part of your origin story, it didn’t mean you wanted them in your happily-ever-after epilogue.
“How ’bout we have a coffee somewhere together?” Nalla suggested. “Or we could go to a movie? Spider-Man 15 is out.”
The female shook her head and turned her phone forward. “We need to do better than that. It’s in the Tenets of Self-Discovery. Seek the world around us.”
Nalla gritted her teeth. “You’re not still listening to that influencer.”
“Influencer? She’s a trained life coach, and she’s teaching me so much. She isn’t some, like, Instagram model. This is a real program for self-improvement.”
On the Samsung’s little screen, a woman was striding across a purple-lit stage, a mic up to her red-lipped mouth, her free hand waving around like she was trying to catch a bus. The volume was turned down, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the message: Love yourself. Give me $199 a month for this online course. Love yourself even more. Give me $599 a month for personal coaching sessions. Love yourself to the max. Give me $1,999 for this three-day conference.
Life coach, my ass, Nalla thought.
The idea that some human was parading in Prada, shouting into a low-esteem void and monetizing the mental gymnastics, was offensive. The fact that Bitty, of all people, was falling for it? Ridiculous. The female had a saint’s kindness paired with the intelligence of a military analyst. There was nothing she needed to learn from some snake oil salesman in stilettos.
“You could use her help, too, Nalla.”
“Excuse me?”
Although maybe she didn’t have a right to get so defensive. She’d just come back from Auntie Beth’s—and although she’d been urged to try a fresh start with old conflicts on the parental front, the closest she could get to any cleanup was the hot shower she’d just had.
And no amount of loofah had scrubbed off her father’s stranglehold on her life.
“I do not need that bullshit,” she said as she switched her brush to her other hand. “And neither do you. It’s nothing more than a cash grab. For godsakes, you’re a trained social worker, just like I am. How are you not seeing this more clearly?”
“My background in therapy is how I know she’s right about so much.” Bitty put the phone aside on the duvet—but face up, so she could glance down like the woman was part of their conversation and Bitty wanted to make sure the Prada-chologist’s POV was included. “You talk all the time about change. How you need things to be different in your life.”
“The kind of different I’m looking for is not going to be at Bathe.”
“How do you know? When was the last time you were there? We’re both off from work tonight, and for the last whatever, what do we do when that happens? Sit here on our phones—” A bing! went off, and that cell was raised again. “Lyric’s texted. She’s there right now—oh. And so’s Mharta. I guess they’re all meeting up.”
Nalla pivoted back to the mirror, put the hairbrush down on the sink, and went for her Secret deodorant. “There’s nothing wrong with a little downtime, especially after the nights we put in with the residents and our clients. Besides, you don’t like Mharta.”
“Of course I like her, and downtime is all we have.”
Pumping out some Clinique moisturizer, Nalla rubbed her palms together and then smoothed the yellow cream over her cheeks and forehead. “You need to stop listening to—”