Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“No shit.” Rogue headed toward the front of the house. “And after we handle Tommy. We’ll handle that piece of shit, too.”
Five
Jade
Warm sunlight streamed through the grime-covered living room window, making our crappy apartment look almost cheerful. The wall paint had long-ago yellowed, and the ceiling in the bathroom was covered in mold, but, on the bright side, we had a view of the thin line of trees that separated our apartment block from the railroad tracks. The leaves had turned, and if I squinted a little, I could almost imagine I was in the woods on a sunny fall day. Alas, I was sitting on our worn couch with my foot propped on the edge of the coffee table while I did a terrible job of painting my toenails.
Still, for the first time in a long time, I felt a degree of levity. It had been three days since I went to confront Wolf, and instead, I helped rob Rogue. That five hundred bucks had helped me pay down some of my parents’ mortgage debt. Just enough to stop them from repossessing the house. For another month, at least. I also had a night off for the first time in weeks. All I’d planned to do was sleep. Between school, work, and the money-making side hustles I did to try to keep a roof over my parents’ heads, I was permanently exhausted.
Cassie walked into the living area, dressed in an oversized Prada shirt, which I assumed was Rogue’s. No one else around here could afford that crap. Yeah, she was deep in the break-up ritual. Next would come her break-up playlist. Then her nasty eight-dollar vodka. She grabbed a box of cereal from the kitchen counter, then crossed the tiny living area and collapsed onto the couch next to me.
“Are you painting your toes…pink?” she asked around a mouthful, hand already digging into the box for another.
I put the brush back in the bottle of polish I’d stolen from the bathroom. Definitely hers. Monroe wouldn’t be seen dead wearing pink. “Ten out of ten for observation, Cassie.”
“Had to check that I wasn’t hallucinating.” She shoved more cereal in her mouth. “Are you having some kind of wannabe cheerleader crisis I should know about?”
“God no. I’m making my feet look…appealing?” That sounded weird. “Girlie.” The word had me wrinkling my nose, but I figured that was the aesthetic I needed to go for.
“Oh, are we doing a makeover?” She sounded far too excited about that prospect. Glaring at her, I took my phone, pulled up my Lonely Fans account, and handed it to her.
Three subscribers.
That was all I had.
Fifteen bucks a month.
When I’d seen a video about a girl making ten grand a month selling pictures of her feet, I hadn’t exactly expected the same success, but come on. Fifteen bucks?
“I figured since the money from Rogue’s drugs has bought me a little time, I could, you know, work on my content.”
Monroe and I had joked about foot pictures for years, but I was actually doing it. I was neck deep in desperation, dignity and all.
Cassie slowly chewed her cereal while she stared at the screen. Her attention drifted to my poorly painted toes. “You should have filmed yourself painting your toes. One of the girls in my sociology class is an influencer or something. Apparently, guys ask to buy her underwear. One offered her twenty bucks for a video of her getting a pedicure.” She lifted her brows. “Weird, right?”
I didn’t know if weird was the right word, but too good, or perhaps too easy, to be true. What did I have to lose, though? “I can take it off.”
“It looks like a five-year-old did it anyway.” Rude. She put her bowl on the table. “There’s remover in the bathroom. And you need a good background.”
I shoved off the couch, hobbling down the hall with my wet toes. When I came out of the bathroom, she had the white, fluffy blanket from her bed spread out across the floor. Her desk lamp beside it. “You film, I’ll paint.”
Good friends stole with you, but great friends helped you make videos of your feet for strangers to jerk off over.
I dumped the remover onto a cotton ball and returned my toes to their usual neglected state.
Cassie sat on the floor in front of me and picked up the bottle of cotton candy-pink polish. “We’re going to get you at least ten new subscribers.”
I pulled the camera up on my phone and filmed.
At five bucks a month, even ten subscribers weren’t going to solve all my problems, but I’d take it.
Besides, my moral scale had become somewhat of a sliding one since Dad had fallen ill. I used to reprimand Wolf for shoplifting. He would say that morals were a privilege. I’d argued that they were a choice, but how wrong I’d been, and, yeah, privileged.