Page 3 of Robbin’ the Rich

“I’m introducing you to Mel before I remember I enjoy silence.”

Ariel gasped dramatically. “Oh my god.”

“You’re making it worse.”

“You’re helping me while insulting me. This is exactly the vibe I wanted from derby.” She bounced slightly, clapping next to me.

“That says concerning things about your standards.”

She laughed brightly and followed me across the rink while I tried very hard not to already like her.

“Hey, Mel,” I called as she turned towards us.

Ariel gasped next to me “Mel-icious Intent!”

Mel chuckled. “That’s me, what can I do for you?”

“I’m Ariel. I just moved to the area, and I love the Grimm Reapers. Like love the Grimm Reapers. I want to be one so bad, but I was wondering, well, Robin said you run the roller rink, do you have any openings?” she said all in one big breath.

“I do, come talk to me,” Mel said, skating with Ariel over to a quieter corner.

I made my way back onto the floor. The music played, and I skated. All things considered, Ariel should have annoyed me. I don’t do well with the untrained puppy energy, but there was something about her I liked, and if she was staying at Lantern House, she just might need the Reapers.

The next evening I drove to my parents’ house with Paramore playing softly through my speakers, and absolutely zero work stress in my body.

One of the many perks of being an accountant in the off-season was that nobody cared what I was doing right now as long as tax season didn’t explode later. I’d spent most of the day working from home in sweatpants, answering three emails, updating a spreadsheet, and absolutely destroying zombies in Project Undead while half-listening to a finance podcast.

Rain drizzled lightly across Briar Glen as I turned down the familiar tree-lined streets toward my parents’ neighborhood. My windshield wipers moveds in a lazy rhythm. And somehow, I was still thinking about Ariel, which was ridiculous. I’d talked to her for maybe twenty minutes. But there had been something about the way she said she was staying at Lantern House that lodged under my skin.

Maybe because the name always brought back memories of Lila.

I shifted one hand higher on the steering wheel, watching blurry headlights pass through the rain. Lila had been my first girlfriend. She was my first kiss, my first everything. She dyed her hair constantly, loved old punk music, and convinced me to skip prom so we could drive two towns over to a queer film festival instead.

Honestly? It was the better choice.

We’d dated through most of senior year in that weird careful way queer kids in small midwestern towns sometimes did back then. Quiet enough to stay safe. Open enough that it still felt real.

My parents knew. My mother had figured it out almost immediately, because apparently mothers were government surveillance programs wrapped in cardigans.

But Lila’s parents… That had been different.

They found out the summer after graduation. A person who I had thought was my best friend told her parents. Lila’s parents were ultra-religious. They kicked her out within the week. Just gone. One screaming match. One trash bag of clothes. One terrified eighteen-year-old suddenly trying to figure out where to sleep.

Lantern House had taken her in.

Back then it had only been a tiny, converted house run by Maggie Flores and pure stubbornness. As hard as Maggie worked, the shelter had always operated like it was one missed electric bill away from collapse. But somehow, it kept surviving anyway, kind of like the people inside it.

I could still remember sneaking out to see Lila there one humid summer night, sitting beside her on the back porch steps while cicadas screamed in the trees.

“I’m leaving Briar Glenn,” she’d said quietly.

I can still remember the way my heart sank. “Where are you going?”

She smiled up at the sky, but it looked sad around the edges.

“There has to be somewhere better than this.”

At eighteen, I hadn’t known how to answer her.