Page 143 of Down Bad

“I gave him a chance. Hundreds, actually. But I don’t think I’m as important to him as I thought.” He fusses with a pile of napkins on the table like he’s trying to make a tent out of them. They keep falling. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you liked that Diego guy. Even though he acted weird that one day at the flower shop.”

I look at him. “Huh?”

“Nico was weird to me around people, too. Even if he did nice stuff when it was just us.”

I shake my head. “I … don’t think that’s the same thing.”

“Maybe Nico’s in love with me.” Cash chuckles at that. “That’d be so fuckin’ funny. All this time.” Then he stops and looks at me. “Uh, sorry for cussing, Mr. C.”

“Didn’t even notice,” I mumble.

“Are you gonna have to close the shop?”

I look at him. “What?”

“I heard about the Bellamy thing. He was an asshole.”

After the fight with Diego, I nearly forgot about Mr. Bellamy.

And what I’m gonna have to do moving forward.

Changes I might have to make.

“Of course not,” I say, answering his question belatedly. Cash might’ve been in the middle of saying something else and I just cut him off. “I’d never … I’d never close my parents’ shop. My shop. I have other big clients, too.”

“Not really.”

I look at Cash again.

He shrugs, his shoulder bumping mine. “I’ve seen the books. And, like, I don’t understand a lot of it, but I can see the amount of income Buttholeamy guy brought in. It was a lot.” He balls up a napkin and basketballs it into an empty cup that might be Lance’s or Chad’s across the table. “Would’ve been a lot more, had the guy actually paid full price for any damned thing at all.”

I drop my eyes to that glass, to the napkin-ball he landed in it, watching as it sucks up whatever drops of soda or beer that were left inside.

“My mom was on the PTA,” he says. “I can ask her to, like, put in a word or something with the ladies, if you need business. Or …”

“Thank you, Cash. I’ll just …” It’s so difficult to think of one thing without stressing about the other. My shop. Diego. All the words that just exploded between us. What he’s doing right now. “I’ll just … figure out something. You don’t have to do anything.”

“But I’m your employee. This matters to me, too, y’know.”

“I know.”

“But you don’t,” he says back. I look at him. “Like, why do you gotta take on everything by yourself, Mr. C? Why does this have to be only your problem to deal with?”

After a second, I realize I don’t have an answer for him.

Other than it’s how I’ve learned to deal with everything these past few years: on my own. Parents gone. Sister living it up. Who’s ever really consistently been there for me other than myself and the Rapunzel Posse in my greenhouse?

I pull out my phone and call him. Straight to voicemail. After a moment, I start typing out a text before I even know what to say. The first draft is full of anger. Deleted. Second one politely asks him to call me so we can talk like two normal grown-ass fucking adults, in those words. I delete that, too. Then I decide to write an apology.

And stop, unable to find the words.

And unsure what I’m apologizing for.

Is apologizing my kneejerk reaction to everything? To assume I’m always in the wrong? To shrink despite my own convictions?

Isn’t that the very thing Diego hated about me?

I clench my fists, frustrated.