Eight Count ✔️

THREE

Colorful banners dot my vision and another unlucky site gets swiped left. My search for workout attire has landed empty. Why can't I find what I'm looking for? It's as if all options disappear when I'm searching for them. Do physical stores no longer exist?

There's a tap on my shoulder. I raise my head, meeting Dax's piercing gaze. "This, this is for you." He nudges a plastic, clear cup of a familiar liquid toward me. Ice floats to the surface of the golden liquid, bobbing through the bubble and pilling near the top of the enclosed cup. Swiss lemonade. Warmth tickles my insides, and I have to blink rapidly to shake the feeling away.

"Thank you," I reply, shifting back into my seat, a corner table at the edge of the cafe, by the front window. With a straight view of the laundry facility across the street, this is the optimal setting. "I see you still favor this too."

A glance into his clear orbs makes me think that there's pain somewhere near the mention of this liquid. Maybe something that reminds him of the Fridays we went at the family-owned diner downtown, Freddie's. "I guess some things never change." His phrase confirms my hypothesis. There's something there waiting to spill, supported by his broken tone and the small flinch that shows at his jaw.

Forget it.

I roll my shoulders, scanning my phone. Nothing. Not a single place to pick something up, no attainable place. The problems, of which there are many, I am not rich and therefore lack the means to buy damn expensive bits and bobs. Not to mention, these stores are out of reach. It's a thirty-minute drive with no traffic. But there is traffic. There always is from what I've seen and heard. Two weeks in this city hasn't taught me much, but I can tell a thirty-minute one-way trip isn't feasible.

"Are you alright?" Dax shifts, sliding his drink to and fro, left, right, left, right.

Not looking up from the infuriating page, I mutter, "Brilliant. And you?"

"Great, great. What have you been up to?" Still scrolling, I tap on another site and groan, a bust. The place is like a golden palace, too expensive. Do cities just have to jack up prices? Is this the nature of cities? Of Los Angeles? I should know by now.

A clench of my jaw and the tightening of my shoulders encourages me to keep my business to myself, so I stitch for vague. "I got a new job here. I'm freelancing. You?"

Not just any job, this could be my big break into the professional dance industry.

But the costume is trashed in a mask of orange.

"Cool, cool. I've got an art showing a week from now."

I managed a nod at his words. "Yeah?"

Red still ahead of me, glowering up from the nicely labeled. Bullseye. There's a city Target. That will have to do. Sliding my finger up on the screen, I venture to my maps app, crossing my fingers as I type my target location into the search bar. Damn it.

"It's a really big deal to me, you know? Like the kind of thing I used to dream about with you." A sigh. "And now it's happening."

My mind whirls, trying to grapple a solution to my all stores out of reach or too-expensive dilemma. How do people even shop here? Or maybe I'm just too cheap.

"Okay."

The damn prices. The damn mileage. Too many damn problems.

"Are you even paying attention?" His voice carries a hint of something that tangles my insides and makes me freeze. My gaze snaps to him. The angle of his brows is fraught with a curve I know all too well. The tick of his jaw and anxious tap of his foot let a knee slam into my nose.