It's Never Enough: Book 1 in the Never Series (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

When I walked into my apartment, I saw Fiona standing by the sink and eating a bowl of cereal. Her dirty blonde hair was bobby-pinned up every which way. She’d recently chopped ten inches off her hair and now sported a cute chin-length bob. She was still in her pajamas—a leopard-print tee and short set—along with her fuzzy pink slippers.

“Hey,” I said while tossing my bag onto the kitchen counter.

Her blue eyes sparkled at me. “Hey.” Milk dripped down her chin, and she wiped it with the back of her hand.

“Marshmallow Puffs or Fruity O’s today?” I asked. Fiona had a big obsession with cereal, and those were her two favorites.

She grinned at me as she chewed. “I decided to be wild today, so I mixed them.” She shoved another large spoonful into her mouth.

“And?”

She shrugged. “Not my best decision. The milk absorbs too quickly into the Puffs and not quickly enough into the O’s for the combination to be successful.” She took one more large scoop and then tipped her bowl over the sink. The remaining contents dripped out like a colorful waterfall.

“Live and learn.” I took my hair down from its topknot and let it fall down my back. Its ragged ends were in desperate need of a trim.
Had I even brushed it yet? Wow, I really needed a shower
. I slid the large French vanilla coffee I’d gotten for Fiona across the counter to her. “This is for you.”

Fiona wrapped her hands around the cardboard container and gleamed her white teeth at me. “You’re the best,” she said before taking a slow, satisfying sip. “So while you were out getting your morning coffee, Jack called.”

“Ugh.” With sluggish feet, I meandered over to the couch and tossed my body down. “Please tell me he didn’t call about coming over for dinner?” Dinner at my dad’s house was just a mess. Like mud wrestling in a corset and heels. If I had to hear him badger me about college one more time, I was going to explode into an unscholarly mess all over his dining room walls.

“Even better. It’s not just that he wants
you
to come over for dinner. He also informed
me
that my mom was going to be at dinner too, so therefore I’m supposed to show up as well to make it a happy foursome.” Fiona sat on the coffee table next to my feet.

“What? They’re going to eat together? Does this mean no more cold war?”

Fiona shrugged. “With them, who the hell knows?” She took another sip of her coffee. “Maybe they want to tell us we’re going to be sisters again!” Her voice sounded like a teenybopper who was just about to get her budding breasts autographed by her favorite boy band. “I gotta change real quick,” she said before bopping back to her bedroom.

Fiona and I were stepsisters. Well, technically, we were ex-stepsisters. My dad and her mom married when I was sixteen and Fiona was seventeen. It was a fourth marriage for my dad and a third marriage for her mom. We’d both been through a backlog of bad marriages and step-siblings. Somehow, even though our parent’s marriage to each other didn’t stick, we still did. She felt like the sister I was always meant to have. What was more messed up with our parents was the fact that even though they’d been divorced for the past year, they still shared the same house. Apparently, after paying for so many divorces plus the rising cost of living alone, neither of them could afford to move. So Fiona’s mom took the upstairs portion of the house. My dad took over the renovated basement. and they both shared the common rooms on the main floor. One big dysfunctional family!

“Either way, I know we’re most likely not going to get out of it,” Fiona said as she took the last bobby pin out of her hair. Somehow, even without her brushing through her hair, it still looked cute. She was wearing a short-sleeved, navy blue button-down shirt with a white denim skirt.

“Why do you say that?” I stood and walked back over to the kitchen to meet Fiona, who was washing out her cereal bowl. My stomach growled, so I pulled a prepacked plastic baggie filled with five grapes and six almonds out of the refrigerator.

“Because he called like four times,” Fiona said.

“You’re kidding? This morning?” I opened up the bag and took out one grape. Slowly, I bit it in half and let the juice fill my mouth before I began to chew.

“Yup. Something must be up.”

“Why’d he call the house phone? He could have just called my cell.” I placed the other grape half in my mouth. It wasn’t as juicy so I began to chew right away.

Fiona grabbed her small pink purse—how she walked around with just her ID and car keys, I never understood—and slung it over her shoulder. “He said he did, but it went straight to voicemail, and then he got cut off.” She jabbed me in the side as she passed by me. “Eat all that.” She pointed to the baggie of food in my hand. “And empty your voicemail.”

“Good luck on the job hunt,” I called out as she opened the front door.

When I heard the door click shut behind her, I reached inside my purse—which was four times the size of Fiona’s micro purse—and grabbed my phone. My hands shook as I navigated through the screens to my voicemail messages. Voice mailbox full. Twenty messages. All of them were from Haley. They were all I had left of her. I didn’t think I could ever erase them. How could I? Then I’d have nothing. Well, nothing except our sickness. And without her to share it with, it just wasn’t the same.

My stomach muscles tensed, and my guts twisted like tree limbs. A familiar itch of anxiety crept all over my skin like tiny ants. I zipped up the bag of grapes and almonds and tossed them back into the refrigerator. Then I went to the cupboard and pulled out supplies. I’d been saving the ingredients to make the recipe I’d found for homemade peanut caramel bars for a while and right now I needed to make them. Badly.

Milk chocolate chips. Peanut butter. Unsalted butter. Granulated sugar. Evaporated milk. Marshmallow crème. Peanuts. Vanilla extract. Caramels. Whipping cream. I melted the butter in the saucepan and let the warm intoxicating smell soothe my tortured soul. The milk and sugar mixed in with the butter made a bubbling goodness that I could just barely resist pouring into a glass and drinking. The marshmallow looked like a mountain of sugar that I’d like to swim in, but instead, I dropped it into the pan along with the peanut butter and vanilla. Moments later, I poured the concoction over the bottom layer of chocolate I’d already laid down in the baking dish. Then on top, I poured another layer of chocolate. My heart rate accelerated as I stared at the sinful goodness before me. But it would have to set in the freezer for an hour before I could cut into it. On my tiptoes, I carried the pan to the freezer. Then I took all the dirty bowls and spoons and quickly tossed them into the sink and drowned them in dish soap before I could lick them all clean. Then I went to take an hour-long shower.

An hour later, I stood in front of the freezer with a towel wrapped around me. The skin of my fingers was pruned and I was dripping water onto the floor. I swung the freezer door open and goose bumps broke out all over my skin.
Not yet
. I had to get dressed first. After throwing on shorts and a t-shirt, I was back in front of the freezer. This time, I confidently opened up the door and removed the ice-cold pan. After placing it on the counter, I grabbed a large spoon from the utensil drawer. Like an excavator, I scooped one large, clean spoonful out of the pan. It looked heavenly. As soon as the sugar hit my tongue, euphoria advanced across my body like a quick-spreading virus attacking each and every one of my cells. The spoon was clean a moment later. Quickly, I wrapped the pan in plastic wrap and headed across the hall.

Three knocks later, Mr. Dobson opened his door.

“Mallory! What have you got for me today?” he asked. He was wearing one of his favorite old man sweaters today; the putrid green colored cardigan. He was an adorable little old man, and thankfully, he had a massive sweet tooth.

“Peanut caramel bars!” I boasted as I held out the pan to him.

I swear I saw him start to drool. If he’d had any hair on his head, I’m sure it would’ve been standing on end.

“I assume you took some for yourself,” he said staring at the pan.

“I took just what I needed.” I waved goodbye and went back to my apartment. Then I lay down on my bed and listened to all twenty of Haley’s voicemails.

“
Saved message:

Hey it’s me. So my mom took me shopping to, you know, like, bond with me or whatever, and I found this necklace set that has a jelly jar and a peanut butter jar. It’s like one of those best friend necklace sets, you know? Anyway, I bought it for us because you are the peanut butter to my jelly. Yeah, I know it’s, like, totally fifth grader stuff, but for real. PB and J! See you later, PB!
”

***

Something was tap, tap, tapping on the space between my eyebrows. I fluttered my eyelids open and saw Fiona’s face.

“Geesh, I thought you were dead,” she stood and stared down at me.

Slowly, I pulled myself up to sitting. “No, just sleeping.”

“There’s a mess in the kitchen.” Her arms were crossed over her chest. “Is everything
okay?
” She dragged out the last word.

I got to my feet. “I’m fine. Relax. How was the job hunt?” I plodded my way into the kitchen and Fiona followed me.

“Not bad. I found one, anyway.” She grabbed a handful of cereal before taking a seat on one of the barstools near the breakfast bar.

“A job? Where?” I moved to the sink to rinse off the mess of bowls and silverware.

Fiona waited a beat before answering. “I’m a…waitress,” she said while shoving some cereal in her mouth.

Warm water sloshed around the big red mixing bowl I was cleaning. “Nothing wrong with that. When do you start?”

She stood. “Tomorrow,” she said a bit too quick. “Speaking of jobs, shouldn’t you be attending to some dogs right about now?”

“What time is it?” I had no clue how long I’d napped for.

“Three.”

“Shit, I’m late!” Like rapid fire, I began scrubbing the dirty bowls.

Fiona moved next to me. “Tell you what. I’ll clean this mess up, and in return, you pick me up a coffee from Perked while you’re out. Deal?”

“Deal.” I laid a dry dishtowel over her shoulder, grabbed my purse, and dashed out the door. The last thing I could afford was to lose my job.

Moments later, I’d taken the elevator from our apartment on the fifth floor to the suites on the top floor of our building. After knocking on the door to Casper’s apartment, I prayed he wouldn’t answer the door.

Relief washed over me when I saw the cleaning woman’s face appear. “You’re late,” she said.

“I know, I know.” I walked past her and into the apartment.

“He’s in the entertaining room,” she said with a smirk on her face.

“He’s here?”
Damn it
. “Where are the dogs? In their kennels?”
Please let them be in their kennels then I can just grab them and sneak out and he’ll never know I was late
.

She smirked again. “Nope. They’re in there with him.” She patted me on my shoulder. “Good luck.” Then she walked away.

The telltale signs of my anxiety sparked up. Over-accelerated heartbeat. Slightly shaking hands. Small lump in my throat. I walked with trepidation to the entertainment room. It wasn’t that Casper was a bad guy—not at all. And my job of walking his dogs part time was pretty sweet. He paid almost full time wages for a part time job, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He had the money to spend. Casper had his own television show called
The Kindred Spirit of Dogs
. He was kind of like an animal whisper or Doctor Doolittle type of guy. He spent years learning about what he called dog psychology and mastered the art of dog training. He was pretty famous, and the waiting list to get on his show was close to five years long. That’s like thirty-five years in dog years! He split his time between his apartment on the east coast and his home out in L.A. Half of his pack of dogs was here and the other half was there. He really was nice—just a bit better with dogs than he was humans.

Even though I wasn’t the best dog handler—Casper was constantly reminding me of that—I still kind of loved the job. Sure, the dogs wouldn’t listen to me, and they would pull on their leashes, and they never sat still when I asked them to, but they were always there ready to go. They never questioned me on how good or bad I was with them. They never wanted to know anything about me. They never got on my case about anything. As long as I had a bag of treats with me, they’d slobber me with kisses—which Casper said was inappropriate behavior that I shouldn’t let them do but I was totally fine with it. Plus the fact that the job paid for my portion of the rent along with my groceries every month made it that much better.

When I walked into the room, I saw Casper with his back turned to me. He was talking to a girl who looked about my age. “Hello?” my voice was meek and quiet.

Casper’s five-foot five-inch stocky frame turned around. He reminded me of Buddha with his round belly and clean-shaved head, and constant serene attitude. “Oh Mallory, hello.” He must not have realized that I was late since his tone was light and jovial. To the pack of dogs lying at his feet he said, “Mallory is here, gang!”