Reena didn’t even change. She just turned off her light and climbed into bed.

This whole fucking day could go shove itself.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Three days, four cartons of rocky road, and a full bottle of vodka (she was so done with gin) didn’t do crap for Reena’s foul mood after that night. And nothing intervened to cheer her up. She didn’t hear about any new jobs and didn’t hear from any of the ones she’d applied for. She did have the new luxury of no longer giving a shit if anyone in the building discovered her unemployed state, but since she saw no one, it felt like a hollow benefit.

And she literally saw no one. Not even Nadim. It wasn’t that she wanted to see him. After hearing how hard he worked to please his father she now questioned every flirty wink, every concerned look, every friendly touch. The competition video told her how well he could perform. How great he was at faking affection. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it. If they made it to the next round, how could she continue with this charade?

And if she was wrong about him, if all this wasn’t about fulfilling some promise to his father or hers, then she had to see it for what it really was.

A fucking pity-kiss.

Pity for poor unemployed Reena. Unlucky in love, and with parents forcing an arranged marriage on her because she couldn’t manage to figure out how to make a dozen previous guys stick around long enough for an “I love you,” let alone a proposal.

Either option—the calculating Nadim or the pitying Nadim—didn’t make Reena feel all that great about herself.

She looked around her messy room. Plates strewn about. Empty bowls of ice cream and glasses. She was clearheaded enough to realize that after a full bottle of the best vodka thirty Canadian dollars could buy (honestly, not that good), she should probably stop using isolation and liquid mood enhancers to cope. Or full-fat ice cream for that matter.

She pulled a sweatshirt over her T-shirt and slipped on her flip-flops, glad this time no one could criticize her footwear, and headed out the door.

She went straight to the back deck. This was a mostly unused space that was technically for all the tenants, but no one came here. It held a few chairs and an old bistro table. After climbing the few stairs up, she noticed the deck looked different. A grouping of aluminum lawn chairs, the type popular in the eighties with wide woven straps in brilliant colors, now surrounded a yellow Formica table. And lights encased in translucent white balls had been wrapped around the railing—off now, but Reena could imagine their ethereal glow illuminating the quirky decor here. It felt like stepping into some sort of bubbly oasis behind the graying brick building. A cheerful hipster paradise.

As she was taking in the improvements, she heard someone walking down the steep stairs from the fire escape on the second floor. It was Marley, holding a tall rainbow-striped melamine glass and smiling at Reena.