A Novella MisTaken(36)

“No, it’s not.” Dear God, please, let it not. “What’s this listed under anyway?” Andy looked at the top of the page for the heading. “Marketing? That’s a laugh. I’ll stick to the Administrative section, thank you.”

“Yeah, and that’s working out so well for you.” Bitterness dripped in Lacy’s tone.

Andy sighed inwardly. Sure, her job search hadn’t led to anything—yet—but she wasn’t about to settle for matchmaker. It would all be so much easier if she’d finished her degree. Or if she’d managed to get references from her last job.

No use moping about what she hadn’t done now. Now was the time to look forward. “I’ll find something. Eventually.” Hopefully. She pushed the tablet away from her. “I’m not applying for this. Thanks anyway.”

“Why not?”

She lifted her eyes to see Lacy’s jaw thrust forward.

Uh-oh. Andy was well familiar with her baby sister’s determined look, and that was it.

Well, Andy could be determined, too. “Because this whole Personal Concierge is fancy talk for pimp. You get that, right? And I may be down and out, but, dammit”—she pointed at the iPad where the ad still filled the screen—“I’m better than this.”

“Yes. You are.” Lacy sat in the chair across the table from Andy. “But you have to get a job.”

“I’m working on it.” She ran a hand through her auburn hair, sweeping it off her nape. She felt bad enough living off her sister as it was. She didn’t need the lecture.

“No, I mean, you have to.”

Lacy’s serious tone drew Andy’s attention. Shit. It wasn’t just her sister’s determined look—it was her desperate look.

Lacy took a deep breath. “I got my hours cut at the studio.”

Andy’s stomach dropped. “Oh, Lacy, no! When? Why?” As a struggling singer-songwriter, Lacy had been lucky to get a job helping out in a recording studio. It brought steady income when she was between gigs.

“Not enough work coming in. Darrin cut me two weeks ago.”

Two weeks ago? And not a word until now? “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I don’t know.” Lacy kept her focus on her hands. Andy knew she’d never been comfortable with expressing her feelings. Unless she was singing about them. “You’re having such a miserable time, and I guess I didn’t want to add to it.”

“That’s a laugh. You’re the only reason I haven’t thrown myself under a bus.” Andy immediately regretted her euphemism. It was callous to joke about suicide to someone whose boyfriend had died from a handful of pills only a year before.

But the words were already out. “Don’t talk like that.”

Well, it was a better reaction than Andy deserved. “I’m overdramatizing. I’m sorry. But seriously, Lace, you have been my touchstone through all this mess and it breaks my heart that you’ve been the one taking care of me when I should be taking care of you.”

When Andy had first become destitute and homeless, she’d considered not even telling her sister. Then, besides having no other choice, she realized that moving in would give her a chance to help Lacy cope with Lance’s death. Not that Andy had been very helpful. She’d been present, at least. That was something.

“I don’t need taking care of.” Ever-independent Lacy actually thought people bought the idea that she was all right. Maybe most people did. Not Andy.

Yet Andy would let her believe it if that’s what her sister wanted. “I know you don’t need anyone. But I’m supposed to be the older, more responsible, got-my-life-together one while you’re the misfit musician. Instead I’ve been living off you for nearly eight months.”

“Nine,” Lacy corrected. “But who’s counting?”

The gloom of the situation began to settle on Andy. Dammit. With Lacy’s hours cut, Andy did have to get a job. Like, yesterday. She tugged on her lower lip with her thumb and forefinger. “God, I’m such an awful sister.”

Lacy smacked her on the shoulder a little too hard to be called just a playful hit. “Shut up, will you? This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would make this a reason to shame-spiral. That’s not what I wanted.”

Wow, the role reversal of older and younger sister went farther than Andy had realized. She lowered her hand and drummed her fingers on the table, needing to fidget while she brainstormed. Her savings account was depleted. She’d used it up in her worthless attempt at suing her previous employer. “Maybe I can dig into my retirement account—”