My bed is depressingly empty when I wake up. The sunlight blankets my room in an intrusive reminder that I forgot to shut the blinds last night. The only thing that stops me from falling back asleep is the display on my phone when I turn it over.

11:15.

Shit—I hope Owen made it into the gallery today.

I have the store’s number half-dialed before remembering that we scheduled our new guy this morning. Ben.

The kid couldn’t take an artistic photo if someone worked the settings, set the shutter speed, handed him a camera and pointed. But occasions like this are exactly what he’s for. Occasions when I would rather watch blades of grass grow than stand behind the desk in our gallery.

Photography’s always been my biggest passion, but Owen and I operate the gallery as a front. It absorbs all the money from our heists, funnels it through accounts, pays taxes, and returns it clean and ready to use. If Ben worked for any other reason than to buy cigarettes and booze, he might have the curiosity to question a few details here and there. Like how we can sell one photo a week and still afford to pay fifteen dollars an hour.

But Ben’s an idiot.

And I need coffee.

I lumber down the stairs, meander into the kitchen, and curse with the entire force of my being when I open the cupboard.

Of course it’s empty. How could I forget.

Owen and I used the rest of the coffee during the planning for last week’s job. There’s a shopping list taped to the fridge as proof, with coffee circled at the top. I’ve put off that damn errand for the last two days now. This is karma.

I trudge out the door and across the yard. Times like this are exactly why I live away from visible neighbors. I’m grumpy, un-showered, and dressed in a tee shirt and pajama pants. It’s an especially nice day, but that doesn’t stop me from angrily twisting the keys in the ignition.

There’s a grocery store in the shopping center about five miles away. But there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts three minutes from my house, so the rest of the list is going to have to wait.

Parked in the drive-thru, I pull out my phone and skim my contacts until I’m hovering over her name. Sophia. And right away I see her face again. Her bright blue eyes.

I don’t even know if this is the right number. It was such a commotion dragging her friend out that I could barely hear. Especially the last four numbers, which were either 3991 or 3999. I went with the latter.

But I’m not going to call her. In fact, I should delete it right now.

I have a personal rule against repeats. Once is fine, it’s fun, but that’s the end of it. Calling, planning, weekend brunches—they’re not allowed. For better or worse, it’s the choice I’ve had to make.

I’ve downed a quarter of my 24oz coffee by the time I pull back into the driveway. Though I’m still in a trudging-kind of mood when I fling open my door, so I stomp my way through the yard and back into the house.

I take my coffee into the kitchen to sit and look over the gallery’s financial ledgers. I wish I actually had some work to do. Owen and I have already spent around thirty hours dispersing the heist money into false sales and accounts receivable. Hence, the lack of coffee.

The ledgers are an unsuccessful distraction. I take a long swig of coffee and immediately return to the fog in my head.

It’s been fourteen years since my parents died. Fourteen years that I’ve carried a dark weight in my chest.

I was only eighteen. Eighteen and blindly naïve to how unforgiving the world can be. But that naivety did nothing to cushion me from the harsh reality that became my life. My brother is the sole reason I didn’t cave into that weight. Kris was there when I had no one else. But here I am, older now than he ever was.

It’s his loss that’s left the true weight in my chest.

But while talking to Sophia, just for a moment, that weight had disintegrated. For the first time it subsided, and just for a moment, I was whole again. She entered the emptiness in a way that I didn’t know was possible. Like she belonged there.

Like she touched a void I could never reach.

But… despite the emptiness, my mess of a life doesn’t have room for anyone else.

I’m thirty-two now. Kris died at thirty-one. And when his fiancé had their baby boy a few months later, Grayson was born with a congenital heart defect and no father.

My parent’s spent their lives working nine-to-five, mind-numbing, dead-end jobs. There was simply no money to leave behind. They didn’t buy life insurance. No pensions, no savings accounts.

My brother met someone that got him involved in robbing banks. He tried his damnedest to make something out of the cards we were dealt, but he never saw his son’s infant body struggling to stay alive. Which is why I stepped in.

Grayson’s first procedure, the surgery, all the medications—they aren’t cheap. But I’ve made it my life to secure whatever treatment he needs. That little boy is the only reason I do what I do. And I’m the only reason he’s still alive.

Anything else is a distraction I can’t afford, and a strict rule is the best way to prevent that.

No. Repeats. Ever.

Although… Sophia’s not even a repeat. I could call her without violating my rule. Hell, I could do more than call her.

I pull up her contact. And this time I press call.

The phone chimes a good six or seven times before a scratchy elderly voice finally picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hello?” I echo. God, does she live with her mother? I almost hang up, but I’m already this far. “I’m looking for Sophia.”

“This is Judy,” the voice exclaims. It sounds overjoyed and about forty years too old.

“Yes, I’m looking for Sophia. Is she there?” There’s a long pause.

“Hello?” the voice asks again.

God dammit.

I punch off. And then I remember.

I click on edit and change the last digit from a 1 to a 9. Then dial again.

This time it only rings twice.

“Hello, this is Sophia.”