'Til Death by Miasha

Author:Miasha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2010-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

May 2008

Cliff had been overprotective of me since I showed up at his house in Florence looking like I had just stepped out of a boxing ring. He screened my calls and barely let me out of his sight, fearing I would be sweet-talked into going back to Rome. Though I had no intention of doing that, at least not at first. I had been well taken care of, fed fine dishes, clothed in whatever I wanted, and supplied with all the coke I could ask for on demand. So I felt no need to go back.

But then as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a month, life with Cliff changed rapidly as his money depleted. We went from eating all three meals out every day and shopping for clothes, instead of washing the ones I had, to ordering in and taking my clothes to the dry cleaner. The partying we had been doing four nights a week dropped to only Friday and Saturday nights.

I didn’t trip about the downsizing right away. I mean, I understood Cliff when he said we needed to slow down, especially when he made me aware of the fact that we had run through eighty grand in a matter of weeks. But I had no idea that it would get as bad as it did.

Ding dong! ding dong!

“That must be the pizza,” Cliff said as he got up off the couch and walked to the door.

I was crouched up on the sofa watching an Italian game show, well, looking at it, I guess I would say, because I really wasn’t watching it.

Cliff opened the door and gave the delivery guy his credit card. The delivery guy ran it through a handheld machine and waited a few seconds.

“Mi dispiace—” the delivery guy started.

Cliff cut him off quick. “English, please.”

The delivery guy translated, “Sorry sir, it’s declined.”

My face wrinkled as I wondered how a man as wealthy as Cliff could have a credit card that didn’t have 22 euros on it.

“Declined?” Cliff acted surprised. “Try this one,” he said, pulling another card from his wallet.

The delivery guy repeated the steps from the first card. A few seconds went by, and he again reported to Cliff that his second card was denied.

At that point Cliff turned to me. “Celess, do you have some money for this food?” he asked me.

I was hungry as hell, and the fresh Italian pizza smelled good. But I would be going against everything I stood for if I paid the tab. And not because I was against a woman paying, but because of how it came to be. It wasn’t like I had offered. This man was asking me, and out of desperation at that. He was broke. Too broke to pay for a damn pizza. How that could be was beyond me. And I had to get to the bottom of it before I spent a dime on that nigga.

“Cliff, are you serious?” I asked him. “You don’t have any money at all?”

“I thought I had some money left on my card.

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