Sea Breeze 02 - Because of Low

the HELL have you been? No wait don’t tell me. You’ve been in Cage York’s bed again. You know you have no right judging me when you go sleeping with that male whore.”
    I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. My sister was so uninvolved in my life she didn’t have a clue how off track she was. Yes, Cage was probably considered a male whore but he did pick really hot sexy females to screw around with. He had pretty high standards. Which never ceased to amuse me that people thought I was one of his many conquests. I didn’t fit the profile, at all. For starters he kept me around. He never kept a girl around after he slept with her. Second, I wasn’t nearly tall enough, I was red headed, and my hips were too big, and my chest too real. Cage had a thing for fake boobs. Strange but true. Anyway, my sister was the walking persona of the kind of girl Cage went after. Granted she had red hair too, but hers was naturally curly and she was tall and thin. Red hair looked better on her than it did me. She made red sexy. Me, not so much.
    “I’m here now. Just go and stop cursing and yelling in front of Larissa. It took me an entire week to get her to stop saying s-h-i-t when she dropped things”
    If I wasn’t so worried about the fact it might become a permanent word in her vocabulary I would’ve found it funny. She would sit in her high chair and drop one cheerio at a time. Each time one bounced on the cracked linoleum she’d yell “SHIT” and clap her hands and do it again. This was all thanks to my lovely sister yelling “shit” every time Larissa dropped her food onto the floor. So, my niece had decided to make a game of it.
    “Whatever, it was funny. I gotta go. Call Janet Hall, the lady with the sponge rollers always in her yellow hair that lives three houses down and ask her if she can watch Larissa tomorrow. You’ve got class tomorrow, right.”
    I nodded, “Yes.”
    I hated leaving Larissa with the cat lady. She’d come home with several scratches from the thousands of cats in that house last time she stayed there, not to mention the place smelled like cat poo. But I couldn’t miss a class or make less than a B in any of my courses or I’d lose my scholarship. I needed that scholarship. Faulkner was a junior college and that was all the college I would get. Once my scholarship was up I wouldn’t be furthering my education. Unless I could manage a student loan and considering I didn’t even have a home that seemed unlikely.
    “Okay, I’m gone. Don’t call my cell while I’m at work. If you have any problems just figure them out.”
    And she was gone. No kiss goodbye to Larissa. I hated her for that if nothing else.
    My mother died of cancer when I was twelve leaving me and my sister alone in the world. Tawny had been eighteen and she’d taken custody of me and luckily the house was paid for thanks to Mom’s frugal budgeting over the years. The house had been left to Tawny along with the meager amount of money in the bank. She’d gotten her GED instead of finishing her senior year and managed to get a job to pay the bills. Once I was old enough to work I got an after school job to help out. Then Larissa came along a little over a year ago and everything got harder. Tawny told me she couldn’t support me any longer and I needed to get my own place. I couldn’t afford my own place on a waitress’s income. So, she decided that if I took care of Larissa for her while she worked she’d let me stay a night free of rent in return. Problem is she doesn’t need me to keep Larissa every day and when I don’t keep Larissa she doesn’t let me stay the night.
    Sounds harsh but the truth is I am more than positive Larissa’s dad comes around those nights and she doesn’t want me to know who he is. If it wasn’t for her secret of who Larissa’s daddy is, I am pretty sure she’d let me stay. But I get booted for a guy. At first I went to the Methodist church because they have a homeless shelter but when Cage found out I was going there because Tawny wasn’t letting me stay at home anymore he flipped.
    Now, I go to his place instead. I tried to fight him on it just because of his crazy notion we’re going to get married but I need him. Even if he is possessive and insane at times, he takes care of me. No one else ever has. He likes knowing he has the ability to take care of someone.
    When Cage’s grandmother passed away she left him everything she had saved and tucked inside