Free Brutal Game by Cara McKenna Page B

no closer to confident about her decision. But for the next few hours, it wasn’t about her. It was about Kim, and about cookies, and fun and celebration. She just hoped no one noticed her toasting with seltzer water.
    The young woman of the hour was out at the moment picking up her daughter from her ex’s mom’s house, leaving just Laurel and Heather to handle the party prep. Once upon a time this apartment had seemed so harsh and unwelcoming to Laurel, with its cigarette undertones and the incessant drone of the portable TV on the kitchen counter, always tuned to court TV or trashy talk shows.
    Heather herself had initially intimidated the crap out of Laurel, as well. She was nearly fifteen years older than Flynn, an abrasive South Boston native with a lanky build and a hulking presence, a load of auburn hair and clashing roots and no deficit of eye shadow. Everything about Heather Flynn growled, Don’t fuck with me, but Laurel had grown very fond of her. She’d stepped up to raise her brother in her twenties and was every inch the mama bulldog, but she hid a heart of gold behind the sandpaper veneer.
    Her daughter Kim had just completed a certificate program in medical billing. The family, broken though it was, was fiery and proud, and you’d think Kim had just graduated from Harvard with honors.
    Laurel, on the other hand, had had no one cheering when she’d crossed the stage to accept her Bachelor’s in Engineering at Wentworth aside from her classmates, to say nothing of a party to mark the occasion. The whole thing struck her as slightly outlandish but infinitely charming, and she envied Kim, she could admit. Or perhaps it merely humbled her to remember how she’d judged Flynn’s niece when they’d first met, thinking she was a sulky, overgrown teenager who’d had a kid way too young and fucked up her life.
    Joke’s on me, Laurel thought. In no time at all Kim might land a job that paid better than Laurel’s waitressing gig. The engineering market in Boston was tight and competitive, and it didn’t help that she’d let her education lapse. She wanted to kick herself, some days. Now more than ever.
    “You’re quiet.” Heather’s accent was as heavy as her brother’s. Yaw quiet.
    “Am I normally noisy?” Laurel deflected, knowing full well Heather had her pegged.
    “Somethin’s on your mind.”
    Laurel went with the truth, if not the one that really had her preoccupied. “Just thinking about how Kim’s getting her shit together, and here I am, officially thirty, and no closer to a career than I was when I was her age. Makes me realize a Bachelor’s is just a waste of time and money if you’re too much of a coward to use it.”
    “It’s not too late.”
    “I know,” she said, pressing a silver bauble into the center of a blue cookie. “It just looks so bad to potential employers, that I’ve let it get so moldy.”
    “Just keep at it. It’s all well and good kickin’ your own ass if it gets you movin’, but don’t pause long enough to let the self-pity take root. Trust me, I’m Catholic. I know guilt. And guilt gets shit done .”
    “No, I know. And you’re right. For me, inaction is the absolute worst thing. If I think too hard about it, I get scared. And if I get scared, I clam up. It’s just such a slog, sending out résumé after résumé and getting nothing back. Like I’m shouting into the— Oh.” Pain spread through her lower back, slow and intense, as though her tailbone were in a vise. “Oh. Oh, Jesus.”
    Heather glanced up, cheese bag in hand. “You okay?”
    “It’s my back.” She clutched the spot, rubbing, not caring if she was getting frosting on her sweater.
    “You throw it out?”
    Laurel shook her head, gnashed her teeth through a fresh, mean wave of agony. “No,” she groaned. “It’s an ache, but Jesus, it’s so bad. Fuck .” The pain eased and she caught her breath. Goddamn, was this another joy of pregnancy?
    “I’ve got ibuprofen,” Heather