Chapter 1

My phone went off before the alarm. Though the makeshift tiny bedroom in my sister’s attic was pitch black, thanks to heavy dark shades on both windows, I could tell the sun was bright that day. A glowing sliver on one side, where my bedmate had already peeked outside, told me so.

“Mmmrrrggghhh.”

Both of us made a similar sound as I rolled over her and blindly grappled for the source of the annoying buzz.

“Get back here.” My grumble turned soft and more appreciative. “I meant the phone, but thank you for brightening my morning.”

Technically, it was almost afternoon, but sloppy wet kisses were always plentiful upon waking, no matter the time. My stubbled cheek and nearly hairless head got quite wet with tongue.

“I love you, too.”

The yawn that came back at me was high pitched and rather pungent.

“Though three minutes with a toothbrush wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

I scratched at my bare gut and noticed my increasingly prominent ribcage. It distracted me from the phone another moment. Maybe my ribs weren’t all that prominent, but there was definitely some tummy rumbling behind a smattering of reddish gold fur.

“Just like yours, huh?”

I’d skipped a meal or two in the past couple of months, now that restaurant freebies were no longer an option. Hunger wasn’t my only diversion, though. Throbbing between my legs begged for attention. Still, I managed to grab the phone with the other hand, before it jumped off the edge of the shiny, pristine nightstand I’d bought just six months earlier.

“What was wrong with your old bedroom furniture from Mom and Dad’s?” my sister had asked me then.

“I’m too old for a twin bed and Batman sheets Santa brought me when I was in fourth grade,” I’d said.

“I still have my Strawberry Shortcake set from the same year, Nero.” My sister had a comeback for everything. “I’ll use them on my daughter’s bed someday.”

“Even though you could already read the Do not remove under penalty of lawmattress tag by the time you started middle school?”

Toni was frugal. That was how we’d been raised, not raised so much as forced to live. Long about October of 2018, maybe because of that, a new high limit credit card and a promotion at the TV station where I worked had inspired a spending spree. I’d shopped ‘til I’d almost dropped for that upcoming Christmas, birthdays, and my niece’s high school graduation, even though she hadn’t been born yet. For myself, I’d gotten a bedroom suite, the vehicle of my dreams—a brand spanking new yellow Dodge Ram pickup truck—a cartful of toys for my Great Dane Abby, and the latest, priciest iPhone Apple had to offer a couple years back. My precious 10 was one of the few things I hadn’t sold months later, after ending up over my head in debt.

“Yeah?” I finally answered it.

“Nero?” It was my boss at WTWN, Frasier Bellamy. “You there, Nero?”

Nero Storm…Maybe I should have been a weatherman, but I’d chosen journalism over meteorology. My name did sound kind of cool when signing off on the nightly TV broadcast. “Nero Storm, Westchester County, Channel 9 news.”

“Hello?”

I’d stopped to yawn. “I’m here. What’s up?”

“Not you, apparently.”

My usual shift was evening and nightly news shows, so I tended to sleep in most mornings.

“It’s a beautiful day out there,” Frasier said. “The sun is shining, and it’s finally warm.”

The winter of 2018 and ‘19 had been long and cold, as it usually was in the northeast. Now early April, the temperature had been steadily climbing out of the thirties. Our actual weatherman, John Berry, whose name was not nearly as good for TV news as mine, had promised a big jump into the sixties by midweek.

“Rough night?” Frasier asked.

Truthfully, I’d had several months of rough nights. The days were nothing to write home about, either. “Nah. All’s well. You have a story for me?”

“Happy faces.”

“Happy faces?”

“Smiles.”

Hearing the word brought one to my face.

“Think emojis, Nero. Yellow happy faces. All over town.”

“Like graffiti?” I sat up, grabbed my glasses, and my happy face went away.

“No. That was my first thought, too, when the calls started coming in,” Frasier explained. “But these aren’t spray paint on brick walls, like rotten yet artistic teenagers tagging crap. We’re talking flowers, Nero.”

“Flowers.”

“Yeah, popping right up through the dirt and leftover snow, all bright and yellow and…well…smiling.”

“Like, metaphorically, you mean. Poetically speaking.”

“Have you ever known me to wax poetic?”

“I have not.”

“Like an emoji,” Frasier repeated. “A literal happy face.”

“Not literal.”

“The shape, I mean. Christ, Nero.” My executive producer was easily flustered, especially by me.