Nothing to Lose (BWWM)

Three

Marco Austen removed his sunglasses as the dark haired girl sitting two tables in front of him winked at him over her glass of water. Smirking, he watched as she continued to seductively stare at him. He leaned forward in his own seat and winked back.

The brunette excused herself and scooted her chair back just as a tall figure cut into Marco's vision. "Sorry I'm late." Vincent stated, sitting down and sighing.

The brunette, after seeing Vincent sit in the seat that she was about to sit down in, retreated back into her own. Marco groaned. "It's cool. How's Aunt Lily-Ann?"

"She's getting better." He leaned back, relaxing. "Who's the brunette that was about to sit in my seat?"

Marco chuckled. "Hold on." He raised his head and a slow and lazy smile made its way across his face as the woman from earlier approached his table.

"I was over there at my table and couldn't help but notice you looking my way. I'm Danielle." Vincent looked between his cousin and the tall woman and scoffed. Danielle turned towards him and tilted her head. "Can I help you?"

Vincent opened his mouth to offer her a reply but decided against it, shaking his head in amusement instead. "Please pay my cousin no attention."

"Marco, I forgot to tell you, your wife called me the other day and she was saying something about how your son needs medication..." He smiled slyly. "Or something like that." Danielle gasped and walked away quickly as Marco glared at Vincent, both hands raised. Vincent shrugged. "Woops."

The two cousins were similar in looks and quite different in personalities although they used to be quite similar when they were young men. Marco had short yet curly dark hair but managed to keep his face clean shaven unlike his cousin who preferred to keep a bit of stubble at all times. Both were tall in height and were of athletic builds from their days in the swim team. Personality wise, where Marco was outgoing, loud and well liked, Vincent was quiet, kept himself to himself and not many liked him. That was probably down to the fact that not many properly knew him. Just the way he liked it.

"Asshole." Marco grunted. "How's uncle Giovanni?"

Vincent rolled his eyes. "Preparing to leave the company."

"Already?!"

"Yeah, he's even got me interviewing assistants. I don't want to run this company let alone do I want some random person following after everything I do."

Marco laughed and shook his head. "You are something else, you know that?"

Imani sighed as she placed her cup of coffee down on the counter. She would have to go and pick up Luke from school in an hour and she needed to find some way to fill in the gap of time. Although it had been three weeks since the fire, she was still finding it difficult finding a place to begin and build herself up from. It was hard enough putting up a front in front of everyone but now she was starting to believe that she would never bounce back.

She tapped her fingers on the oak dining table in her mother's kitchen, her stare fixated on the picture of herself, her mother and her son LJ. Those were the happier times. She hardly had to worry about anything financially back then.

And now she was sat contemplating whether or not she would be able to pay for LJ's new clothes that he needed ever since the others perished in the fire.

Her shift at the diner started late today and with the amount of energy she had left, going to work wasn't near the forefront of her mind.

Either way, she had to earn money somehow. She had ran a mental list in her mind of all the possible ways to do so. One thing she had promised herself never to do was ask LJ's father for child support. He had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her or their son so she in return vowed to never ever contact him again, no matter what.