Jake the Panty-Ripper (Book 1, the Phantoms MC Series)

two: in which she emphasizes safety

"Cry, girl" –Etta James, I'd Rather Go Blind

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I loved my job. The perks were few and far between but they were still there.

First, I got to work only two weeks out of every month. Who could beat that? Secondly, I got the chance to be there for people who genuinely needed me; whose faces lit up the instant I walked into the room. Again, who could beat that? And lastly, the nursing home was a melting pot of various nationalities of staff and patients. Our own UN.

That was kind of an unspoken requirement to get employment at Rose Haven: You had to have an interesting ethnic background. Of course, the HR-slash-secretary woman had never said that aloud but it didn't take rocket science to notice how every nurse there came from a foreign land or, like in my case, had one parent from a different country. It was the kind of discrimination no one discussed, because could it be called discrimination if minorities were given preference over pure, star-spangled Americans?

Aside from the staff, almost all the patients were from around the world. There was a more understandable reason for this. Apparently the rest home's managing director was a doctor who was doing a study on how Alzheimer's affected different ethnicities. He wanted to understand the brain disease, and possibly find a cure. I'd been intrigued by his research from the beginning. My own paternal grandmother had had slowly progressing dementia and I'd had to watch her regress into a childlike state, until she was nothing but what doctors had called a vegetable.

Yes, the pay wasn't anything to scream about so I'd never afford a Birkin handbag, but at least I was part of something bigger than that. Plus, I had a genuine soft spot for older people. They were easier to understand than my generation.

So on my week off, I generally felt lost and aimless, like a plastic bag floating in the wind. I woke up the next morning feeling guilty that I'd left Seb hanging. He'd scribbled out "Rain check on movie night, Sleeping Beauty" on a pink Post-it he'd left sticking on my bathroom mirror.  I ripped it off and crumpled it up, flinging it into the bin with a sigh.

I was looking forward to a day spent alone until my friends got home from work. I knew Kira had parent-teacher meetings until seven this evening, but at least Luke was free from two o'clock.

I need more friends, I thought as I hopped into the shower.

Half an hour later, I was sitting in The Coffee Maker, a café that was only a stone-throw away from my apartment building. They made the best coffee and the best double-chocolate muffins – my two favorite things in the world – so I pretty much lived in the place, especially when I was off work and needed a great breakfast.

Before I even opened my mouth at the counter, Zeke, the barista boy, had my order ready in two minutes. I sent him a wide smile of thanks and paid him before sliding into my regular booth by the wide, panoramic window that looked out onto the street.

"Fun fact," a voice said from above me after only a few minutes. "In South Africa, people of mixed race are considered a race on their own, so if you'd been born there, you wouldn't be considered black."

I rolled my eyes up at one of my best friends, Luke Barnett, who looked like he'd already guzzled a dozen cupfuls of black coffee before six that morning. Laughing brown eyes that crinkled at the corners met mine. They were a liquid brown, almost the same shade as the short dark brown hair on his head and the regularly trimmed beard he kept.

"I'd be happy to just be considered a human being, thanks." And wasn't that the problem? I was either too white, or too black to some people. Having to explain that my white mother was the African, while my black father was American through and through confused people, but I didn't care. As far as I'm concerned, I'm neither black nor white. I'm Maya Fenton and when I look in the mirror, I see both my parents staring back at me.