My legs are rubber, my eyes are so dry they’re nearing raisin status, which is honestly kind of freaky for eyes, and I’m pretty sure I could throw up every hour from now until eternity because morning sickness is an even bigger bitch when you haven’t slept in forty-eight hours, but by dog, we’ve gotten the last of the four thousand cookies packed up, and now Lee from the post office is working with Tammy and her geek buster boyfriend to get the last of the boxes on trucks to be shipped.
The sun is creeping up over town, and all I want to do is collapse in a hot bathtub with some antacids, crackers, and a lamb taco.
No, I can’t explain the lamb taco thing, and I’m not even going to try.
I drag my weary body out to Etta Jean’s dining room and flop next to Joey and Peach at the lone table not pushed together with the others for our work surface. “I am never looking at another dick again in my life,” I declare.
“That would be a pity,” a deliciously accented male voice says behind me.
I manage to make my aching body whirl around, and oh my dog, he looks as bad as I feel. Red-rimmed, tired eyes. A swollen lip and a bruise forming on his cheek.
Worry lines on his forehead.
Peach growls. Joey growls louder.
Viktor sighs. He also looks exhausted. I wave a hand at the counter. “I think there’s coffee,” I tell him. “Help yourself.”
And then I focus back on Manning.
Except I can’t entirely focus, because there are two of him.
Which is not a bad thing at all. Two Mannings. I wonder what they could do to me at the same time. If the second wasn’t a sleep deprivation-induced hallucination.
I giggle.
Peach growls again.
Joey checks my forehead.
And the Mannings pull up two seats to crowd beside me. “Gracie?”
I point to the Manning on the left. “Since there are two of you, Elin can have that one, and I’ll keep this one.”
“Has she slept?” he demands in a voice that I could imagine coming from a throne.
A real royal throne occupied by someone who orders beheadings. Not a toilet throne. Because that would be a weird place to order beheadings from.
“What’s it to you?” Peach asks.
“She’s gotten a few catnaps,” Joey replies. “Have you slept?”
Wow.
That’s double the imperial death glare.
I giggle again. “You’re so cute when you’re mad,” I tell the Mannings.
They both rise, and one of them scoops me up. “Time to go home, love,” he says.
I snuggle into his chest, hiccup, and give a brief thought to puking, because my stomach is not happy with me today. “You should have two voices too,” I tell him. “And barf bags.”
And two heartbeats. I loop an arm around his neck and press my ear closer to his chest, because it’s so sweet and steady and perfect.
He came to visit me. “Are you free now?” I ask.
“No, love,” he says. “I’m completely yours.”
