Looking at Mojo with her brows lifted, Sloane says, “Oh, no, that’s not freaky at all, doggo. What’s up with you?”
Staring at the window, I mutter, “Good question.”
I could swear I saw a flash of movement outside, but it’s too dark to tell.
I rise from the table and peer out into the yard. Past the small yellow pool of light from the kitchen window that’s illuminating the snow a few feet beyond the house, it’s pitch black.
Someone could be standing there, looking back at me, and I wouldn’t be able to see him.
Gooseflesh crawls up my arms.
I yank the shade down and turn back to Sloane. Mojo is now on his feet, but he’s still staring at the window, growling.
“It’s okay, boy. Good dog.”
He whines, trotting over to me to nuzzle my outstretched hand with his snout. Then he sits down on his haunches beside me and leans against my leg, glancing around in alarm and trembling.
Sloane says, “Since when is he nervous?”
“Since never.”
We share a look. “I’ll lock the front door. You get the back.”
She stares at me like I’ve just suggested we smoke a bowl of crack cocaine and stick needles into our eyeballs. “You don’t lock your doors when you’re alone in the house? Do you want a crazy person to come in and attack you?”
“You can rag on me after we check the locks.”
Mojo following behind me, I walk swiftly through the house to the front door. Sure enough, it’s unlocked—I forgot to do it after Sloane came in. Cursing myself, I throw the dead bolt. Then I make sure all the windows in the living room are locked.
I do the same with the bedroom and the rest of the house, going from room to room, pulling blinds and closing drapes where I find them open.
The dog sticks right by me the entire time.
I can’t tell who’s more worried, him or me.
When I get back to the kitchen, Sloane’s calmly opening another bottle of wine.
“So?”
“Your back door was locked. I checked the garage, too. All good. No crazy people.”
Relieved, I sit at the table and scratch Mojo behind his ears. He rests his snout on my thigh and looks up at me, his furry eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“Don’t worry, buddy. Mommy has an unloaded shotgun she can wave around and probably scare an intruder away with.”
Sloane pulls the cork from the wine bottle. “And Auntie Sloane has a snub nose .357 magnum in her boot, which is loaded, so you really shouldn’t worry.”
That shocks me. “Since when do you carry guns around in your shoes?”
In the middle of pouring herself another glass of wine, she stops and stares at me. “Since I went on a Mediterranean cruise with a dozen gangsters.”
“But they were supposed to be protecting you!”
She scoffs. “You never know when one of those idiots is going to decide his honor has been insulted and start spraying bullets at everyone in sight. Plus, if someone other than Stavros decided to get handsy, I had to be able to tell him why that wouldn’t be such a good idea in a language he’d understand. The barrel of a gun shoved against a man’s balls gives him a pretty clear explanation.”
She’s amazing, this girl. I freaking love her.
“Where’d you get the gun?”
She starts to pour again, filling her glass, then mine. “I stole it from Stavros.”
“Stole it?”
She makes a face. “It’s not like he’ll notice. The boys had weapons lying all over the place the way people leave out dishes of candy for guests.”
“Wow. That must’ve been some cruise.”
Her smile is small and mysterious. She pulls up a chair beside me and sits. “Someday, I’ll tell you all about it. But right now, I need to hear the dirty details about what you’ve been up to with that beautiful monster, King Kong Kage. And start with the butt sex.”
My cheeks flush. “What makes you think there was butt sex?”
Considering me for a moment in silence, she tilts her head. Her small smile grows wider. “You’ve got that anal afterglow.”
I stare at her for a beat. “That’s not even a thing.”
“It’s totally a thing.”
“You’re making it up! Nobody glows because they had anal sex!”
With a straight face, she says, “Sure they do. It’s from the phosphorescent glands in your sphincter. Why do you think my complexion is so great?”
I look at the ceiling and heave a sigh.
“Okay, fine, killjoy. Don’t tell me about your amazing anal sex. But you have to tell me one thing.”
“What?”
Resting her elbows on the table, she leans closer and lowers her voice. “He’s hung like a Clydesdale, isn’t he?”
It’s my turn to smile mysteriously.
She gasps in outrage and slaps her open palm on the tabletop. “You twat! You can’t keep that to yourself!”
When I only sip my wine and keep smiling, she glowers at me.
“If you don’t start talking, I’ll shoot you with this gun in my boot. I swear, I will.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“I kept that picture of you from when you first got your braces on when you were fifteen. Remember how that was during your mohawk-and-black-lipstick phase, when you wanted to run away and join the circus to be an emo clown? And you’d been experimenting with facial piercings? You had such cute freckles then, too.”
She says flatly, “You know those were zits. And it was a punk contortionist, not a fucking emo clown. And you told me you threw that photo out!”
I sigh dreamily, as if lost in good memories. “I lied. But I’m sure the local paper would love to feature a throwback pic of the third runner-up in the Miss Tahoe contest of 2014—”
“2015.”
“—in the Lifestyle section. You’re such a popular yoga teacher in this area. How many Instagram followers do you have now? Four thousand?”
“Forty thousand. Which you know. Witch.”
“Hey, maybe they’ll want to do a Before and After photo spread! Those are always fun. I think I’ve also still got a bunch of photos from the summer between fifth and sixth grades when your parents sent you to fat camp.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I love you, too.”
After a moment, she raises her glass to me in a toast. “Okay. You win. I’ll just keep on thinking he’s got a dick longer than my forearm.”
I grimace. “I’d be in the hospital.”
This is when she notices the ring on my finger and freezes. She stares at it like it’s a hairy tarantula crawling up my hand. “What…is…that?”
“A ring.”
“No shit! Did you get engaged without telling me?”
I twist the interlocking bands of gold around on my finger, shaking my head. I say softly, “It’s a promise ring.”
Examining my expression, she narrows her eyes. “Was this promise a suicide pact?”
I sigh, scrub my hands over my face, then swallow a big gulp of wine. Mojo decides it’s time to go back to sleep and curls up under the table. “It’s not an engagement ring, because we can’t get engaged. He’s not allowed to marry anyone except who his boss tells him to.”
When her mouth drops open in shock, I look down at the tabletop and add miserably, “We can’t live together, either. He doesn’t think it’s safe for me. And we’re only going to be seeing each other every once in a while, when he can get away. However often that might be, which sounds like it won’t be very often.” I hesitate. “And…”
“Sweet Jesus, there’s more?”
“Yeah.” I down another swig of wine, then exhale a heavy breath. “He can’t have kids. No, that’s not it—he doesn’t want kids, so he had a vasectomy when he was younger.”
Silence.
When I glance up at her, Sloane is staring at me with the constipated look she only wears when she’s worried about me.
“What’s that face for?”
“I just hope…”
“What?”
Glancing down at her wineglass, she slowly traces her finger around the rim. Then she raises her gaze to mine and says softly, “I hope he’s worth it, babe. Because it sounds like you’re giving up a lot just to ride the guy’s dick.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to sleep with him so badly.”
“Yeah, sleep with him. Then move on, like a normal person.”
“I told you this would happen! I told you I’d fall in love with him if I slept with him, and you laughed at me!”
“I didn’t realize your heart was located inside your vagina.”
I say bitterly, “We can’t all be as lucky as you and have a shard of ice for a heart.”
As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I regret it. I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
She squeezes my hand back, then sighs. “It’s okay if you did. Because you’re right. But don’t think I’m lucky, because I’m not. I’m…”
She struggles to find a word, then twists her lips. “Defective.”
“You’re not defective.”
Sounding uncharacteristically glum, she says, “I am. I’m missing that essential part that makes people fall in love. I’m the only girl I’ve ever heard of who rolls her eyes at love songs and hates it when guys get attached and would rather attend a funeral than a wedding.”
“It’s true, you’re basically a dude. But you’re still not defective. I’m telling you, you just haven’t met the right one yet.”
Sloane levels me with a look. “And I’m telling you, I can’t fall in love.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating. I’m literally incapable. My brain doesn’t work that way. It’s like how you are with math. Quick, answer this: what’s nine times twelve?”
After a moment of severe mental strain, I say, “Fine, so you can’t fall in love.”
“You see? How depressing is that?”
“At least you can double a recipe. The last time I made banana muffins, I had to call my mom to figure out how to double two-thirds of a cup of flour.”
We share a companionable, depressed silence for a moment, then Sloane brightens. “I know what we need right now!”
“If you say ‘dick,’ I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
She ignores me. “Pizza. Nobody can be sad when they’re gorging on a cheesy, meaty pizza pie.”
“That does sound pretty good.”
Examining my gloomy expression, she lifts her brows. “Gee, don’t get too excited. Now who’s the emo clown?”
“I was just thinking…what if we end up as two crabby, single old ladies, living together when we’re eighty, fighting over the TV remote and shouting at the neighbor kids to stay off the lawn? What if this whole love thing wasn’t meant to work out for either one of us, and in the end…we’re each other’s loves of our lives?”
She smiles warmly at me. “We are. But don’t worry, you’re gonna ride off into the sunset with Mafia Romeo. That will happen even if I have to threaten him with death myself.”
Of all the times Kage has probably faced the prospect of dying, I have no doubt my best friend would be the scariest.
Getting choked up, I say, “I’m so glad you’re back.”
Rising from the table, she heads to the drawer by the stove where I keep the takeout menus. “Me, too. But you might change your mind when I order kale on this pizza.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“With a cauliflower crust.”
“What a bait and switch! That’s ruining the whole point of pizza. Why not just have a salad, for god’s sake?”
“Because I had a salad for lunch.”
“Of course you did. Your addiction to vegetables is out of control.”
With the menu in one hand, she dials the restaurant with the other. “Having your parents call you ‘Chunky Monkey’ your entire childhood leaves scars, sis. Still dealing with the fallout.”
I stand and hug her from behind, resting my head on her shoulder as she orders the kale-and-cauliflower pizza.
I know it’ll be awful.
I’ll eat it anyway.
Kage isn’t the only one I’m a ride or die for.
A pang of heartache has me missing him so much, it leaves me breathless. As Sloane reads her credit card number to the pizza place, I slip my phone out of my pocket and send Kage a text.
Then I finish my glass of wine and pour another, trying not to think about what he might be doing right now.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t involve me.
And it probably isn’t good.
