“Pretty,” I said, remarking on her looks. I wasn’t attracted to her, but I could still appreciate clear, smooth skin and a nice figure. For all I knew she could be a harpy just like Pebbles, and Chase would deserve it.
He finished off his beer, uncapping another one and quickly grousing, “And hands off before I make you blue with bruises instead of shit juice.”
“Aw, dude, why you have to be like that,” I moaned to his retreating form waving me off as he returned to the party. I watched everyone talk and laugh, feeling once again like an outsider.
A powdery scent and petite body plunked down next to me in the spot vacated by Chase, swinging a glass of red wine. “I hear you got a shit bath with my granddaughter.” I turned to see Kristen and Chase’s grandmother nursing her wine, winking at me.
“Ms. Halle!” I leaned over, hugging her happily, surprised. This woman might have been the only one to ever fully accept me, warts and all.
Her face wrinkled in a smirk behind wise eyes that looked like a version of Kristen’s fifty years into the future. There was a time when Ms. Halle was obviously stunningly beautiful—before time graced her with deeply etched lines and lavender hair that looked like a poufy Q-tip.
“Don’t you get sweet on me, you little shit.” Her elbow ribbed me and I knew her ornery attitude had been bred deeply into Pebbles, who made her rounds among the partygoers as I watched from my vantage point on the back patio.
“Someday. Maybe.” I thought about her granddaughter, unsure what future, if any, there was for us.
“She’s an exact replica of her mother.”
We both snorted. Katherine Halle Calloway was a hard-ass, using her forceful personality in the courtroom. A classic bob of dark hair swung on her shoulders, and her confidence oozed out around her. Kristen wasn’t an exact replica, but her qualities were there—and where others saw this intractable hardness about her, I saw a vulnerability we both shared. She was an outsider like I was in my own family. Oh, they loved us, but we didn’t quite fit the mold and that made us stick out like sore thumbs. I thought we had bonded over that decades ago, but it had morphed into something else. I wanted to get back what we’d had before.
“Softer,” I said, half agreeing with the old woman I respected.
She chuckled. “What planet are you on, son? It’s obvious you revolve around her like the ones that get too close to the sun. That’s why she’s burning you. Step back. I bet with a little distance she’ll come racing back faster than a heat-seeking missile.” She downed her wine, patting my knee.
Ms. Halle probably had a point, but as usual I ended up picking a fight with Kristen before the evening was over. I ended up feeling like a dog with my tail between my legs.
9
Kristen
I was soaking wet and I thought I might have called Demon a unicorn dick, but I was too mad to remember. No, I was soaking wet from sweating because my air conditioner stopped humming sometime in the middle of night and it was July.
“Ugh.” I rolled over in my bed and found Evan lying half in, half out. I was guessing we had sex. Normally it was great, but the fight between Demon and I made this thing between Evan and me awkward and not so great. I smacked his boxer-short-clad ass, eliciting a groan. He still had his bottoms on. I looked under the sheet, and I did too. Sex didn’t happen but the hangover did.
“Please don’t murder me right now.” Evan crawled back up into the bed and wrapped himself around my body, hugging me.
“I am so… drunk still.” I said feeling the roll of my stomach.
He laughed. “You should be, lush.”
I pinched his side and he grabbed my hand to stop me from further abusing him.
“Couldn’t perform last night?” Goading him didn’t earn the humor it typically would between us.
“Kind of hard to do when you’re calling out some other guy’s name.”
I thought about that for a minute. Demon’s name was probably being yelled in anger and not passion, and poor Evan was being a good friend and ex-booty-call.
Evan seemed to know what I was thinking without verbalizing it.
“No, Kristen, I brought you home and you proceeded to drink more, so I stayed to make sure you didn’t vomit to death.”
“Did I?” I held my hand up to my face, breathing in it to smell. Seemed good to me.
“No, but you did get your period because that was next thing you were dying to tell me.”
“Ugh, embarrassing.” I let myself fall back into the pillows and sheets. “And you stayed to be my knight in shining armor?” I queried.
“Again–it was kind of hard to leave you.” Evan looked me over. I was wearing my festive bright red bra and panty set with glittering rhinestones for the Fourth of July.