Glaring at her, I stumble back to the living room. “Not in the mood to talk, Gigi.”
“Too bad, because I am. Hey… that tat on your back. How come I never saw it before?” She elbows me in the ribs as she sits down beside me. “Look at you, gone all bad boy. Any special significance to this…” She leans back for a better look. “Ax?”
I hand her a glass with a finger of whiskey. Don’t want her going back to Jarett wasted. He’ll have my balls, even if she’s my sister. “What do you think it means?”
“Self-expression? Some repressed urge?” She shrugs. “It looks good.”
A shiver runs through me. I pour some more whiskey. “Thanks.”
“Cosima not here tonight?”
“She said she’ll come by later. She had facetime planned with her bestie.”
Gigi smooths down her short plaid skirt. She likes wearing skirts and thick black knee-high socks with boots. Her long blond hair is caught in two pigtails, and she’s wearing red lipstick and perfume.
The kitty seems to like it. She comes sniffing, tail in the air, then sits at my feet and stares at my sister.
“Hey, there’s a cat here! Hey, cat! Is she yours?”
“She’s Cosies’s. I’m taking care of her.”
“Very domestic.”
“You’re one to talk. You settled in just fine with Jarett.” I rub at my aching forehead. “Anyway, what’s wrong with domesticity?”
“Whoa, tiger. I’m only teasing. You know that, right? I’m really glad to see you happy with this girl.”
“Sorry, sprout. Just tired.”
“Little brother, I know. You look it. You need to talk to me. Or go to a psychologist.” She sips at her Whiskey and makes a face. “Ugh. You shouldn’t drink car oil before bed.”
I ignore that. “See a psychologist. That’s what JC said. Are you two working together to convince me?”
“JC sounds like a worthy roommate, after all. Not a serial ax murderer, huh?”
A shudder runs through me. What… the… fuck?
I down my drink and wait for the heat to spread through me, relax my locked muscles. “I don’t need no psychologist.”
“Let me ask you this: The nightmares you have, are they always one and the same?”
Goddammit, the whiskey isn’t doing anything today. “If everyone who had nightmares went to a psychologist, there would be endless lines outside their offices.”
“Merc, is it the same dream over and over? At least tell me this much.”
Fuck. I put the glass down very carefully because what I want is to throw it against the wall. “The same.”
“I figured as much. Look...” She puts the glass down and twines her fingers together on top of her knees. “Repeated nightmares mean there’s something in your life causing stress. Something you haven’t acknowledged, and it won’t go away until you’ve faced it, and fixed it.”
“I see. Piece of cake.”
“And if it is a person you see…” She ignores me. “Then…”
“Then what? Where did you get all this, Ginger? Wikipedia?”
She looks affronted. “I read. This interests me.”
“Because you wanna psychoanalyze your boyfriend?”