“She put a fish in your closet?” I ask incredulously.
“In all our closets. I’ve tossed mine in the trash and scrubbed the shelf it was on with every fucking cleaning product in this place, but the smell is still lingering. I think it’s in the fibers of my clothes.”
“Oh, hell no,” I say, starting to jog up the stairs. The smell gets worse with every step I take, forming a foul crescendo in the upstairs hallway. All I can think about are my expensive suits that are all dry-clean only. It’ll cost me a fortune to rid them of the smell.
When I open the door to my room, the odor takes my breath away. I put my arm over my nose, heading straight for the closet. I don’t see the fish immediately, but when I do, I gag. It’s not just a fillet of salmon. It’s a whole fish with a head, eyes, fins, and scales. It looks at me with an accusing stare. Why the hell have you pissed off a woman enough that she’s wasted me in revenge?
I grit my teeth, heading back into my room to find something I can bag it up in for disposal, and while I do, I swear and grumble, cursing my brother and his stupid vengeful attitude. I hope Cora left him a whole fucking school of stinky fish because I don’t deserve this.
As I wrap the fish in a plastic grocery bag, noise echoes from downstairs and footsteps begin to thud closer. Expecting it to be the rest of my brothers, I stick my head into the hallway. My mouth is open when I find Cora, flanked by five friends, holding their noses, and staring at me.
“You know, you guys really need to clean this house,” Cora says, screwing up her face. “Even frat houses never smelled this bad.”
There’s a ripple of laughter behind her as she uses a key to unlock the master suite. “Don’t worry, guys. My room smells great, and I have candles to burn off any smell that spreads.”
A girl with curly black hair stares at the bag in my hand with wide eyes. There’s a guy with Cora who looks like Travis Barker’s younger better-looking brother, and two girls who look like they were cheerleaders at college.
I’m too shocked at Cora’s bravado to say anything before they disappear into her room and close the door behind them.
By the time Alden, Danny, and Tobias have removed all the offending fish and cleaned and aired their rooms we’re all starving and sworn off fish for life. Alden orders Chinese food, and we gather in the kitchen to regroup. “I can still smell it,” Tobias grumbles. He brings the bare skin of his forearm to his nose and inhales. “I swear the smell has gotten into my skin.”
Danny leans forward to sniff the general area around Tobias. “I don’t smell anything, Tobe. I think it’s all in your head.”
“It’s not. I swear.”
“She got us good.” River shakes his head and then chuckles darkly. “I reckon Danny’s cursing the day he started this fucking vendetta shit.”
“No fucking way!” Danny shouts. “Where’s the fun in pranking someone who’s just going to cry about it? Cora is proving herself to be a very worthy adversary.” He says the last part in a faux British accent, and I roll my eyes at my brother’s stupidity. I swear he needs to find a good woman who will keep him on the straight and narrow. Left to his own devices, he’s a wild animal with the sense of a gnat.
“You’re intending to keep this going?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Hell yeah. She’s not going to get away with any of it. If she wants to up the ante, we will too.”
“When you say ‘we,’ are you including me in your ridiculous game?”
“Of course,” Danny says. “If you’re not for us, you’re against us. Do you want to be against us, Mark?”
Before I get a chance to answer, the doorbell chimes, signaling the takeout’s arrival, and feet begin to thunder down the stairs. Danny is up and out of his seat like a sprinter, already anticipating that Cora might try to steal the food before we get a chance to eat it. I follow, worrying that I will need to step between them if things get heated. I know my brother would never be physically aggressive towards a woman, but he has a sharp tongue, and this whole thing is escalating out of control. In the hallway, we all gather, and a staring standoff begins. Eventually, I open the front door to find a delivery driver with what looks like enough food and drink to feed the five thousand.
It’s not Chinese food.
“Delivery for Cora,” the delivery driver says, reaching out to hand me a bag filled with bottles and cans.