“Damn, boys, you sound like my first girlfriend. She called herself white trash, but I didn’t really know what that meant until she moved out. Took all the canned food and toilet paper with her.”
“Take the toilet paper,” Kasabian says. “That’s a great idea.”
Everyone gets up, the good mood as dead as the lobster crumbs on my plate.
I start for the bedroom, when Kasabian says, “I was going to tell you tomorrow. I saw some other funny stuff when I was surveillance-droning in Hell.”
“Yeah? What?”
“That big-time priest down there, Merihim. You said he and the wild-thing nun, Deumos, were enemies.”
“And?”
“I saw them hanging around together. They didn’t look like enemies to me.”
That explains a lot.
“I was right when I said it. Now I’m wrong. No big deal.”
“Okay. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks.”
We both look at each other.
“That felt weird,” says Kasabian.
“It did. Let’s not do it again anytime soon.”
“Yeah. Let’s not.”
Candy is in the bedroom taking clothes out of the closet and piling them on the bed.
“Hold up for a minute.”
She turns and looks at me, upset but trying not to show it.
“Sit down,” I say.
She drops a couple of T-shirts and sits.
I go the living room closet and come back with a cardboard box about three feet long, like a tall, thin shoe box.
“Merry Christmas.”
“What happened to all that stuff about us making it to Christmas, so I had to wait?”
I put the box in her lap.
“It’s been a tough couple of days. I figure that we could all use a little something.”
“Yeah, I was kind of jealous when you bought Kasabian a dog and didn’t get me anything.”
“Open the box.”
She smiles and rips the tape along the sides.