“Just relax,” Birch advised.
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have a bony ass sitting on cold concrete,” Lottie muttered.
Her ass wasn’t bony.
I didn’t get into that either.
“Have you seen Mom?” I asked Birch to get Jon’s nose off our scent because he still didn’t look happy.
“I don’t wanna see Mom,” Birch answered.
Oh man.
“Birch, she’s bad. You should try to—”
Both men’s attention shifted, so mine did too.
Lottie was sitting facing a sidewall with two windows that were up high and covered in grime, as garage windows were wont to be.
I was sitting facing a door that was up two steps and undoubtedly led into a house.
Now I saw Saff coming in from the door, and beyond it, a washer and dryer in what appeared to be a laundry room.
She looked down at me as she descended the steps.
I glared up at her.
“I thought we were done, sis,” I noted.
“You’re so stupid,” she replied.
That had my chin back in my neck with affront.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“God, I mean, I couldn’t make it any more plain you needed to fuck off.”
Now I was blinking.
One, she’d taken the Lord’s name in vain.
And humongous number two, she’d used the word “fuck.”
It was then, I was noticing something else.
She had makeup on.
And a cute white denim skirt that hit several inches above the knees, some brown suede boots that had a kitten heel, neither being True Light approved. Topping this was a navy-blue sweater, under it a white collared shirt. She’d done the French tuck and was wearing a brown belt.
She looked stylin’. Preppy stylin’, but stylin’. And although she wasn’t flaunting a huge amount of skin, I didn’t think I’d seen her knees for maybe twenty years.
She went direct to Hottie Jon and kissed him right on the mouth.
She didn’t stick her tongue down his throat, but she put her hand on his chest, he had his hand light, but still mostly on her ass, and it was without a doubt that wasn’t the first peck they’d exchanged.
I so totally knew he was her boyfriend.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
Saffron turned to me.
Hottie Jon tossed an arm over her shoulders, did a curl, and then she was tucked back to his front with his forearm across her chest.
I’d think that was cute and be super freaking happy for her she’d scored a tall, hot guy and wasn’t destined to be with icky Reverend Clyde, if I wasn’t on my ass on a cold concrete floor in a pair of leggings, hands zip-tied together, ankles the same, connected to Lottie with rope wrapped around our chests.
“Okay, you didn’t catch on,” she stated. “But I wasn’t being a bitch to you and Juno just to be a bitch. And, as an aside, Pepper, I cannot even believe you’d think I’d do that. Not to you. You’re my freaking sister. Absolutely not to Juno.”
I stared at her.
Hard.
“That hurt,” she declared. “I mean, a lot.”
“I—”
“No,” she cut me off. “I get to be the condescending one this time.”
Condescending?
“So this is the deal. Dad’s a fucking lunatic,” she announced.
Birch made an affirmative noise in his throat.
Jon tucked Saffron closer to him.
My mouth fell open.
“And I knew that even, like…a way long time ago. Like before you left. Then you left, Pepper.” She leaned toward me, taking Hottie Jon with her, and repeated words she’d said to me weeks ago, and she did with the heat and anger she had back then. “You left. And when you left, you left me with him.”
“You were only sixteen,” I said softly. “I was eighteen. I wasn’t out of high school yet. I didn’t have a job. I stayed at my friend Corey’s mom and dad’s house for the first eight months after I left. They floated me for beauty school. And I worked at Burger King and saved every dime I earned to pay them back when I could and so I could get out on my own.”
“Well, you stopped working at Burger King and got a job then got a man then got a baby, and where was I?”
“I thought you were into the whole True Light thing,” I told her, and I did.
In fact, I was gobsmacked that she wasn’t.
“Did you ask?” she inquired.
Right.
Uh…
No.
We weren’t doing that shit.
“No, but you’ve got a mouth,” I informed her. “You could have talked to me.”
“When? When Dad was around? When Mom was? When he’d moved us into the church and there were people watching my every move? When he’d foisted me off to Clyde so he could be head deacon and Clyde watched my every move?”
Shit.
I had a feeling this was going to get worse and it wasn’t that great to begin with.
Lottie had that feeling too. I knew it when she twisted her hand so her fingers could grab hold of mine.
“I couldn’t know something was wrong with you, Saff,” I said softly. “I honestly thought you were at one with the church.”