“Not good,” I told her.
She pressed her lips together. She knew my history, she knew my work. She didn’t agree with it but she was a good friend, she kept her mouth shut. Or, at least, she didn’t lecture me too often, just enough for me to get her and for her not to be that annoying.
I leaned in and blew a raspberry on Adam’s neck.
He giggled and shoved at me, shouting, “Sylvie! Toads are slimy! Raspberries too!”
I grinned at him and looked into the backseat to check that Leslie was secure. Then I tossed a smile at Adam who smiled back so huge I was sure I could see all his teeth.
Yeah. Pure joy. The world would be a poorer place without Adam in it.
Or, at least, mine would.
I leaned in, touched my forehead to his, pulled back and slammed the door.
I rounded the hood of her car on my way home when Charlene said what she always said.
“Thanks, honey.”
My eyes caught hers as I passed her.
“You, me, them until the me in that equation isn’t needed anymore. Know it.”
I watched her pull in a breath to control the tears.
I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Such a girl,” and kept walking.
“You are too, you know!” she shouted at my back as I sauntered across her yard toward my house.
I lifted a hand and flicked out two fingers.
“And by the way, you keep walking through my yard, you’re gonna wear my grass down to dirt!” she kept shouting.
“Such a girl!” I shouted back, not bothering to turn. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”
“Whatever,” she yelled and I grinned.
I hit my front door, pulled out my keys and watched as they drove away, both Leslie and Adam waving at me through their windows.
I waved back and let myself in, so focused on Charlene and her kids, so exhausted from zero sleep, mind so consumed by what Knight shared in the meeting that I missed something I normally would never miss.
The black Expedition parked right across the street from my house.
I locked the door behind me and walked directly to my bedroom. When I hit the door, Gun, who was curled in a ball pressed at the bottom edge of my pillow, looked up at me.
I was wrong earlier. I could count those I was tight with on three fingers.
Knight, Charlene and my cat, Gunsmoke.
She was white with a round head, kind of flat-ish ears and her fur was unbelievably thick. She looked like a big fat cat but she wasn’t. She just had a shit ton of short, thick fur. It also had a shimmer of gray at the very ends with vague gray rings on her tail. She was talkative. She was loving. She was superior. And she liked me and only me.
Not true, she adored Adam.
But she couldn’t bear Leslie and especially Theo. She might let them in when they weren’t so loud and manically active. Now it was just me and Adam, who was also full of exuberance and energy but not around Gun. He was quiet and gentle with Gun and she showed her appreciation.
She watched me walk in, sit my ass on the side of the bed and pull off my boots and socks. She then scooted away when I got up, turned toward the bed, fell forward and did a face plant in it.
And as I closed my eyes, sleep claiming me, I felt her curl up in the dent of my waist.
I knew she was probably hungry. It was time for breakfast.
But she was my Gun. She knew me. She had my back.
She’d wait.
Chapter Two
The Cutest Boy in Town
A cold, dark night in the hills of Kentucky, twenty-eight years earlier, Sylvie is six…
I heard them yelling.
“Fuck you!”
“You wish, dirtbag! Fuck you! You piece of shit!”
“Don’t call me a piece of shit!”
“Don’t tell me what I can say!”
“You eat my food, live in my house, suck my dick for diamonds, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want!”
“I hope you have a good memory, asshole, because the last blowjob you got was the last you’ll get from me! I. Am. GONE!”
Then I heard it, the thump and I jumped.
I knew what that meant.
I knew what it meant.
I knew. I knew. I knew.
She’d have bruises tomorrow and walk funny.
I didn’t like it when she had bruises and walked funny.
“Come on, Bootsie, come on,” I whispered and my doggie, a sweet, white, West Highland Terrier’s, head cocked as I waved to her on my way to the door. She didn’t want to come. She always tried to keep me in the room. She didn’t like the yelling either, I knew it. She was a dog, she couldn’t tell me but I still knew it. She also knew what would happen if we got caught. She was there and Daddy had even kicked her once when they found us.
But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t listen anymore. We’d only been caught a few times but we’d gone walking loads. I didn’t like getting caught but I heard the words in my head over and over again. I never forgot them. I didn’t need any more of the words.
“NO!” I heard her screech.
“Last blowjob I’ll get?” Daddy roared back. “We’ll see about that, bitch!”
No more words.