Chapter 12 – Brooks
Chapter Twelve
brOOKS
“ F elipe must die,” I say to the boys before the first hand is even dealt.
I would have skipped poker night, but Slater almost pushed me out of the apartment, saying she wanted to talk to her mom and have some alone time.
I didn’t like that, but I also didn’t want to make her more upset after the day she’d had.
“I know of a pig farm in Lakeside,” offers Graham.
“Brooks doesn’t need a pig farm. He can chop him and cook him at The Plate.” Kaden, the starting quarterback for the Mavericks, makes up and down motions with his hands as if he’s slicing and dicing some imaginary vegetables.
“Don’t use a knife. It’s too easy to trace back to you. Use like…”—Graham’s eyes stray to the dealer, Dylan, our former lawyer and current knitting guru—“a knitting needle.”
Dylan isn’t a fan of this idea. “So I can be the suspect? Why not a hammer or why are we even using these sorts of tools? Isn’t a gun the best and quickest?”
“Poison is the easiest.” Graham turns to me. “Can’t you reverse engineer a duck into some kind of toxic poison?”
“Right. A natural death would be the most undetectable, so get some super-duper salmonella.” Kaden nods in agreement.
I look from one of my friends to the other. “I meant metaphorically.”
There’s a small bit of silence before Dylan shuffles the cards again. “I knew that.”
“We were just joking,” Graham adds.
“Not me,” says Kaden with a wide grin. “I’m all in for hiding the body, too.” He swings his now healed arm. “I’m a super soldier now with my repaired rotator cuff.”
“Since our body disposal business is on hold, what are your plans?” Dylan asks.
“I’ve got a guy who was able to get the birthday video taken down,” Graham offers.
He does have social media experience of the negative kind.
He’d given his nephew a car for his birthday.
The problem was that the car was six figures and the nephew only one.
From what Graham explained, everyone had something to say about that.
“Slater makes her living off the internet. I don’t think one video being taken down will help.”
“She’ll suffer the Streisand Effect,” Kaden says. Everyone else nods.
“What’s that?” I’ve never heard of it.
“It’s when you bring attention to something by trying to cover it up.
Streisand sued a photographer who had posted photos of her oceanside property.
The news reported on the lawsuit, which drove more traffic to the photos.
If you get one video taken down, people will start talking about how you’re silencing them.
Our PR team tells us to keep our fingers in our pockets and our mouths zipped whenever there’s some internet scandal brewing.
” Kaden draws a finger across his mouth.
“You’re making the idea of killing him more appealing.
” I can’t stay silent while Slater is being accused of being everything but a child of Satan online.
It’s not the money because I can easily support both of us.
It’s the unfairness of it. She doesn’t deserve this kind of abuse.
While I can’t take Felipe’s life, I can make him miserable, and if all else fails, perhaps I do inject him with a high dosage of mold that I grew in my kitchen.
I return home with empty pockets, having lost all my money due to my inability to concentrate. I kept thinking about what kinds of mushrooms I could feed to Felipe.
Slater is in the living room with the television on but the lights off. Her arm is thrown over her eyes, and her other hand is clutching her phone. The screen of the device is darkened, though.
“How was poker night?”
“I’m poor now.”
I sit down next to her and pry the phone out of her hands. It’s turned completely off.
“Did you torment yourself?”
“By scrolling through comments? No. I turned it off after talking to Mom because Felipe was blowing up my phone.”
I check her face but don’t see any tear stains. “How was your mother?”
“Good. Mad, though. She wants to kill Felipe.”
I straighten. “I had the same thought.”
“We aren’t killing anyone.”
“You should always listen to your mother. Why don’t you give me her phone number? She and I can plan this together.”
Slater pulls her phone out of my hands and shoves it into the cushions behind her. “Stop. I just want to put this behind me. I should just talk with Felipe. I don’t think he really wants to get back together with me because otherwise, why sleep with my best friend?”
“I still am confused about why he would cheat on you. If he loved you, he would wait until you were ready.” What a pathetic human.
“Can we not talk about this anymore? It’s humiliating to me.” Slater throws her arm over her eyes as if by blocking her vision, she can push away all the bad things.
I stroke her head until she sighs and lowers her arm. “Are you hungry?” I ask. Food is my comfort and the kitchen my refuge. Among the produce and meat, the knives and iron pans, there is magic and healing. I will make Slater something that will ease her pain.
“I could eat,” she admits. I help her to her feet and guide her to a stool.
“People pay thousands to watch me cook. You are getting a free show.”
“My mom did squeal a little when I told her I was staying at your place.”
“Did you also tell her we are getting married?” I already know the answer, but disappointment still pinches the back of my neck at her quick “no.”
“I don’t want to confuse her,” Slater adds.
“It’ll be more confusing when you present me as your husband. She would probably want to be there when we say our vows in front of the officiant, so you should tell her soon. And the baby? Did you share that?”
Slater purses her lips but doesn’t reply. Instead, she watches. I pull out bread from the bakery down the street and slice thick pieces. Eggs are cracked, butter is melted. Ham is set to caramelize in the pan. Cooking is a performance, but this is the first time I’ve cared what the audience thinks.
Before, I always felt confident that any dish I made would please the diner.
With Slater, though, I don’t just want to feed her; I want to nourish her.
I want her to be warmed by the meal from the inside out so that when she sits down at the table in the future, her body will remember the food she ate and she will always, always return to me.