Chapter 30
thirty
MADDOX
The sound of my loud voice causes my sister and Reindeer to jump in fright before the both of them turn their heads toward me. My sister has a murderous look on her face, while Reindeer’s eyes are red-rimmed and tear marks streak down her face, leaving a trail of black ink in their wake. Even with her face all messy, she’s still stunning. And that dress of hers is gorgeous and so her.
“Maddox,” Reindeer whimpers. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to apologize for, you know what, but it looks like I now need to hide a body after I murder that pin-dicked weasel for doing this to you.”
“Don’t,” she blubbers, while shaking her head. “I just—” She steps around my sister and flops down onto the sofa, the skirt of her dress puffing up and billowing around her.
“Just what?” Sabbi asks, dropping down beside her. She takes her hand in hers and squeezes in that Sabbi way. “What can we do?”
“I … I just want to get out of here.”
Sabbi starts nodding and I can see a plan forming in her mind. “Right, okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” She jumps up and points at me. “You, you’re going to get Rubes out of here. I’ll go deal with everyone and I’ll tell them to all head home an?—”
“Tell them to enjoy the reception,” Reindeer interrupts her.
“What?” my sister screeches.
“Tell them to enjoy the reception, there’s no need to let the food and alcohol go to waste.”
“You sure?” my sister questions, confusion on her face. She’s thinking what I was thinking, what the hell?
Reindeer nods and a lone tear falls down her cheek. “I’m sure,” she softly says, nodding her head and twisting her fingers. She looks devastated and if she didn’t need me right now, I’d hunt that asshole down and beat him up. She bats at her cheek, takes a deep breath, and then looks to me with determination. “Let’s go.”
“Do you wanna get changed?”
She shakes her head. “It’ll take too long to undo and I … I just wanna get out of here.”
“O-o-o-o-okay,” I stammer just as Sabbi shouts, “You can take my coat.”
“Where’s your coat?” I ask because it’s the middle of winter and there’s a storm coming.
“After we got here, Sab took my things down to the car to make it easier at the end of the night for our quick getaway. I was planning on being snuggled up to my husband and using him for warmth, hence my not needing my own coat. Which in hindsight was probably stupid since it’ll be dark and there’ll be a chill in the air.”
Nodding, I process her words and then when my sister hands Reindeer her coat, I shake my head. “Sabbi, she doesn’t want to look like a marshmallow,” I state. My sister owns this ugly as fuck, bright-pink fluffy coat that looks like a marshmallow. You can never lose her in a crowd when she wears it, hell, I’m sure they can see her from the space station.
“I love your marshmallow,” Reindeer says to Sabbi, who like the mature mother she is sticks her tongue out at me. Grabbing the coat, she helps Reindeer into it and, now Reindeer looks like one of those toilet roll covers from the seventies due to the puffy white skirt of her dress and the pink fluffy jacket on top.
“Let’s do this,” I tell her.
She and Sab hug it out and then I offer her my hand. She slips hers into mine and with a final wave to my sister, she walks toward the door. Sab mimics “call me” with her fingers and I nod my confirmation.
Reindeer and I stealthily make our way down to the parking garage and to my truck. Helping her into the passenger seat, I climb into the driver’s seat and back out of my spot. “Where to?” I ask as we start winding our way down the mountain back to Evergreen Lake.
“Somewhere Joel won’t find me,” she morosely says.
“I know just the place,” I tell her.
She nods and then rests her forehead against the window. Unlike the last time when she was drunk and ready to pass out, this time she’s upset. As we reach the outskirts of town, she silently begins to cry again. Her shoulders bob up and down as she cries. Reaching over, I squeeze her hand, I hate seeing her in pain like this. The sky above is dark and gloomy. It looks like we’re in for a doozy of a snowstorm, guess the weather is angry too.
Pulling into my apartment’s driveway, I make my way to my allocated spot and turn the engine off. “Reindeer, we’re here.”
She lifts her head and looks around. “Your place?”
“Joel won’t find you here, he doesn’ t even know where I live.”
She nods her head and without saying anything, she opens the truck door, climbs out, and walks toward my apartment. Following her, I unlock the front door and step aside, letting her pass. “So, what do you want to do?”