Chapter 11
“Johnny, I am absolutely furious,” I say, storming into our bedroom and slamming the door behind me.
“Dang it, Ez. You know you can’t slam it like that. We live in a trailer house that’s been welded on top of a log cabin, supported by an old tree that I’m pretty sure is dead. You’ll send us crashing down to our deaths, and then where would we be, bro?”
Bro. God. Kill me.
But also… maybe fuck me first? “Bro” has no right sounding as ridiculously sexy as it does, because I’m not a fucking himbo.
It suits Johnny, though. It fits his voice like a well-worn cowboy hat.
His idiotic country twang that sounds more frat-bro than frack-bro.
The way it makes him seem silly, even when he’s annoyed.
God help me, Johnny is precious.
“You really think the tree is dead?”
Johnny shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Do I look like a trained arborist?
“What the hell is an arborist?” I lift my hands, refusing to entertain this conversation a single second longer. “Fuck off and die, trash.”
“Jesus, Ezra,” he says, his voice coming out as a loud, ferocious bark. “You can’t go around saying shit like that. The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Oh, please. Save the theatrics. You know I’m just being sassy.”
“That wasn’t sassy. It was just mean for meanness’ sake.”
I close my eyes and sigh. “Fine. Okay. I’m sorry. I apologize. That was uncalled for. I promise, I won’t make any more commands for you to cease living.”
He scoffs. “Not the die part, dumbass. I know you’re just fuckin’ around when you say it. It was the trash part that hurt my feelings.” He’s looking everywhere except at me, and I know him well enough to know he’s trying to hide his hurt from me. Fuck that.
“Wait. You’re serious? I really hurt your feelings?” The thought of intentionally hurting him, especially after everything we shared last night, makes my heart hurt. I love goading the motherfucker, but I don’t want to bring him pain he doesn’t deserve. Maybe I did once, but not anymore. “Johnny?”
He looks at me, and it’s like the second he sees my eyes, tension slowly fades. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I thought we were just playing our little game.” I lean a little closer, my voice shrinking. “I don’t want you to fuck off, and you’re not trash. I don’t think I ever want you to fuck off. I’m really sorry for hurting you.”
He rolls his eyes, making it seem like his heart is harder than it really is. “I ain’t made of glass or anything. I’m not going to break. It just sounded mean. That’s all.”
“Well, I won’t say it again. I promise.”
His cheeks darken. “You don’t have to stop telling me to die, though.” The combination of bald and bashful holds the power to do me in, but I am not done yet. Not by a long shot.
I cock an accusatory eyebrow at him. “You like it, don’t you?”
“No.” He turns his head. The son of a bitch won’t look at me.
“Absolutely not. Eyes on me, Johnny.”
His head jerks back faster than those little machines that toss clay pigeons into the air. “What?”
“You like when I tell you to die.” Wanting to prove it, I place my hand over his bulge and grin. “It gets you hard, doesn’t it? Are death-threat ejaculations in our future?”
“It ain’t that I like it,” he says, kicking his legs out on the bed and getting comfortable. “It’s just who we are.”
“What do you mean?” I take a seat beside his feet and stare down at his ankle. I think I want to touch it. To curl my fingers around his leg and hold on tight. I don’t, obviously, but the want is there, and it’s stronger than steel.
He nudges his foot a little closer to my hand. “It’s just the way we are together. You’re an asshole, Bubba’s in charge, and I’m the normal one. You get sassy with me, I get pissed off at you, Bubba makes it better.
“An astute analysis of our situationship.” I look up from his ankle to find him smiling at me.
I must not have been paying much attention to Johnny this morning, because he looks like a brand new man.
Lighter in a way he’s never seemed before.
It suits him. So does his bald head. “Can I touch your head?”
He blinks at me. “Huh?”
“Your head. I want to touch it.”
“Thirty seconds ago you were wishing me dead, now you want to rub my head?”
“There’s quite a bit of rhyming going on in here.
It’s a shame Bubba isn’t here to hear it.
” I rise and stumble closer. He gasps when I straddle his lap, my butt cushioned by his thighs.
I cup his cheeks with both my hands, because I fucking want to.
His lips pucker like he thinks I’m about to kiss him, and even though I think I kind of want to, I resist, because that’s not what this is about. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Johnny.” Slowly, I use my hands to tilt his face down, and there it is. The source of my wonder. The curious crystal ball atop his head. I kind of want to gaze into it and start chanting weird shit just to freak him out, but I don’t. I just lean in close and give it a big, sloppy kiss.
“To be clear,” Johnny says, sounding more than a little breathless, if you ask me. “You’ve wanted to kiss my head for a long time?”
I shrug. “Nah. I wanted to stare into it and start casting spells to fuck with you.”
He tilts his head ever so slightly until he’s able to peek up at me through his lashes. “Why didn’t you?”
I shrug. “I thought it might scare you.”
“It probably would,” he agrees. “It makes me nervous sometimes. You dabble in forces you ought not dabble in. I’ve seen backwoods witchcraft before, and it ain’t a pretty picture, bro.”
I scrunch my brows. “You’ve seen backwoods witchcraft?”
“Yeah, back in Dunsberry. Miss Earline. She lives about half a mile back in the woods, behind Momma’s house.
She used to sacrifice stray mice to some spirit she worships named LaRinna.
She does it in exchange for good crops.” His bottom lip quivers, looking genuinely frightened, and it sends this strange, foreign urge to console Johnny, so I do.
I reach out and take his hand, and he stares down at it with this look I can’t read.
“I could hear them, back home. I think she would sacrifice them outside my bedroom window sometimes because she knew it made me sad.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“She’s a hateful soul, and she’s cruel because she can be.
They made the worst sounds, Ez. These high-pitched cries that cut right through me.
I started breaking into her house and rescuing them, once I learned her routine.
She caught me every time, and she’d stand there casting spells looking like a redneck Rapunzel.
Don’t sacrifice any mice, Little Dick. Promise me. It would break my heart."
“Rapunzel wasn’t a witch, and if you ever call me Little Dick again, I’m going to tinkle in your mouthwash.”
“Her hair touched the floor, Little Dick. No one can grow hair as long as hers without involving the occult.” He cocks an eyebrow. “Did you just say tinkle?”
I fling my hands in the air, because I no longer care. “You are completely ridiculous, and you’ve changed the subject at least nine-hundred times. Now, would you please stop making everything about yourself and Lady Earline of Dunsberry long enough to hear why I’m so furious?”
“I figured it was because Bubba’s ex-wife and son are moving in, and you’re probably feeling insecure, because you’re worried she’s going to steal him from you.”
“Steal? Steal? I will go down a mighty blaze of glory, my flame so bright, it scorches the fucking sky!”
He blinks at me. “Well, that was a reaction.”
“Not half the reaction she’s going to get if she even thinks of stealing Bubba.
I’ll crush her.” I fold my arms across my chest and pout.
“And her little twink too.” I bite my bottom lip, considering the twink.
“Maybe not the twink, actually. Jaden is a strange one, but I like his vibe. He’s giving Scotty Levinson meets Bette Davis, and I can’t lie. I don’t hate it.”
“Who the hell is Scotty Levinson?” he asks, before deciding against it, shaking his head.
“Scratch that. It’s probably just one of your busted-up best friends back in Texas.
” He looks over at the door. “Jay’s a good kid, bro.
Faith too. Well, she ain’t a kid, but she’s still pretty fuckin’ great.
I promise, she ain’t here to win him back.
You didn’t see them by the end of their marriage. ”
“Was there a bitter end to their twisted tale?”
“Twisted tale?” He stares at me like I’m a moron, which, yeah.
Fair. “They didn’t hate each other, but neither of them lost any sleep over their divorce.
I get why you’re scared, though. I felt the same way when I found out about you and Bubba.
It’s scary to have to worry about someone wrecking what you’re working for.
” My face must be a dead giveaway for the guilt I feel, because Johnny’s hand squeezes my shoulder, and he brushes gentle circles against my skin with his thumb.
“I ain’t mad at you no more, Ez. You didn’t do nothing wrong.
I’m the one who got scared and ran away like a kid. ”