Chapter 7
Lindsey
BAMBAMBAM. "Lindsey Noreen Snelling! Open this fucking door right this goddamned second!"
Oh dear. Rune was using the full name—she knew how I felt about my middle name: hate, hate, hate, LOATHE ENTIRELY.
"No!" I shouted. "I'm not home."
"Do I have to have Duncan kick the door down?"
"Hey, now, don't bring me into this," I heard Duncan say. "I'm just here for moral support."
“You just can't kick down a door, can you?"
"No," he muttered. "It's harder than it looks."
"Which means you've tried?"
"Long story. Short version is Dane locked me out of my room when I popped out to pee while doing a loot run in Diablo Four."
"So you tried to kick your door down?"
"I was fourteen and didn't pause it, just kept a passive effect spell going that killed all the minor minions."
"Dunc, baby—"
“You don't care about Diablo, I know."
"CAN YOU TWO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION ELSEWHERE?" I shouted. "I'm not home."
BAM! My door rattled with a shuddering impact.
"RUNE RIGBY BADD! Stop kicking my door!"
"I'm not—" BAM! "Kicking it." BAM! "I'm—" BAM! "Shoulder charging it." BAM! "Ow."
"Babe, stop. You're gonna dislocate your shoulder. Trust me when I say that shit really hurts."
I shuffled to the door, undid all three locks, opened the door a crack, and shuffled back to my couch, where I plopped back down, tossed my blanket back over my bare legs, and resumed eating Boom Chicka Pop chocolate sea salt drizzle popcorn and watching a Teen Mom replay marathon.
Duncan took one step inside, looked around, looked at me, and turned right back around. "I'm gonna…ummm….go do…things. Elsewhere."
"Good plan," I mumbled, mouth full of popcorn, which I washed down with a swig of…you guessed it, box wine.
Once Duncan had shut my door, Rune re-enacted Dunc's survey of my place: it was a pigsty.
Not just for me, for anyone. Dishes were piled up in the sink, there was a carryout container that probably contained a lifeform NASA would be fascinated to study, and we're not going to talk about the pile of empty wine boxes by the garbage can.
Or the sex toys on the coffee table.
Or the fact that I was still in Dane's T-shirt, and hadn't showered since he left…. *mumbles inaudibly under her breath* days ago.
With a heavy, long-suffering sigh, Rune tossed her purse on the table by the door, kicked off her shoes and socks, took off her bra from beneath her T-shirt, shucked her yoga pants, and climbed pantsless under the blanket with me.
She ate my popcorn and watched a good fifteen minutes of the show with me without saying a damn word.
That, my peeps, is the definition of a bestie. She's the girl who yeets her bra and takes off her pants, no questions asked.
Finally, I poured myself more wine and muted the TV, which was a shame because Amber and Gary were about to really get into it.
"How was your honeymoon?" I asked.
She spied a six-pack of mini Diet Cokes on the floor under the coffee table—don't ask—and snagged one.
"Fantastic. We swam in the ocean, had romantic candlelight dinners on the beach, and had fabulous sex in just about every pregnancy-possible position you can think of on just about every horizontal and vertical surface in the room, including the balcony. "
"Oooh, hotel balcony sex is fun."
"Not when you're our upstairs neighbor. They shouted at us to please stop strangling the cat."
I spluttered a laugh. "You do sound like a cat when you’re coming, a little."
"You don't know that."
I swigged wine, which loosened my tongue—not that it needs loosening, the flappy bitch. "Um, hello? Was I or was I not in the next room when Hayes drilled you into kingdom come on that trip to Myrtle Beach, our sophomore year?"
Rune grimaced. "Oh. Right. Forgot about that."
"The boy was a class-A loser and ding-dong fucknut for the ages, but he sure could use that dick."
Rune sighed. "You're not wrong."
"Can I ask you something I've been wondering for a long time?"
"Obviously."
"You always told me that Hayes was the best sex you ever had. Is that still true, or…?"
She crammed popcorn into her mouth like it was going to run away and join a convent. "No. Not even close. Hayes wasn't the best sex I ever had; he was the most consistently good sex I ever had. Until Dunc, the best ever was Brutus."
I cackled, spluttering wine through my fingers.
"Fuck me!” I coughed, gagged, and leaned forward, as I'd rather drip wine on my floor than my/Dane’s T-shirt.
Fortunately, I had a stack of brown paper carryout napkins handy.
Once I'd cleaned myself off, I turned on Rune.
"Brutus? That giant beefcake you hooked up with before Hayes? "
"Yup."
"I remember you saying it was good, but better than Hayes?"
"Well, that's my point. Brutus was hit or miss. It was either pathetic and awful, or goddamned spectacular.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. "Rune, he was bipolar."
"Wait, what? He was? How do you know?"
"Because while you were fucking him, I was fucking his buddy Clint.
And Clint was a post-sex chatty Cathy, lemme tell ya.
That boy loved gossip. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was gay, he loved the tea that much.
And he told me that he knew for a fact that Brutus was diagnosed as bipolar but hated the meds.
He'd go on and off them all the time. Sex drive issues is one of the side effects of the medication. Or some of the meds, at least."
"That would explain it. Why wouldn't he tell me, though? I feel bad, now. I never said anything to him, but I had a lot of unkind thoughts about it. He was a sweetheart…some of the time. Other times, he was either a ball of mayhem and chaos or freaking Eeyore. Bipolar makes so much sense of it all.”
"It can be hard to talk about. My aunt was bipolar, and I overheard her talking to Mom about it a few times, about how much of a struggle it can be. Plus, we studied it for my degree."
"Why didn't you live with your aunt when you ran away?" she asked.
"Well, mostly because she was dead by then. Killed herself in a drunk driving accident the year before I ran away—drove into a tree doing sixty in a snowstorm.”
"Shit, I'm sorry to hear that. I had no idea."
I shrugged. "I wasn't close to her because she wasn't close to anyone except Mom, and she and Mom would fight like cats and dogs, not talk to each other for months at a time, and then Aunt Delulu would show up drunk, and she and Mom would go on a bender for a week."
"Aunt Delulu?"
“Her name was Delilah. Mom called her Auntie Delulu to me, and this was way before ‘delulu’ was a thing.
" I sighed. "The other reason I wouldn't have gone to her was she wouldn't have taken me in.
Or if she had, it probably wouldn't have been any better of a living situation.
Auntie Delulu wasn't exactly responsible, as evidenced by her manner of death. "
"You know,” Rune said, “just when I think I know you, you pop out with something new. You've got more layers than Shrek, girl."
I chuckled. "Right now I'm more like an onion—stinky and no one likes me."
“Okay, well, first of all, that's bullshit on a number of levels, so no. Lots of people like onions, and lots of people like you."
I sighed and tipped sideways on the couch, so my head was on Rune's lap over the blanket. "I know, I know. I'm just wallowing in self-pity."
"I can tell."
I frowned up at her. "What gave it away?"
She stared at me like I'd suggested we shave our heads and become Buddhist monks. "Um, I have eyeballs? You smell like a dead raccoon, also. Furthermore, your apartment resembles an abandoned science lab. Additionally, I talked to Raquel."
"Raquel. Well, Raquel doesn't know everything."
"She, Hamish, and Dane had to have Cousin Jax cyberstalk you because you ghosted everyone and gave them a suicide scare."
"I wasn't—
"I know," she interrupted. "I know. I really do. If only because I hope and pray that if you were having thoughts of self-harm, you'd call me."
"I just needed to be home, alone, and not answer any goddamned questions."
"You could've just told them that," she said.
"Yeah, well, panic isn't rational, and I was having, like, an extended-release panic attack. I wasn't lucid or rational; I was acting like a fucking nutcase. I just wasn't at risk of self-harm."
“You’re still acting like a fucking nutcase, honey, hate to break it to you." She gestured around. "This isn't just wallowing in self-pity; this is a few steps beyond that. And I say that with all the love in my heart for you—which is a fucking lot."
"I know!" I shouted. "I'm still panicking!
" I couldn't stay still anymore; I shot to my feet and paced across the width of the apartment, stabbing my fingers into my knotted, greasy hair; I yanked my hand away and looked at it in disgust, and then pinched a lock of hair and looked at it in horror.
"I should just start calling myself Oscar the Grouch, because I'm living that dumpster life, clearly. "
Rune followed me across the floor, grabbed me, stopped me, and forced me to look at her. "Linz, what the fuck is going on? I know you didn't want to interrupt my honeymoon—"
"Because you'd have dropped your brand-new hubby and come running, and you deserve happiness, and he gives it to you."
"But if you're going through something serious enough that Raquel had my brother-in-law's cousin—my cousin-in-law, I guess?—cyber-stalk you because they were that worried about your state of mind, yeah, I need to be there."
“No, you don't, because I'm not a fragile little dumpling, Rune.
Yeah, I'm going through some shit. It sucks.
I'm in a bad place right now, I'm not gonna lie.
" I leaned in and wrapped my arms around her.
"Yes, I need my bestie, but I love you enough and know my own limits well enough to know that I can deal until you're back.
Also, why are you in LA? Why didn't you fly into Ketchikan? "