Chapter 15 #3
We broke eye contact for the first time since Loche entered the elevator with me. When the car reached its destination and the door slid open, I stepped off into the building’s lobby with him on my heels. “I thought you were going to the pub?”
“The pub isn’t going anywhere. I can go another time.”
A blast of cold air sucked the air from my lungs as we walked outside to the parking ramp. I would never begin to get over how brutal the air here could be.
“You need a heavier coat, Nevermore,” Loche observed when I visibly shivered.
“How do people live here?” I asked, rhetorically. “It’s colder than Jack Frost’s asshole.”
“No, it’s more witch’s tit cold. Jack Frost’s asshole doesn’t visit us until January. You should know this. It’s your second winter here.”
“Yes, but I thought I was hallucinating it all last year, like it was some kind of fever dream.”
“Brace yourself for being cold until May. The North isn’t for the faint of heart.”
After our encounter in the elevator, were we really talking about the weather?
“I’m sorry if I was too forward in the elevator,” Loche said, probably sensing a need to circle back to the elephant in the Main Street Parking Ramp.
“And I’m sorry if I didn’t entirely hate the fact that you were too forward.”
He paused his walk for the briefest of seconds before catching back up to me with a couple, quick strides. “Beginning not to think I’m such an insufferable fuckwit, or whatever it is you used to call me?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said all that.”
“But you’re thinking it, right?”
I glanced back, rolling my eyes at him in response.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Whatever makes you feel better, Greene.” I clicked my fob, unlocking the 4Runner as we approached our vehicles.
There had to have been some sort of cosmic shift because not absolutely despising Loche felt like I’d been kidnapped and transported to an alternate reality.
But here I was, not hating Loche Greene, and even, what was this?
Was I—smiling? Not only that, was I smiling a full-on, teeth-bearing, happy smile around Loche? That’s it, the apocalypse was imminent.
“Hey,” Loche called out to me before I could climb into my vehicle and ride off into the sunset. “Do you have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Thanksgiving. You’re going to be alone, right?”
“Wrong. I’m going to be eating an oven-baked pizza, sitting on my couch with Vinny.”
“Okay, so yes, then.”
“My turtle is far better company than most humans I’ve come across.”
“I don’t deny that.” He paused as though contemplating what he wanted to ask me next.
“Just spit it out,” I called out to him.
“Why don’t you come to my place for Thanksgiving? You can meet my roommate and my mom and not be alone over the holiday. I mean, unless you have plans with your boyfriend or family.”
“I have zero family, and I don’t think I’m at the take-her-home-to-mama stage of my relationship yet.”
“Great. Then you’ll come?”
What in the peanut butter fuck was going on here? I stared at him, blinking a couple of times before my brain began refiring enough to compose an answer. “Will Conrad be there?”
“God, no.” Loche snorted as though I’d just said the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “I don’t try to be in the same room as my uncle unless absolutely necessary. My mom shares my sentiment.”
“He gave you a job, right? Why do you hate him so much?”
“Why do you hate him so much?”
“Because he’s a self-absorbed, self-serving, arrogant prick who cheats on his wife, has no respect for women, and is probably overcompensating for the shortcomings in his tailored trousers.”
“Yes. Nailed it. All of it. The latter part of it is an unfortunate bit of knowledge I’ve had the misfortune of overhearing via a hushed conversation between Kim and Shelby in the break room one day. Oh, and he’s also embezzling from the firm.”
“Wait, he’s what!” I stopped dead in my tracks right as we reached our vehicles. “Do you have proof of this? Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“Yes, of course I do. And I will. It’s just—complicated.”
“Because he’s your uncle?”
“That’s part of it. But there are other reasons.”
“Like?”
He let out a breath. “Conrad has some dirt on me that if he wanted to, he could report me to the police, and I would be locked up right along with him.”
My stomach sank, and I took a step back from him. “Are you working with him?”
“No. No, absolutely not. He doesn’t even know that I know. I’m biding my time, trying to put together a plan to survive the fallout after I come forward.”
“Why are you telling me this? You know I could come forward tomorrow if I wanted to. Ruin your entire plan.”
“I don’t think you would, though. You may hate Conrad, but I don’t think you hate me that much.”
“Don’t underestimate the amount of disdain I may or may not have for you.
” I chuckled. Loche stared at me, unamused.
“Fine. I won’t spill your secret. For now.
I’m sure if I did, the partners would ask me for proof I obviously don’t have, but that isn’t to say I won’t ever say anything.
I think the others deserve to know what that fuckhead is doing behind their backs.
His wife also deserves to know about his extracurricular activities with Kim. ”
“She does. She just looks the other way because she’s used to it.
Kim isn’t the first woman he’s had on the side, and she won’t be the last. As long as the money keeps rolling in, furnishing the lifestyle she’s grown accustomed to, she’ll stay with him.
Bonus points for her is that she doesn’t have to sleep with Conrad as much or at all. ”
“That sounds like a terrible life.”
Loche shrugged. “She traded love for comfort. It’s her choice. Not one I would choose myself.”
“Oh, really. You’d choose love over money?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
“Money doesn’t keep you warm at night.”
“I mean, it can.”
“You know what I mean, Nevermore. Let me know about Thanksgiving. My roommate would love to meet you, and I’m sure my mom would just as equally love to know that I actually do talk to people other than my roommate.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He nodded. “Good night, Ever.”
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into my driveway, half expecting to see an annoyed, masked, hulking brute of a man waiting on my porch steps, tapping his watch and pointing at me in castigation for being so late coming home.
Disappointment consumed me when I saw that the steps were empty aside from the package that had been delivered to me earlier.
So, I guess, in a way, he was sitting there.
I scooped up the package, making sure to look into the camera. “This is going in the trash, Sir.”
If I’d questioned whether he was watching me right now, I received my answer when, as soon as I entered the house, my cellphone pinged with an incoming text message.
Why are you so late tonight?
Work. Is there a problem?
No problem at all. Open the box.
No.
Ever…be a good girl and open the damn box.
That doesn’t work on me. Tell me one fact about yourself, and I may think about opening the box.
Anything?
Anything.
I think Pop-Tarts are the raviolis of the breakfast world.
What the hell are you talking about?
Pop-Tarts. If you think about it, they’re like pastry’s answer to ravioli.
Jesus Christ. That doesn’t count.
You said ANYTHING.
Christ on a bike, he was right. I should have known he was going to turn this around, that he wouldn’t give me anything tangible.
I tossed the box down on my dining room table and grabbed the scissors from the kitchen.
V had better thank his lucky stars he wasn’t here right now because I was feeling a tad murdery.
Fine. You win. This time.
I win all the time.
I stabbed the box, pretending it was him, gliding the blade down the taped seam.
In my mind, I pictured him waiting with bated breath, even though he and his equally as massive friends were probably somewhere taking turns bench-pressing each other or whatever bullshit single men built like brick shit houses did to kill the time.
The blade cut through the last bit of adhesive and, now free from its confines, I pulled the flap open, revealing…
Underwear.
He’d bought me a pair of underwear, similar in style to the ones he’d quite literally ripped from my body. Except this pair was in a shade of green.
Panties in your favorite color. Like you’re ever going to see me wearing them again. Laughable.
You want to know why it’s my favorite color?
You already told me.
I lied. The story I told you was true, but that’s not why it’s my favorite color. When you’re fired up about something, the green flecks in your eyes become illuminated like emeralds in the sun.
I thought I was the only one who noticed the green in my eyes when I was excited or angry.
I’d almost begun to think it was my eyes playing tricks on me.
But here V was, noticing my eyes. How long had he been watching me to notice something like that?
Had I seen him before? Had a conversation with him?
For all I knew, he could be the barista who made my coffee or stealing glances at me at the Speedy Lube I used when I needed my oil changed.
The thought both unnerved and excited me in ways it shouldn’t.
A smaller box was inside the same box as the underwear. It had been opened, and I hoped it had been done so by V because inside was another pair of panties.
What is this second pair for, and why was it in its own separate box?
They’re for me. It’s a special pair, which is why they’re separated.
Special? How so?
Feel the crotch area.
I did as I was told and felt a smooth, yet thicker, area of the material with a pocket containing a small vinyl pad of sorts. Wait. Were these?
Why did you send me vibrating panties?
The better question is, why wouldn’t I send them to you?
Don’t get cute. I have nowhere to wear these to.