Brittany #2
Mason squeals in the playpen, slamming his toy truck against the bars, happy as can be. The sound makes my eyes sting because it’s normal and I’m not sure I remember what normal feels like.
Lottie’s face softens, just a little. “You didn’t do wrong, Brit. You hear me?”
I nod. My throat’s too tight for words.
“But,” she continues, and the softness vanishes because Lottie is a realist, “you got close to a married man with a patch. People notice. Especially when he don’t act like he usually does.”
My heart stutters. “What does that mean?”
Becki pushes off the doorframe. “It means Vice Presidents don’t hover unless they’re invested.”
Becki would know. She’s a club bunny, used to be anyway, used to be on the President’s arm a lot too before he tired of her.
My mouth opens, then closes. Because I don’t know what to do with that. Because I don’t want to be invested in. Because part of me does.
“Listen,” Becki says, and her voice drops, serious enough to make my stomach sink. “If anybody from Pearly Gates starts sniffing around you, you don’t talk. You don’t answer questions. You don’t let them walk you home. You come here, or you call me.”
I stare at her. “Why would…”
“Because I grew up there,” Becki says simple. No drama. No pity. Just truth like a blunt object. “And they don’t like loose ends.”
My head shakes. “How did dancing with a biker make me a target of a church?”
“Ignore my warning if you want, but I’ve seen it before. Innocent girls like you are supposed to belong to them. Not to Hell. Not to the Kings.”
“But I go to the Baptist church in Official, when I go.”
“Same difference. Reverend Crowley don’t care if someone outside of Paradise spends a night at the Lockup. But a member of his flock does, and they suddenly leave town to go live with an aunt no ones ever heard about.”
Lottie’s gaze flicks to Becki, like she’s talking crazy. Becki usually is. Then her eyes are on me. “She’s right,” she says shocking me.
“About what?”
“Pearly Gates’ folks. They’re polite until they ain’t.”
I swallow hard. “Am I a loose end now?”
Becki holds my eyes. “You got seen. That makes you a story in this town. A story Beth ain’t letting die. Stories turn into targets.”
The bell at the front jingles and it sounds more like a warning.
All three of us freeze like somebody fired a gun.
It’s just a customer, an old man with a busted watch and shaky hands. Lottie lets out a breath and mutters a curse that makes Mason giggle like he knows she said a bad word.
But my nerves don’t unclench.
Not really.
After work I stop at Slice of Paradise because routine feels safer than going straight home.
It ain’t.
Slice is loud with forks and the clatter of plates, but it feels like the whole place goes quiet the second I walk in.
The hostess smiles like it hurts. Debra knows me.
I work weekends here. But she says as little as possible and seats me in a booth near the window.
She keeps her eyes down like she’s afraid to catch something.
I order my usual, sweet tea with extra lemon, and chicken fried steak if I’m feeling like I deserve comfort.
I do.
My tea arrives and I’m stirring it when someone slides into the booth behind me like they own the space.
“Cute dress,” a woman says.
Her voice is sweet. Her tone ain’t.
I turn and see her grin, glossy and sharp.
She’s pretty in that mean way that makes men stupid and women cautious.
Eyeliner perfect. Nails long and white and clean.
Her cut hangs open over the back of the booth like she wants me to notice, like she wants everyone to notice. I can’t read it from here.
She leans closer, close enough that I smell perfume and cigarette smoke.
“Brave too,” she adds.
“What do you want?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
She laughs soft. “Nothing. Just looking out.”
“Sure,” I say.
Her smile widens, blade-bright. “Careful, honey. Men like that don’t keep souvenirs.”
My skin goes cold. “What men?”
She tilts her head like she’s amused by my innocence. “The kind that wear rings and still touch what ain’t theirs.”
My hands shake around my tea glass. The ice clinks loud. I guess she’s Bethany’s friend.
She stands up slow grabs her cut and shrugs it on like she’s got all the time in the world. I still can’t read what it says on the back but it ain’t a property of, not one man in particular. It’s a cut that means she belongs to all of them. She’s one of their bunnies.
I stand up too. It just feels better than sitting in the booth, being lower than her. If she’s going to punch me, might as well get it over with.
Haddie, the shift leader, appears out of nowhere with my order and sits it down so carefully it doesn’t even clink. But she stays put, crosses her arms and glares at the woman. It’s enough to stop whatever was about to happen.
The woman looks me up and down, her face bunching like I stink. “You keep playing dress-up in our world and you’re gonna learn the rules the hard way.”
Then she brushes past my shoulder on purpose, a soft bump that somehow feels like a threat.
As she walks away, someone at the counter mutters, “Home wrecker,” under their breath.
It’s meant for me.
It’s meant for the whole room.
I don’t look back.
I put cash on the table and leave my food untouched. I walk out like my legs ain’t trembling.
In the parking lot the air is thick and damp. My Kia looks like an island I’m not sure I can reach. I hit the unlock button anyway, and climb in before I know it, and lock the doors so fast the sound echoes inside the cabin.
That’s when I see it.
A folded napkin tucked under my windshield wiper. Not sloppy like trash, not half-flying. Set. Deliberate.
My breath catches. I stare for three full seconds before my hand moves. Then I move to roll the window down and snatch it off the glass like it might bite me.
The napkin is white.
The writing ain’t.
Dark red. Not marker. Not lipstick. Too thin for paint. Too wet at the edges.
Two words, scrawled in angry block letters.
WATCH OUT
The metallic smell hits me after, faint but real.
My stomach drops so hard I taste bile.
I fling the napkin into the passenger seat like it’s contaminated.
It fucking is. It’s blood. For a second I look for a napkin, but the only napkin is the one with someone’s blood.
I wipe my fingers on my dress, knowing I can launder it right away when I’m home, and start the car with hands that can barely push the ignition.
By the time I get home, my head is pounding and my chest feels too tight for breathing.
Daddy’s rig ain’t in the driveway. Of course it ain’t.
I unlock the door, step inside, lock it, then check it again because one lock feels like a joke now.
The quiet presses in.
I shower and scrub my skin too hard like cleanliness can erase reputation. Afterward I sit on the edge of my bed wrapped in a towel staring at nothing, trying to make my thoughts line up into something logical.
This is stupid, I tell myself.
You danced. You drank. You laughed.
You didn’t fall in love.
Except my phone buzzes.
No Caller ID
I stare at it until the buzzing stops.
A second later a text pops up.
answer your phone, bitch
My blood turns to ice. No capital letters. No punctuation. Like whoever sent it doesn’t care about manners.
Another buzz.
watch out
I don’t answer. I just sit there with my towel clenched in my fists, the napkin in my car like a ticking thing, my heartbeat loud enough to drown out reason.
I lie down anyway because exhaustion is heavier than fear, and sleep drags me under like deep water.
And somewhere between sleep and panic, I know one thing for sure.
Hell, Kentucky noticed me.
And it ain’t decided yet what it’s gonna do about it.