Nodding like I make perfect sense, Dolly’s sharp green eyes watch me. “What about you? Did you put antiseptic on your face after the bear attack? You’re so handsome, I’d hate for it to get infected and rot off.”
Jess’ stomach bounces, not with laughter, but with something that looks like pain.
“Yes, ma’am. My girlfriend patched me up last night. We’re here for breakfast, then we’ll head home and work on our battle wounds some more. It’s been a rough week, but things are already looking up for me.”
She looks to Jess. Then back to me. Then to Jess.“She’syour girlfriend, right? You don’t have another packed away somewhere?”
Jesus, as if I’d want two of them. It’s already proving hard enough keeping one of them alive.
“No others, Miss Dolly. This is my girl. She’s the love of my life. Ain’t she pretty?”
Eyes sparkling, Dolly watches Jess seize against my side. “Yeah, handsome. She’s a beauty. Pancakes, bacon, milkshake, and pie. And for you?”
“I’ll have everything she ordered. But double. I’m a growing boy.”
Laughing until her breasts bounce, she stands tall and slaps the counter with her hand towel. “You got it. I’ll bring ‘em back as fast as I can.”
“No rush. We’re young and in love. We have all the time in the world.”
Snickering at Jess’ red face, the woman wanders off to put our order in with the cook.
“Can you stop?” Whipping around fast as a snake, Jess digs her elbow into my ribs and almost buckles me where I sit.
I cover up when she cocks her arm back for a second strike. “Canyoustop hurting me? Seriously. I know I act kinda tough, but that son of a bitch actually hurt me last night.”
Face draining from red to white, her pale hands come to my stomach before she can stop herself. “Shit, Kane, I’m sorry. I know you’re hurt, I saw what he did. I didn’t mean to hit you; it’s a reflex. We hit a lot in our family – my brother almost died because his best friend beat him to shit. My sort-of brother pulled a gun on his best friend a billion times, and he even pulled a gun on my real brother once. My best friend’s husband got in a fight with his sister’s husband; like, a real fight. It’s violent as hell at our place on Christmas morning.”
Twining my fingers with hers for half a beat, I picture this girl in her pyjamas on Christmas morning in a standoff with her brothers. I imagine them standing in a circle, arms outstretched, guns pointing, fingers sliding along the barrel ready for the trigger. I imagine someone claiming the last of the eggnog, and one of the gun-toters deciding that he was thirsty and more in need.
Jesus.
“How many guns has your family got?”
Shrugging, she accepts an icy cold milkshake that Dolly slides along the counter. A second tall cup slides along right behind it, and catching it like they’ve been practicing this their whole lives, Jess passes it to me with a flirty grin. “Just the cops, I think. Alex has some. I don’t know how many, though. Oz has some, since he’s the deputy. His wife Lindsi shot her last husband, so she definitely has at least one.” She nods. “And lethal aim. There was that time Meg went Babe Ruth on her husband and his car. But that was a baseball bat, not a gun. And I don’t know for a fact, but Jules seems thetypewho’d carry. But I don’t ask; I just tell her she’s pretty a lot.”
This other chick shot her last husband. And her boss seems like thetype… “Your family is weird as fuck, Jess. Seriously. To think I was worried for you, but you have breakfast with psychopaths every single day… maybe you should never go home.”
“I have to go home.”
“I’ll buy you new panties. And a shower cap, too, if you insist. But I draw the line with those stupid-expensive shoes. You can go to Payless like the rest of us.”
“I mean, I definitely want my shoes and panties, but I have to go home because I love those psychopaths. They’re weird. They’re trigger happy. But I haven’t been shot yet. They’re quick to hit each other, but they don’t hit us girls.”
“Do the girls hit each other?”
“Yeah. My best friend, Britt, popped me in the face last week.”
“She… what?” I grab her jaw and search for the bruising. “Why would she do that?”
“Her husband, the fighter, insists we learn how to defend ourselves. Fat load of good that’s done me so far,” she grumbles, “but we try. I go to these women’s self-defense classes that Oz’s murderous wife runs.” Her lips quirk up. “I think Britt’s cheating or something. Maybe she’s getting home lessons with Jack, because she beat me up last week. Then when I was on my back and crying, she kicked me in the leg and laughed.”
“She what?” I spin her stool so her legs sit between mine, and uncaring that we’re in public, I lift her skirt and check her legs. “Why would she kick you when you were already down? Is there no code between fighters? Even criminals abide bysomecodes!”
She scoffs and pushes my hand away. “I wasn’t actually crying. We were practicing flips. Like,jab, jab, hook, flip.Her first jab went wide like it was kinda supposed to. Her second jab got me. Then laughing like a fool, she grabbed my arm, spun, and tossed me over her shoulder.”
“She tossed you?”
“She did. I nearly sharted.”