I cringed as she waved it at me. “Didn’t you have to pee on that?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m a mom. I touch pee all the fucking time, but I washed it off, you big baby.”
I gripped the back of my neck. “So, wow.” Reeling from the quasi-forgiveness and now this, I didn’t know what the hell to say. “I’m going to be an uncle again?”
“So it seems. I think sometime in January. My damn husband just can’t get it right to knock me up so I can actually have a Halloween baby.”
“You were trying?”
“We’ve been trying. Michael was a hole in one the minute we decided to have kids. Bingo, bango, my face in the toilet and the whole deal.”
I swallowed down a lump in my throat. “God, I don’t need to know these parts of your life.”
She wrapped her arm around my waist and led me toward the side yard. “Oh, now you’re getting all the details, pal.”
“Just like that? We’re okay?” That kernel of hope felt like it was buried under sixteen layers of sheet metal.
“Life is damn short. I’d think that accident would have taught you that. It’s why you went looking for me again, right? Not that I was the one who was missing, you jerk.”
I slung my arm around her shoulders in that way that we used to. When we escaped the dank apartment that smelled of stale smoke and burnt pizza. The long summer days where we’d hop on our secondhand bikes and ride out of the shitty projects and try to pretend we were normal kids.
That our dad wasn’t a junkie and our mother a shell of a woman who took any scrap of affection from our dad in between the rages. Who made excuses and took him back again and again no matter how many times he stole from her.
Hell, stole from me.
When we were outside, we’d forgotten about all of that for hours and hours.
“C’mon back, No.” She slid out from under my arm as we got to my truck. “I know when that brain of yours is running into the past.”
I sighed. “Was a good memory.” At first. As always, I let it drag me into the muck. Even the good ones were linked with the bad.
She stood beside my truck with her hands on her hips. “LITTLE DICK?”
“Your friend’s handiwork.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Dahlia.”
She threw her head back with a laugh. “She’s something. You must have pissed her off good.”
I sighed. “Not that time. Some guy she’d been dating was macking on another girl. I had the misfortune of owning a similar truck.”
“Well, that dude deserved it.”
I shook my head with a laugh. “I could have had her arrested.”
“I side with Dahl. Besides, Gideon knows that I’d burn all his businesses down if he cheated on me.”
“All of them? What, you gonna go Charlie McGee on him?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Stephen King wishes he had my twisted revenge plots. I’d be much more subtle.”
I laughed. Firestarter had never been her favorite horror movie. My sister tended toward the classic stalker horror flicks with a few forays into slasher movies.
“Speaking of Gideon. I’m using Dahlia’s design studio to renovate my house.”
“So, that’s why she’s been trying to get ahold of me. Things have been crazy with the end of the year for the kids and work.” She arched her brow at me. “Let me get this straight, you are hiring her even after she vandalized your truck?”
“You should see the designs she has for the remodel. She might be a little unhinged—”
“Dahlia? Are we speaking about the same woman? Yay high?” She held her hand at her shoulder. “Maybe yay high with those ankle breakers she likes?” She went up to her eye level.
“Yeah. Dahlia McKenna. I can’t imagine there’s two of them in this world. If there are, we’re definitely living in one of those Marvel movies.”
She snorted. “Dahlia is usually levelheaded. She’s got a killer sense of humor, but she’s not over the top about things.”
“Guess I’m just lucky.”
“Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes.
Hopefully, I didn’t have a neon light over my head that said I’d had sex with one of her friends. Not awesome. “If you’re good with it, I’d like to talk to Gideon about doing the work.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Really living in that guilt pit, huh?”
I leaned against the door. “TJ and Dahlia are inclined to work with him. He did the Haunt, didn’t he?”
“He did. I mean, I think he’s the best contractor around, but I might be a bit biased.” She winked at me. “He’s good with his hands.”
