“You got twenty minutes, Laurent,” he whispered from the other side while Rudy crossed his arms and glared at me.
“What’s going on?”
I shrugged a shoulder before disappearing into the walk-in fridge. Reappearing with a few Twinkies pushed together to look like a cake, a shit-ton of Cool Whip globbed on top, and two little figures made from toothpicks sticking out.
“And what is that supposed to be?” he asked. Mostly because he was looking for something to say. We both knew what today was. What it was supposed to be. We both also didn’t talk about it, even though I thought we should.
“It’s no designer wedding cake, but it was the best I could do considering the circumstances.” I kept my eyes focused on his, even as he was shooting daggers into my forehead.
“Don’t…”
“Why not?” I turned my back on him and used some dental floss I’d pinched to cut the cake into slices. The knives were all behind locked doors, and it would take more than a quick blowie for O’Reilly to agree to that one. He’d already given me two visits to Rudy’s cell this month alone—codefendants weren’t supposed toCO-mingle.
I slopped a piece of Twinkie cake onto a plate and passed it to Rudy while he continued to stare at it like it might eat him instead. “I’m not doing this, Que.”
“Yes, you are,” I replied simply. “I think instead of moping around all day, we should celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” I could see the way his jaw was ticking. Most people would assume he was angry. He wasn’t. He was hurting. Worse than I’d ever seen him hurt before. “The fact she cheated on me? The fact I lost my mind? The fact I killed her?”
“The fact you dodged a bullet… and she didn’t.” I shook my head, plucking a piece of cake off the counter and smashing it into his face.
Rudy just continued to stare at me for a moment, Cool Whip dripping off his chin and little bits of Twinkie clinging to the inside of his nose. Beneath it, his skin was turning red while the vein on the side of his neck was pulsing. “I can’t believe you just did that…”
“Whelp, believe it.” I swiped up a dollop of cream from the tip of his nose with my index finger and sucked it clean. Nearly biting it off when Rudy smashed his own piece of cake into the side of my head when I wasn’t looking. I turned back and grinned at him. “If you wanted to give me a facial, Rue-Rue, all ya had to do was ask.”
He shook his head disapprovingly, but he was grinning. Or almost grinning. His lip was a little higher on one side at the very least. Higher than that when I took another piece of cake and chucked it at his chest. And then we were laid out, flat on our backs on the kitchen floor, covered in Cool Whip and Twinkie icing while staring up at the drop ceiling.
After a few minutes of silence, Rudy sighed, his voice barely a whisper when he said, “Thanks.”
I rolled onto an elbow to look at him while he continued to avoid looking at me. “Close your eyes,” I told him.
“What?”
“You heard me, asshole. Close your eyes,” I repeated.
“Why? What are you gonna do?” he side-eyed me.
“If I wanted to ravage your ass, it wouldn’t be all that hard to do when you’re sleeping. Now be a good boy and close your eyes, Weber.”
He huffed and puffed, but after a few more seconds, he closed his eyes and I lowered my mouth to his, brushing lightly at first. Then deepening it when he didn’t instantly curse me out or pull away. It didn’t take long after that for him to let me shove my tongue down his throat. I climbed on top of him, straddling his torso as he gripped me around the waist.
He wouldn’t open his eyes, though. Just like I knew he wouldn’t, not until he accepted it was finally okay for him to move on. Even if that moving on was with another dude.
“I could toss your ass across the room if I wanted to, ya know,” Rudy grumbled from beneath me.
“You don’t want to.”
“Yeah, and how do you know?”
“'Cause right now your dick is poking me in the dick.” I grinned. “Besides, every groom deserves to get kissed on his wedding day,” I whispered at the same time O’Reilly started pounding on the kitchen door, signaling that our time was up.
Another few more loud, quick taps broke me out of that memory and had me staring at the cabin door. Blitz tugged it open with a joint pressed between his lips and a cookie he must have saved in a hand.
Rudy stalked past him and dropped Nickie onto the couch a little rougher than necessary. “I don’t care what you do with her, but don’t you dare let her out of your sight—and I mean it…”
He gave Dane and Dash a pointed look. The fear of the unknown was much worse than anything he could have said as he stomped to the back of the cabin. I followedhim, stopping short when he started dragging a little sled back up the hill towards our drop site.
“Pick up the pace, Thumper! Or do I have to carry your ass too?” he yelled out, and I grinned.
