And suddenly, anything else I was thinking vanishes, and I can’t wait to drop off the old man and get back to my place with my girl.
14
IRIS
“You’ve gotto be kidding me.” Mikayla rubs her temples like I’m giving her a headache. “At what point can we be the ones to stop Lucas from breathing?”
I wave my paintbrush at her and shake my head. “He’s in the past. I’m not giving him another thought, and neither should you.”
Sandy strolls in, typing away on her phone screen. “Sorry I’m late,” she says before looking up at us. “What’d I miss?”
“So much,” Mikayla mutters. “Be prepared to feel stabby.”
Sandy’s eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline. “Shit. That bad?”
“Worse than you can imagine,” Mikayla answers.
I keep working on my newest project, ignoringthem and their dramatics. I’ve had enough in the last few days to last me a lifetime.
Sandy hefts her oversized purse onto the tabletop, throwing her phone inside before she pulls out a bottle of wine. “I brought refreshments,” she announces with her lips turned up.
“We’re going to need them,” Mikayla says, leaning over, propping her elbow on top of the table, and placing her face in the palm of her hand.
“Drama queen,” I whisper into the canvas I’ve been working on for the last hour.
“Almost dying isn’t drama,” Mikayla shoots back.
Sandy stops mid-twist of the cap to her fancy bottle of wine she loves. “What?” Her voice comes out as a high-pitched screech. “How? Who?”
“You forgot where, why, and when,” I say, trying to be funny, but when I slide my gaze to them, I see the joke didn’t hit the way I thought it would.
“I can’t believe you’re joking about this.” Mikayla shakes her head and growls. “This isn’t a time for funnies.”
“It’s always a time for funnies,” I argue.
“I think we’re going to need this too,” Sandy says as she pulls out a flask from what seems like a bottomless pit of a purse.
“What the hell else do you have in there?” I ask her, hoping we’ll talk about something else besides the last two days of my life.
“Oh no, you’re not,” Sandy says, wagging a finger at me as she slides onto the stool next to Mikayla. “We’re not going to let you derail this conversation.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I mumble and then sigh.
“We tell one another everything,” Sandy says as she pulls out three glasses from the same purse.
“Is there anything else in there besides a traveling bar?” I say, staring at the bag like it’s magical because there’s no other way all that stuff would fit in there.
Sandy shrugs and lifts her hands. “Not really. This is my party purse. It only has one purpose, and it’s booze.”
“Don’t answer her questions until she answers ours,” Mikayla tells her.
“Brutal,” I whisper, dipping my paintbrush into the black paint to get the tiniest amount.
Sandy pours three glasses of wine, one of them smaller than the others, which is for me. “Now, talk,” she says as she pushes the wine across the table to Mikayla and me.
“I don’t think you’re prepared,” Mikayla tells her.
“I will be after this,” Sandy says before she lifts the glass to her lips and downs the wine like it’s a shot.
