“Well, I got a right hook that’ll knock her ass out.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Reign muttered.
“Okay, you bitches are way too high-strung right now,” Jules muttered. “Have you all seriously forgotten how great tonight was?”
Stormy took a deep breath and sent Lou achill-the-hell-outlook. Lou mumbled something about putting themallout.
“We’re almost to the highway, Reign,” Stormy said. “We’ll stop, and you’ll feel better, I promise.”
As soon as the SUV broke through the coverage of trees and hit asphalt, Lou made a hard right and pulled the vehicle to a stop along the shoulder. Stormy unbuckled her seat belt, hopped out of the car and darted around to open Reign’s door. She practically dragged her cousin around to the dirt- and foliage-covered ground along the passenger side of the car to give Reign a little privacy to empty her stomach, but Reign didn’t throw up. Instead, she stood hunched over gripping one hand over her mouth and the other over her stomach.
“All right, Reign, I’m going to need you to get over your aversion. You’ll feel better, Ladybug, I promise.”
“But it’s so disgusting…” Reign mumbled behind her hand, eyes pleading.
Stormy stepped behind Reign and gathered her thick hair, pressed straight for tonight’s celebration, into her hands. The rear passenger side window rolled down and Stormy turned to see Tavi leaning from behind Jules, armed with water and mints.
Stormy winked at her and turned back to plait Reign’s hair.
“Reign, you remember when we were in sixth grade and Cesar Hernandez came over to our lunch table trying to impress Lou?”
“Oh no, Stormy—” Reign begged, clutching her mouth again.
“You remember him drinking the carton of milk and making it come out of his nose? Too bad he had a cold, right? Remember how the snot and milk splattered all over the table? Remember how you—”
Reign spewed the contents of her stomach in much the same way she had as a kid, this time sobbing as she did so. When she was emptied, and the retching quieted, Tavi handed Stormy the bottle of water. Stormy had Reign rinse and spit, then directed her to swallow a few sips of the water. After giving her two mints, Stormy smoothed her cousin’s damp hair back, kissing her temple. “Did you have a good time tonight, Ladybug?”
“Best time ever,” Reign said, smiling weakly.
Squeezing her cousin’s shoulder, Stormy steered Reign back around to her seat and helped strap her in. Reign belched loudly and began to laugh-cry as they all burst out laughing.
“You’re all certifiable,” Stormy murmured as she smiled, shaking her head as she closed Reign’s door. Moving toward the rear of the vehicle, she stopped beside the taillight, the fine hairs covering her body on alert. Straining to hear over the low music and muted conversation inside the car, Stormy scanned the shadowed trees on the opposite side of the highway. Higher up from the tree line, something pale floated, shifted, then it was gone.
That wasn’t her imagination. Someone—or something—was out there, watching.
“Stormy, stop daydreaming about that big burly-assed mothafucka and get in the car!” Lou yelled out her window.
Laughter erupted inside the car.
Rounding the back of the SUV, Stormy slid into the passenger seat and snapped her seatbelt into place. Eyeing the tree line across the highway, she decided that whatever was out there wasn’t her mystery to solve.
Steering the car back onto the asphalt, Lou headed down the smooth blacktopped road.
Jules leaned into the space between the two front seats. “I gotta say, Stormy, you surprised me. You had men hanging on you like tinsel on a tree. The scent of your cooch had men ready to fight.”
“To the death, if I judged Cowboy Big Dick correctly.” Lou sucked her teeth. “Y’all know I was scoping his shit out, right? Middle of the thigh, bitches, middle of thegoddamnthigh.” She looked over at Stormy. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I say that when the StormyIgrew up with was ready to break free of that bullshit trap Chad constructed for you, life would be worth living again, didn’t I say that?”
She had, and finally, life was.
It was glorious dancing on top of that table, in those men’s arms. She’d felt sexy for the first time in God knew how long, and the southern giant with the moss-green eyes which turned emerald in anger, his soft hair as unruly as his attitude, had made her feel the sexiest.
A good night could have been spectacular if he hadn’t exposed the underbelly of contempt he seemed to have for women. And the man’s willingness to commit violence with almost no provocation meant anyone in a relationship with him was at high risk for getting her ass beat on a daily basis.
“And just so you know, Stormy, I’m going to need a sample of your vaginal fluids so I can patent that shit and sell it in Red’s for, like, a gazillion dollars an ounce,” Jules announced.
“Uhahh!” Tavi yelled from the very back of the SUV.
“That’s so disgusting,” Reign muttered.
