When Tabitha was high. Meggie turned those words over in her head. “You know Diesel’s wife?”
“We’re friends. She still wants us to fuck.”
Meggie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“She said as long as Diesel’s with us, her and me, and not me alone, she’ll lick coke off my pussy.” Jana hung her head. “We’re still friends.”
“Do you like coke?” Meggie asked carefully.
Jana lifted her head long enough to flinch.
Suddenly, Meggie knew exactly what she’d been missing. She was an addict, currently coming down from a high. “I see.”
“I haven’t seen Diesel since yesterday morning,” she muttered and began to cry. “He loves Rebel.”
Meggie didn’t mean to growl. She’d probably spent too many years around Christopher. But she wanted to know what Diesel had done for Jana to feel as if he loved Rebel. Not as a brother either. “You miss Diesel?”
Wiping her cheeks, Jana nodded. “I’m lonesome,” she said around sniffles.
“So, you called Tabitha and invited her over for coke and sex?”
“I didn’t snort any.”
“She, er, licked it off you?” Meggie asked, waving her hand in Jana’s general direction.
“Yes.”
“Then you still absorbed it into your body.”
“Diesel hasn’t called me.” She cried a little harder. “And he’s going to be angry with me. I haven’t used coke in a very long time. He wouldn’t have brought me here if he thought I was a drug addict.”
“Points for him,” Meggie chirped, annoyed that flaming frigging idiots abounded in her life. Diesel was the biggest. “What did he do to make you think he loves Rebel?”
“The way he looks at her,” Jana admitted in a raw voice. “The way he complimented her. The way they interact.”
“Rebel is fourteen!”
“Almost fifteen,” Jana replied.
“And Diesel is almost dead,” Meggie snarled.
“Age doesn’t matter when true love’s involved,” Jana sobbed. “I knew he didn’t love me, but Rebel’s so gorgeous and fiery and…and…everything I’m not. He even told her about k-killing his father—”
“What?” Meggie yelled, not caring that Jana jumped. “He killed his father? Hisbiologicalfather?”
“While you were still away. I didn’t know why he was acting so weird. I just fucked him. He told me later that he was missing you and knew where his father was and…and…his mother didn’t desert him. His father left her brain damaged and…he’s so hurt. He said Rebel told him to talk to you because he has been so upset.”
Shocked was too mild a word to describe Meggie’s feelings. She staggered back, stared at Jana, and blinked, unable to imagine Diesel’s devastation. His fragile frame of mind. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a jackass. Nor did it mean that Tabitha wasn’t turning into the problem Meggie foresaw when Diesel announced his intentions to separate from her. Instead of coming after their money, she was targeting Jana, playing on her past—and previously unknown to Meggie—drug use.
“Don’t beat yourself up over one lapse, Jana,” Meggie said briskly. “It happens. Perhaps, you can get in to see your drug counsellor?”
“I don’t have one. I quit cold turkey. Like Diesel.”
If Meggie said Diesel’s name or anything else, she might very well sound like Satan and scare Jana. Yes, she was concerned about whatever went on with Diesel and his father and everything he’d been told, but he justwouldn’tbehave with Rebel. And Rebel wanted what she wanted. She couldn’t see that moron was a grown man who was grooming her tohisneeds.
“Are y-you o-okay?” Jana squeaked. “You’re turning so red.”
Because she wanted to kill Diesel. Maybe she’d play eenie-meenie-minie-mo. If it landed on minie, she’d order his head on a pike. If it landed on mo, he’d survive.
