“Just fuck me up,” Spike said, making Gracie let out a twinkling laugh.
My hand threatened to crush my mug.
Because everything in me was screaming that that wasmysmile andmylaugh.
“You good?” Rune asked, making me look away from Spike and Gracie.
“Yeah. Just waiting for the sugar,” I said, shrugging it off.
Again, though, I felt like Rune was seeing shit he had no business seeing.
Luckily, though, he said nothing, just grabbed the hot sauce out of the cabinet and moved back out to the living room.
Spike finally stopped chatting up Gracie, took his coffee, and disappeared as well.
“Hey, Goose,” Lazarus said, making Gracie’s eyes squint with how big her smile was. “Still no bacon, right?” he asked as he started to make a plate for her.
“No bacon,” she confirmed.
“Why no bacon?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Pigs are my favorite animal.”
“One of her asshole cousins told her when she was little that the little piggy that ‘went to the market’ was actually getting butchered. She cried for a week straight.”
“I did. I did that,” she agreed, taking her plate. “Though, to be fair, I cry over everything.”
Laz gave her a soft look. “It’s good to be soft in a hard world. Don’t ever lose that.” He turned back to pile up a much heavier plate for me. “You two might want to grab this table. It’s getting full out there,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen table.
We both shuffled our feet awkwardly but moved to sit down.
“So, uh, why pigs?” I asked.
“Have you everseena pig?” she asked. “Their noses and little oinks.”
“They’re kinda filthy.”
“They have no sweat glands! If they don’t stay wet, they can’t cool off. Birds are the same way. But they have access to enough water to bathe. Most pigs don’t.”
“You visit the pigs over at Kit and Ariah’s place?”
“Every chance I get.”
“You gonna get one?”
“A pig?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would I get a pig?”
“For a pet.”
“Oh, no, no. The whole ‘mini pig’ thing is mostly a myth. They’re more like a really dense medium-sized dog.”
“Don’t like dogs?”
“I love dogs. But I think I’d get a smaller dog if or when I get one.”
