I cock an accusatory eyebrow at him. “You like it, don’t you?”
“No.” He turns his head. The son of a bitch won’t look at me.
“Absolutely not. Eyes on me, Johnny.”
His head jerks back faster than those little machines that toss clay pigeons into the air. “What?”
“You like when I tell you to die.” Wanting to prove it, I place my hand over his bulge and grin. “It gets you hard, doesn’t it? Are death-threat ejaculations in our future?”
“It ain’t that I like it,” he says, kicking his legs out on the bed and getting comfortable. “It’s just who we are.”
“What do you mean?” I take a seat beside his feet and stare down at his ankle. I think I want to touch it. To curl my fingers around his leg and hold on tight. I don’t, obviously, but the want is there, and it’s stronger than steel.
He nudges his foot a little closer to my hand. “It’s just the way we are together. You’re an asshole, Bubba’s in charge, and I’m the normal one. You get sassy with me, I get pissed off at you, Bubba makes it better.
“An astute analysis of our situationship.” I look up from his ankle to find him smiling at me. I must not have been paying much attention to Johnny this morning, because he looks like a brand new man. Lighter in a way he’s never seemed before. It suits him. So does his bald head. “Can I touch your head?”
He blinks at me. “Huh?”
“Your head. I want to touch it.”
“Thirty seconds ago you were wishing me dead, now you want to rub my head?”
“There’s quite a bit of rhyming going on in here. It’s a shame Bubba isn’t here to hear it.” I rise and stumble closer. He gasps when I straddle his lap, my butt cushioned by his thighs. I cup his cheeks with both my hands, because I fucking want to. His lips pucker like he thinks I’m about to kiss him, and even though I think I kind of want to, I resist, because that’s not what this is about. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Johnny.” Slowly, I use my hands to tilt his face down, and there it is. The source of my wonder. The curious crystal ball atop his head. I kind of want to gaze into it and start chanting weird shit just to freak him out, but I don’t. I just lean in close and give it a big, sloppy kiss.
“To be clear,” Johnny says, sounding more than a little breathless, if you ask me. “You’ve wanted to kiss my head for a long time?”
I shrug. “Nah. I wanted to stare into it and start casting spells to fuck with you.”
He tilts his head ever so slightly until he’s able to peek up at me through his lashes. “Why didn’t you?”
I shrug. “I thought it might scare you.”
“It probably would,” he agrees. “It makes me nervous sometimes. You dabble in forces you ought not dabble in. I’ve seen backwoods witchcraft before, and it ain’t a pretty picture, bro.”
I scrunch my brows. “You’ve seen backwoods witchcraft?”
“Yeah, back in Dunsberry. Miss Earline. She lives about half a mile back in the woods, behind Momma’s house. She used to sacrifice stray mice to some spirit she worships named LaRinna. She does it in exchange for good crops.” His bottom lip quivers, looking genuinely frightened, and it sends this strange, foreign urge to console Johnny, so I do. I reach out and take his hand, and he stares down at it with this look I can’t read. “I could hear them, back home. I think she would sacrifice them outside my bedroom window sometimes because she knew it made me sad.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“She’s a hateful soul, and she’s cruel because she can be. They made the worst sounds, Ez. These high-pitched cries that cut right through me. I started breaking into her house and rescuing them, once I learned her routine. She caught me every time, and she’d stand there casting spells looking like a redneck Rapunzel. Don’t sacrifice any mice, Little Dick. Promise me. It would break my heart."
“Rapunzel wasn’t a witch, and if you ever call me Little Dick again, I’m going to tinkle in your mouthwash.”
“Her hair touched the floor, Little Dick. No one can grow hair as long as hers without involving the occult.” He cocks an eyebrow. “Did you just say tinkle?”
I fling my hands in the air, because I no longer care. “You are completely ridiculous, and you’ve changed the subject at least nine-hundred times. Now, would you please stop making everything about yourself and Lady Earline of Dunsberry long enough to hear why I’m so furious?”
“I figured it was because Bubba’s ex-wife and son are moving in, and you’re probably feeling insecure, because you’re worried she’s going to steal him from you.”
“Steal?Steal? I will go down a mighty blaze of glory, my flame so bright, it scorches the fucking sky!”
He blinks at me. “Well, that was a reaction.”
