He raised his chin. “Twenty-five. It’s a family business.”
“It’d be so fun to grow up in a toy store,” Kat said.
A lot more fun than a psychologist’s office, anyway.
Gray walls hummed in the back of my brain. Ink blot tests. Medication. Headaches.
I lost track of the conversation. By the time I rebooted, Kat was gushing about her cat. “I swear, Jinx has psychic powers or something. I trust his intuition. He, like me, loved Victor right away.”
Ash toasted with her beer bottle. “Cheers to pussy powers.”
I rolled my eyes. Sexual innuendos weren’t slotted for this early in my mental dialogue tree. I started at the beginning. “Has anyone played good games lately?”
Ash shrugged. “I’m waiting on Fallen Angels Six. It’s gonna be like forty hours of grinding just to rip my heart out, but I’ll still love it.”
I pushed my glasses up. “The fifth one was really fun. What’s the big draw for six?”
“Um, the demons have southern accents and cutoff shorts?” She snickered.
Kat knocked Victor’s hip. “Demon diversity. I love that for us.”
I filtered through what I remembered of the latest trailer for the boisterous first-person horror adventure game. “Is it supposed to be making fun of the bible belt or rodeos or something?”
Sal burst out laughing. “Can you imagine hog-tying a demon in cutoffs? Yeehaw, Satan.” He galloped in place and mimed spinning a lasso.
“Are you going to ride him?” I snorted.
Sal chuckled, flushing. “If I could, that’d earn it game-of-the-year in a heartbeat.”
“He might prefer to ride you, instead,” I said.
It might’ve been the bar lights changing, but he turned even redder. Ash cackled and the others followed suit.
I grinned at my brother.See? I’m funny.Although I’d accidentally used an innuendo of my own. He smiled back, but there was a subtle tick of his jaw every time I laughed at one of Sal’s jokes. It wasn’t jealousy, obviously. He wanted me out of the house. But what was it?
Our group chatted without incident for a few minutes. Then, Victor gently touched my back and whispered, “We’re going to grab some food. Do you want anything?”
I shook my head. I was good. I had my new friends.
He slipped into the bar stool right behind me and chatted in low tones with Kat beside him. As the night wore on, our group drifted through the area for various bar games and beverages.
The only problem was we were an uneven number for pool, so Kat and Victor swapped off, eyeing each other with flirty possessiveness every time the other bent over the table or handed off the stick.
“It’s like they’re magnetized,” I muttered.
Sal chuckled. “Yep.”
My brother took a shot, the balls clacking in sharp succession. He stiffened, then stretched until his shoulder cracked.
Kat rubbed a circle on his back. “Is your rib bothering you again? Maybe we should see a physical therapist.”
“I’ll manage.” He flexed his neck.
“What happened?” Sal asked.
They hesitated and glanced at me. I bristled, my insides knotted. Was this about the spider incident?
“Work injury,” Victor clipped, flexing his shoulders.
