“Your friend is a tiger in the sheets.” Peter slides his finger along the shell of my ear. “Are you wild as her?”
I elbow him in the stomach. “Get your stuff and go.”
“Your loss.” He shrugs, squeezing by me.
I whistle. “Rise and shine!”
Mia pops up and leans over the side of the bed, puking on the poor guy lying there. It’s the chunky kind. Good grief, here we go again.
This morning was a circus. After disbanding the guys, I helped Mia shower, then cleaned up the stinky vomit as best I could. We’ll need to buy a carpet shampooer to get rid of the stain. In the chaos, I forgot about cooking breakfast and the fire alarm went off, but by then it was too late; the bacon was burned to a crisp. I gave Mia a slice of wheat toast, orange juice, and a couple of ibuprofens before putting her back to bed.
As I’m gathering discarded Solo cups and other miscellaneous trash around the apartment, a loud bang sounds at the door.
“Pepper, it’s me!” Patrick shouts. “Let me in!”
I swing the door open. “Where’s the fire?”
“At the church.” He pushes by me.
“What?” I ask, alarmed.
“I called you back-to-back.” He paces the floor.
“I didn’t hear my phone ringing.” I walk over to him and take ahold of his arm. “Patrick, what’s going on?”
“Earl knows everything.”
“How did he find out?”
“No clue. He confronted Dad at church, in front of everyone.”
“We knew this day was coming.”
“But not this soon. It’s surreal,” he says, distressed.
“Calm down.” I pull him to the sofa. “Sit.”
I tuck my legs beneath me and face him.
“People were yelling and fighting. I’ve never seen Christians behave so unchristian.”
“What did Dad do?”
“He played the victim and preached the merits of forgiveness. Oh, then he gave a half-assed apology. Most of the members didn’t buy his bullshit and left.”
“Did you see Lisa?”
“Yeah.”
“How is she?”
“So much was happening, I didn’t get a chance to speak to her.”
“What a nightmare.” I sigh. “I’ll check on her later.” I’m sure she’s too busy dealing with family drama right now to talk.
“I hate him.”
“Patrick—”
