She’d made me take Andrew’s Liver Salts. Gag. Now, had I truly come down with a stomach bug, I’d have been grateful. The Liver Salts were a powder from the UK that settled your stomach and had always worked in my favor. Only, not when my stomach wasn’t unsettled to begin with. So that had gone downgreat.
If she tried to force-feed me anymore tonight, I’d barf on her to get her to leave me alone.
Somehow, Ma had fallen for our lies, and Cade, who’d popped around to eat, had sent me a sympathetic glance as he’d watched meturn green while Sgt. Ma Frasier had forced the concoction down my throat.
Nearly gagging at the memory, I got up and tiptoed around my apartment. But, being a mom of many children, that meant she possessed a radar for us sneaking around. Knowing her, she’d call it ‘the Sight.’
“Kitty? Is that you, darlin’?” she yelled up the stairs.
“Only using the bathroom, Ma,” I called back.
“Margie asked me to go for a drink with her at the Legion. Are you okay for me to pop out for a couple hours?”
Gleefully, I pumped my fist. “Sure thing, Ma. Enjoy yourself.”
“You mean it? You’ll be okay without me?”
“Positive. I’m feeling better after the Liver Salts,” I lied.
“Never fails, my little love. Never fails. Why they’re discontinuing them, I don’t know.”
This was a commonly heard complaint in our house.
As was…
“Da swore by them,” I muttered.
“Your father swore by them! Okay, I’ll see you later, then. Get some rest. Love you!”
“Love you too!” I hovered in place until I heard the front door slam.
Sagging in relief at the reprieve, I jumped into the shower, washed before shaving every inch of my body, then leaped out with a spring in my step.
Because I’d been planning my outfit in my head since Ma had frogmarched me to bed, I pulled on some thigh-highs, retrieved a flirty dress, my fave espadrilles, and a vintage cashmere coat. The dress, like the coat, was from the fifties—a floral fabric cut into a tight-fitting bodice with boning that flared into a full skirt. The emerald-green espadrilles had a small heel and matched the amber/spring green flower pattern perfectly.
‘Sexy’ wasn’t my end goal here. As much as I wanted sex tonight, I wanted to trigger a different reaction in himmore.
He’d seen me in scrubs, while high, annoyed, banging, scared, and first thing in the morning—now I just wanted to look low-key pretty. That effortless kind so he’d know that gorgeous = my natural state when we weren’t fleeing underworld war zones.
After drawing my hair into a braid that curled over my shoulder, I rubbed some tinted moisturizer into my face, dabbed bronzer onto the arcs of my cheekbones and smudged it over my eyelids before patting on some highlighter, then adding a nude lipgloss.
As I smacked my lips together, my cell buzzed.
Stan: Duci?
Me: Two minutes!
Because my dress rocked and had pockets, I shoved my cell, my lipgloss, and some breath mints into them, then hesitated over tucking the credit card into the wallet on the back of my phone.
It wasn’t like I’d need it tonight…
Still unsure about the whole thing, you know, what with it beingunlimitedand him clearly a millionaire, I tucked it into my jewelry box for safekeeping.
Things were moving fast between Stan and me. Raisin and Neev hadn’t let me forget it either—them abandoning me to perish via the St. Andrews Liver Salts constituted punishment, IMO—but the credit card rammed the realization home.
There were so many red flags waving in front of me, yet for once in my life, I didn’t hate being willfully ignorant.
Shaking my head at my self-confessed idiocy, wanting to ride this wave of oxytocin even to my heart’s doom, I took off down the stairs with a happy bounce, thankful that my sisters were also out.
