He wrinkled his nose and released the brake, allowing the car to roll back.
“Ok, ok, ok, bigger than that… ummmmm. I’ll give you one of my cars? The Aston Martin. I see you checking that one out all the time.”
An Aston Martin felt a little steep for spending a few hours with my insanely charming younger sister, but I didn’t say that out loud. I was pretty desperate for him to check on her. I hadn’t been home in over 24 hours, and I had no idea how long I wouldbe dealing with this body. Outside of Cass, Vox was the only other person I would trust with Naomi’s safety. I needed this favor.
He rocked his head back and forth as if he wasn’t sure.
I sighed. “Fine. The Aston Martinandone no-strings-attached I.O.U.”
That won him over. He shot me a devilish smirk and ran a hand through his bleached hair before nodding.
“You’re a bastard, you know that? You couldn’t just help me out of the goodness of your heart?”
He rolled his eyes again and gestured to his general surroundings, clearly pointing out that he had already derailed his entire day to help clean up my mess. Without waiting for me to respond, he hit the button to roll up the window, forcing me away from the car.
“You win this round, Voxy!” I called after him as he reversed expertly down the long, winding driveway.
I turned around to eye up my plastic-wrapped corpse with a sigh.
“Alright, Kyle. Let’s go,” I said to the corpse, popping open the trunk of the all-black G-Wagon. “Killing you was fun and all, but honestly, I’m more looking forward to getting rid of you.” I grinned to myself as I hauled him into the trunk.
I couldn’t wait to see the look on Ryan’s face when I showed back up at his house with his first delivery.
I could see him now, with his sexy scowl and his hot red cheeks. My dick twitched in my pants as I jumped up into the driver’s seat of the G-Wagon. He was going to be just as annoyed with me as Vox was… The only difference was that I would be more than happy to trade favors with Ryan Fairview.
Alexa, Play: Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked - Original Version - Cage The Elephant
My mother took Caleb out with her shortly after Cal left. Iris spent a great deal of her time with a local group of women who were into all the same witchy things she was. They met weekly and often had what they called‘circle’on significant nights during the lunar cycle.
I had resented this as a child. The bullying I had endured from children who were convinced my mother was part of some sort of satanic church was pretty ruthless. However, now, as an adult, I was really just happy she had such a strong support system, especially after the death of my father.
Theo left the house as well. She was still clearly furious with me for dragging our family into whatever mess this was. I knew she was going to sign up for a fight, but as much as I hated it, there was no point trying to convince her to stay. Despite the fact that I could have used the help preparing for Ms. Thompson’s funeral the following day. Especially not when I was the reason she needed to blow off some steam.
Running an entire funeral home solo was not an easy task. Iris often helped with the paperwork (and there isa lotof paperwork), but as my sister tells me, I’m a bit of a control freak, so I tend to review everything she does anyway.
It was so much easier with my dad here. He would usually prepare the bodies and coordinate with the cemetery staff. He also acted as our unofficial grief counselor, something that I just was not nearly as good at.
Like I said, I’m an introvert, and it’s not that I don’t sympathize or feel for the family members of the deceased while they’re grieving. I just always feel like my platitudes come off as insincere and flat. This, coupled with the fact that their dead loved ones are usually sitting next to me, begging me to share their last words with grieving family members, makes the entire process unbearable for me.
My favorite part of the job is arranging the florals. Ilove itwhen families have the budget to send massive orders of bouquets to the house, and when they don’t, I quietly offer it as a complimentary service.
Iris has quite the green thumb, and she has an impressive garden out back filled with herbs and flowers that she allows me to take from in these instances.
Ms. Thompson’s family had a moderate budget for flowers, but after the insane chain of events I had just lived through, I found myself in my mother’s garden snipping up some lilies to make a bouquet. Floral arrangements just… soothed me.
The hot mid-afternoon sun was scorching the back of my neck as I bent over Iris’s plot, and I lost myself to the methodicalsnip, snip, snipof my sheers. Doing my best not to let my anxiety get the best of me, I avoided falling down the rabbit hole of overthinking what Cal had said earlier about meworkingfor him.
I had already over-thought this too much as it was. Every time I spiraled, I ended up nearly calling the police. However, I had yet to follow through. I told myself it was because I was worried about what would happen to Caleb if I got the police involved, but for some reason, that felt like a lie.
Instead of focusing on the fact that I had been held at fuckinggunpointin my own home, I kept thinking about how that dangerous, smiling, black-haired man had been so kind to my mother.
What was with that?
I had grown up constantly needing to defend my mother and then consequently getting my ass beat for standing up for her. It got a little better after Theo made me take up boxing, but the lessons in self-defense didn’t do anything to protect me from the harsh sting of cruel words.
She had passed Cal a homemade talisman that I knew she had crafted to keep his harem of ghouls away from me, and he hadn’t ridiculed her or rolled his eyes. He had just agreed to keep it on his person and tucked it into his pocket.
Then, the next second, he had me slammed against the wall and was threatening my life…
