“A strap-on.”
Her jaw slackens again. “You are kidding me.”
“Nope. That’s my word.” I slide her a grin. “That’s how we play this on the road. We’re dirty-minded guys. Strap-on is tame, actually.”
The game stretches out over an hour as we drive past snow-covered fields of vines. Happily, the roads are all clear and Nikki isn’t freaking out. Then she changes course with our game. “Tell me something about you I don’t already know.” She pauses. “There’s probably a lot.”
I think about that. I told her about getting my throat cut, which is probably the biggest thing most people don’t know about me. What else? “I can make my pecs dance.”
She chokes on a laugh. “Um, wow. I need to see that.” I move to take off my jacket, and she smacks my shoulder. “Not when you’re driving! What else?”
“I’m really good at making my armpit fart.”
She sighs theatrically. “I know you like to keep things light, but tell me something deeper.”
Ugh. Finally, I say, “I feel guilty about my sister. About what happened with her ex.”
“Ohhh. She told me about that.”
“She did?” I glance sideways at her.
“Yeah. We’re best friends now.”
My head jerks back.
“Kidding! But seriously, we had a good time watching the last couple of games.”
“Huh.”
“So why do you feel guilty?”
“Because her ex was an asshole and I didn’t know it. He was fucking abusing her and I was clueless. So were my parents. And even when I found out, it didn’t sink in right away how fucking disgusting it was, how Julian treated her. Maybe it was because he hadn’t physically hurt her. But emotional abuse is still abuse. Even when she came to stay with me and she was so… different, so subdued compared to her usual self, I didn’t realize what was going on. I still feel like a complete tool for being so dense. I fuckinghatethat she went through that and I didn’t do anything to protect her.”
Nikki’s silent and I glance at her. Her face is solemn.
“I’m an idiot,” I add.
“Have you talked to Mabel about that?”
“Oh, yeah. She knows I’m an idiot.” I feel her chiding look. “Okay, yeah, we talked and I apologized. A lot.”
She nods. “That’s good.”
“One thing she doesn’t know…” I make a face. “Is that I went to see Julian.”
“You did?” Her eyes shoot open wide.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I told him that if he ever so much as talks to her again, I will rip out his intestines and use them as a jumping rope.”
Nikki snorts and covers her mouth.
“And called him a disgusting monkey-licking maggot.”
“Aaaah!”
“Okay, now you go. Tell me something about you I don’t know.”
“Hmmm.” She taps her bottom lip. “Do you remember I told you how I was kind of scatter-brained as a kid?”
