I looked behind me to find Apollo standing there looking curious.
“Audrey Stanley,” I answered. “She’s the daughter of a deacon at my dad’s church.”
He frowned. “Was she your friend?”
I scoffed. “If anyone, she was friends with my parents.”
A gleam entered Apollo’s eyes. “Interesting.”
He sat down again, effectively putting himself out of my line of sight seeing as I couldn’t turn to keep him there.
Denver, Black, and Nettie kept talking.
Bossy and I sat silent as we listened to them speak.
“Yahtzee!”
Twenty
I’m not sure how many Reese’s peanut butter cups it takes to be happy, but it’s not twelve.
—Weaver to Eddy
Weaver
My stomach was in knots by the time I arrived at Hopps.
The bar was in full drinking mode as I walked by the patrons to get to the back corner where I knew my girls to be.
“You have a baby,” Boston said as she caught sight of me. “In a bar!”
I rolled my eyes and tugged lightly on one of her braids before saying, “Where’s Eddy?”
“She’s in the bathroom.” She leaned into me. “Went straight in there when we made the move to the bar. Your friend Apollo yelled really loud and scared the shit out of her. We think she’s drugging herself in the bathroom.”
I squeezed my daughter’s shoulder and left her sitting there with Nettie.
I wasn’t concerned that she was alone, though, because I could see the bathroom from the booth that they were all occupying, and the bathroom back where we were was Dixie Wardens use only.
Everyone had a direct line on the bathroom, but that didn’t stop me from heading toward it anyway.
I hesitated when I saw Apollo leaning back in a chair to talk to Denver and Black about Audrey Stanley, but chose to get caught up later in order to check on Eddy.
When I got back to the bathrooms, it was to hear Eddy loudly cursing.
“Eddy?”
There was a pause in the cursing and then, “Hey, can you somehow break into this bathroom?”
There was a moment of silence and then, “Yeah. Give me a second.”
I used a credit card from my wallet to jimmy the bathroom door lock.
When I pushed it open, I used my body to block the view from the rest of the bar and looked toward the side to see Eddy on the toilet fully dressed.
“What is going on?”
“I took a seat,” she admitted. “I needed a break. But this toilet is lower than Nettie’s standards. I can’t get up.”
