I don’t have long to contemplate my recent nuptials asMichelle’s next words come shrieking through the apartment. “I should have dumped your ass years ago, Tony!” she shouts, and even though I can’t yet see her, I can hear the throaty anger and hurt in her voice. “I gave you my fucking virginity, you dick!”
“Puh-lease, Chelle,” I hear Tony say in response. “You were twenty-one. No one is a virgin at twenty-one. You’re not fooling anyone.”
Oh no, he fucking didn’t.Not caring that I’m only dressed in a thin shift, I bound toward the hallway, grabbing the baseball bat I bought at a secondhand store the night we moved in from where it usually sits behind my bedroom door.
Go for the kneecaps first, Mean Daisy orders, and this time, I think she’s got some damn good instincts.
I slam into the living room before I can stop to think, lifting the baseball bat over my head menacingly as Tony’s and Michelle’s forms come into view. Oh, how I want to take a swing at his head and brain him before he can say another word, but first I need to make sure that my roomie is okay.
Standing in an oversize, faded band T-shirt and a pair of boxers, Michelle gapes at Tony where he’s standing in a pair of boxers of his own and nothing else. Unlike Michelle’s boxers, though, which are an old plaid pair stolen from one of her brothers, Tony’s have little dog faces all over the dark red background.
What a fucking dweeb.
I nod in agreement.I concur, psycho Daisy. I fucking concur.She eyes his completely vulnerable and bare knees, and so do I.
How much you want to bet he’ll scream like a little bitch on the first swing?she asks, cracking her knuckles.
Michelle’s voice disrupts any mental response I might have. “What did you just say?” Her demand is so quiet, I almost don’t hear it, but Tony does.
“You heard me,” he shoots back, hands on his hips as if he’s got every right in the world to be here and say that shit. “Your virginity bullshit was cute in the beginning—I mean, what guy doesn’t want to punch a girl’s v-card—but it’s old, babe.”
Michelle’s face is red, her full cheeks practically the color of a tomato as she glares at her now ex-boyfriend.
Huzzah!I mentally cheer. But now’s not the time to celebrate. I’ll do that later, after I’ve whupped his skinny ass.
“Tony, I think it’s time for you to leave,” I say finally, announcing my presence.
The man whips around, the surprise on his face telling me he definitely did not hear me come up behind him.I could’ve taken advantage of that and already had him cut off at the knees, I think with disappointment. The complete waste of space freezes when he sees the bat in my hand. “What the hell are you going to do with that?” he scoffs.
I swing, throwing weight into the move and causing him to jump back when I nearly hit him in the head. Too quick. I’ll have to be faster next time. “Oh, just gonna practice my skills,” I say lightly. “I’m a bit rusty, but I think I’ve still got it.”
Dull eyes with big pupils narrow on me.Is he high? Oh, motherfucker; I bet he is.I lift my nose and delicately sniff the air. The acrid scent of skunk weed is ripe around him. I told him not to fucking smoke here—especially if he can’t afford the stuff that doesn’t smell like the inside of a raccoon’s asshole.
The smell only serves to piss me off even more. Using my bat, I point toward the hall. “Get out,” I say, “and don’t come back.”
Tony snarls at me but ignores my words and flips back to Michelle. “Chelle, baby, you know it meant nothing to me,” he wheedles. “You can’t kick me out. I—I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“You have your own apartment, dill weed,” I snap.
“My roommates kicked me out,” he says. “I couldn’t pay the rent.”
“Too bad,” I say around an exaggerated fake yawn. “Cry me a river—oh wait, I wouldn’t care even if you did. Out!”
Tony keeps his gaze locked on Michelle.For fuck’s sake—I circle him and stand between him and my friend. “That’s not our problem,” I politely inform him. “You can either leave on your own, or I’ve got two friends downstairs that owe me a favor and I can ask them to make you.”
I don’t know how well Giulio’s guys would take to me ordering them around, but if I’m now his wife, that should afford me some leeway, right?
Or you can just kill him and call them to take care of the body, Mean Daisy suggests. Pointedly ignoring her words and the reminder of my current no-longer-single status, I refocus on Tony the Tool, who is scowling down at me.
“I never fucking liked you,” he snaps. “And don’t pretend like you have any other friends.”
“You don’t like me?” I give an exaggerated sniffle. “That hurts—truly. I don’t know how I’ll ever get over the tragedy. Now…” I nod to the hallway and gesture with the bat. “Your exit?”
Tony snorts and crosses his arms over his scrawny chest. “I’m not leaving.”
Well, then, it’s time for plan B. I swing my bat and relish in the sound it makes as it thwacks against flesh. Tony howls in pain as he falls against the doorframe and practically stumbles into the hallway. I lift the bat again but miss as he scrambles toward the door, eyes wild. “You crazy bitch!” he screams.
I smile, and it’s all teeth. “I’m a pleasure to be around,” I inform him right before I take my third swing. He dodges but trips over a pair of shoes in the hall and slaps his face into the wall. Blood gushes from his nose as he cups his hand over his face.
