“Who the fuck put that gnome there?” I shriek.
“Don’t shout, Winnie,” Mom says mildly from the kitchen.
“Yeah, I will, especially once I get a shotgun and blast all those fucking gnomes to hell!”
“Yikes.” Carolina pokes her head out.
I curse.
“I came over to drop off the rest of the food. Figured we’re not serving mac ’n’ cheese and barbecue meatballs at the café—not that we want to sell that bad-juju food anyway. Is Kathy still in the car? I wants to know if she wants this beet salad. I know you’re not eating it, Winnie. Yes, Fidget,” she tells the drooling border collie at her feet, “I know you don’t like beet salad either.”
“Wait.” I frown. “Kathy’s not here? I thought she was with you.”
“Where’s Kathy?” Mom cries. “I thought she was with you, Winnie?”
My friend looks worried. “Let me try Olive.”
“Honestly, Winnie, you need to take care of your little sister,” my mom frets. “Mark!” she calls for my dad. “Mark, do you know where Kathy is?”
I call Kathy. It rings and rings.
“Olive says she didn’t come with her to the café. Said she thought Kathy was with you.” Carolina sounds worried.
“You need to go back to the hotel and look for her,” Mom insists. “What if she got kidnapped?”
“Maybe she’s just having drinks with Loony Laura.”
Mom swats me. “That’s not a nice thing to say about someone. Laura’s very nice.”
Carolina makes a face.
I grab my keys. “We’re going to go back to the hotel,” I tell my mom.
“Oh, poor Kathy.”
Ugh, my mother.
“So are we officially not doing Laura’s wedding anymore? Because that shit was wack,” Carolina says as I drive through the pouring rain back downtown.
“I mean, Kathy looked pretty shaken, but she wasn’t, like, crying or anything. She just looked like she was in shock. I mean, she can’t think that you’re angry at her, right? I mean, it was in high school. You said you were over it. I mean, you are over it, right?”
I make a noncommittal noise.
“Winnie.”
“Sorry. My life is currently imploding.”
“Probably a good thing all the party activities got canceled. I mean, who blows up their own party like that, and for high school drama from a school you didn’t even go to? It’s unhinged.”
My phone dings.
“Is it Kathy?” Carolina picks it up then screams and drops the phone.
“What?” I jerk the steering wheel then straighten the car.
“Um. Is someone making AI porn of you? What the hell?” She sticks the phone out.
I glance at it as I come to a stoplight. Fitz sent me a video clip of me, spread-legged over him. Of course, his face is cut off. All you can see is me, messy and cum-dirty, a cock pulsing in my pussy as I moan and groan while the disembodied hands work my pussy, cup my breast.
