He doesn’t want to help me. He wants to save me.
And I can’t be second guessing myself.
They wronged me.
If I don’t make it right, then it’ll be my body in a dumpster by week’s end. These are the facts.
I can be the cat or the mouse.
And I’m a fucking cat.
I tell Whiskey so and I swear the little fucker rolls his eyes.
“Three days, Whiskey,” I say. “Don’t underestimate me. A lot can happen in three days.”
He walks to the door and even he doesn’t want to be in my army.
So I call the one person that will.
If I was capable of trusting anyone, Mack would be at the top of the list.
She was only a kid when I saved her ass on the streets. It was a once off I told her. She didn’t listen. Her and her friend Talia followed me around like strays and asked to join my pack. There was no pack, I said, because I was a lone wolf. Mack said that we should be lone wolves together then, and I told her that’s just another way of forming a pack. She insisted it really wasn’t and eventually I got tired and Mack formed the fucking pack and that’s what happens when you help people.
Mack is headstrong. She does whatever she wants to do. And I guess she thinks she owes me.
She says that we’refriends, whatever that means.
So I know I can count on myfriendto help me now.
When she answers, I lay it out for her loud and clear.
“I need a PI.”
“Okay,” she says.
“It needs to stay between us,” I add.
“Alright.”
And that’s that.
I guess maybe friends aren’t so bad. Mack respects my level of impatience. She doesn’t bother with unnecessary questions because she knows I’m testy and unsociable. She doesn’t ask me to change or talk about my feelings or sing Kumbaya. And that’s the kind of person I need in my corner.
But it also makes for awkward conversation because I don’t think she ever really knows what to say to me.
And since I communicate with people only out of sheer necessity, I don’t know what to say to her either.
“Everything alright?” she asks.
“Hunky dory.”
“Cool,” she replies.
The line is quiet for a minute, and then she says, “so Rory, huh?”
“Can’t anyone keep their mouths shut anymore?”
“Crow’s been going on and on about it,” Mack laughs. “Thinks you’ve cooked up some evil plan to fuck with Rory just for fun.”
