Page 221 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

Teddy. Vale.

Sexy

Beautiful

But yeah stay home

My heart leaps

and faceplants into my breastbone,

my pulse rising embarrassingly fast.

Teddy Vale? Teddy Vale! Teddy Vale⁠—

I reach for my phone.

Okay fine he's not gonna be there

But you almost reconsidered huh?

I growl, snatching up my phone.

That was mean.

Like actually mean.

I toss my cell back onto the counter.

I don’t tell her Hunter’s out walking around free. Not that I’m scared.

(I am.)

And I don’t tell her about Andrew’s personal contract. The last thing I want is to be attacked by her opinions, or buried in an avalanche of questions.

No. Tonight, I’m staying in.

The slasher marathon’s on.

Blood on my screen.

Blood in my panties.

It’s perfect symmetry, really.

I’m standing in the kitchen, barefoot in Mom’s vintage Cuba crewneck, her YSL Opium ghosting the collar, spicy, dark, red, like the drawer I keep the perfume trapped in, splashing it across the front stitching every now and then.

The kitchen’s a disaster.

Dried milk’s crusted skin on the burner.

There’s a graveyard of six burnt pots piled in the sink.

Six times, I tried to make Cream of Wheat like her. I even named the bowls, my fairy tale failures: Crusty. Creamy. Burny. Soupy. Thickie. Sticky.

But no Lumpy.

Not one fucking Lumpy.