AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"The fuck did you do now?" I asked, shaking my head. That woman was a goddamn saint from the sound of things.
"I was trying to help! She's always bitching about the laundry piling up when I'm around the house all day. I threw it all in and now all her whites are blue from my fucking jeans, and she is going to have my balls for it; I know it."
I chuckled at that. "Man, get her some jewelry too. She puts up with a lot of shit from you."
"For real, though," he agreed, standing, and slapping my shoulder. "Well, I gotta get to it. Good luck at the gallery. I'll see you sometime tomorrow."
On that note, I showered, dressed, grabbed my canvases, and called a cab, realizing I needed to get my ass to the DMV and a dealership as soon as possible because not having a vehicle was proving problematic."Yo, Doggy-Daddy!" I heard as I walked out of the gallery an hour later.
And, well, there was only one person on the planet who would call me that.
I turned to find Peyton on the sidewalk in bright ass yellow skinny jeans and a long-sleeved band tee, huge sunglasses hiding most of her pretty face - the sisters looked a lot alike in the features department if you looked past the wild hair dye, the piercings, and the tattoos.
"Peyton," I greeted, giving her a nod. "Nice to see you again."
"Mhmm," she said oddly, bringing up her iced coffee and taking a long sip as she looked me over. "Alright, so. You're going to come over for dinner tonight."
"I... ah, what?"
"Dinner. The meal before the fast. Usually consisting of a meat, a starch, and a vegetable. Traditionally, anyway."
"Yeah, honey, I know what dinner is."
"Then I don't understand your confusion. You come, you eat, you..." she trailed off, shrugging, trying for casual, but I could see the way her lips were twitching.
"This wouldn't, by any chance, be your way of blindsiding your sister, would it?"
"What! Me? How could you think such an evil thing?" she asked, smiling. "Come on. She will want to see you, I promise. Plus, no offense, but you look like you need a meal or two. Where did those hot abs go?"
"Hot abs?" I asked with a smirk, knowing I did used to have them, but hadn't done as much working out in prison as I did on the outside, since on the outside, my brothers and I used to meet for a weekly workout at Shane's gym.
"What? So I stalked your Instagram. I needed to make sure you weren't the kind of guy who might kill my sister and keep her eyelids in a jar next to your bed."
"Why her eyelids?"
"See? That's how I know you're not the type. An eyelid-peeler would have tried to deny it. So, see you at six-thirty? Awesome. Okay. Byeeee!" she said, turning and disappearing before I could get my wits about me to decline the offer.
And damn if I wasn't grinning as she walked away.
Part of it was because she was just such a fucking trip.
The other part, though, there was no denying what it was.
It was excitement. Anticipation.
Because, no matter how hard I had talked to myself about needing to stay away from her, the drive to see her was still there.
And I just couldn't seem to rally the determination I would need to stay away.
So... I went.SEVENAutumn"I'm not being like Mom!" I objected, offended to the core, as she knew I would be when she hurled that little ditty at me. "It's just... it would have been nice to know you were having a friend over a little more than half an hour before they show up. I'm a mess. The house is a wreck. And Coop could use a bath."
Growing up, our mother had always had this weird rule about never allowing us to bring friends over to the house unannounced. It didn't matter that the house was always immaculate - which we knew it was since we were the ones who had to clean it, followed by a white-glove inspection.
It also never mattered that she was always put together because she rose before our father to put a full face of makeup and a dress on, and carefully tame her hair. We were pretty sure that the man had never seen her without makeup on. Because we always saw her sneak out of the bedroom late at night, go into the bathroom, and come out with a fresh face.
And, well, she was a freak about getting our dogs groomed, so they were never in need of a bath.
She just had a rule that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
In this instance, I thought my arguments were fair. I had gotten home around five-thirty after handing off the store to my night girl and guy duo, then promptly ripped off my bra through my sleeve before I was even halfway in the door since the damn thing had been poking at me under my arm since fifteen minutes after I left the apartment that morning. I had gone into the bathroom, throwing on an old Good Vibrations! Tee that I had picked up at the first sex store I had ever gone to, and a pair of flannel PJ pants. I had even swiped off my makeup, sure that no one but Peyton and Coop would be seeing me the rest of the night.
