Scissorsaurus
Yeah… I really do.
Grace closed her eyes and let a new sensation join the sadness and dread and nausea she’d been drowning in for months. Surprise. At nearly forty, she was sure all the romantics were married or broken. When her phone dinged again, she snatched it off the bed.
Scissorsaurus
What about you, Gator? Has one stupid Julie really ruined your belief in love?
The question was too intense. It was a hand closing too tightly around her throat. A knife point pressed to her kidney. It was the worst kind of question. One Grace didn’t know how to answer.
GoGatorsESQ
Right now? I believe in it about as much as I believe that a quarter will keep me from spending eternity as an aimless ghost.
Sitting up again because she couldn’t remember how to be still, Grace waited for Alix’s response. She didn’t have to wait long.
Chapter Two
ALIX
Alix Wolf believedtwo things to be constant: bad tattoos aged better than bad relationships, and beer always tasted colder and better in a dive bar.
The jukebox at The Hollow was broken again, stuck cycling between Blondie and Black Flag. Nobody seemed to notice or mind. The place smelled like stale beer and lemon cleaner, and the booths wobbled like they’d been rescued from a dumpster… which, knowing this bar, they probably had.
Alix leaned back against the cracked black vinyl booth seat, one boot hooked over the other, the toe of her Doc tapping against the sticky floor. Her pint glass left a ring of condensation on the table beside a sticky menu featuring vegan pizza and fried foods. She’d had worse Mondays.
“Tell me again why I let you drag me here?” Oscar asked, voice pitched just loud enough to compete with the punk song rasping through the blown speakers. He was all sharp cheekbones, with a sparse beard he was quite proud of growing in his few years on T.
“Because you love me,” Alix said, flashing him a grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And because Tuesday clients are the worst. We’re doing early damage control.”
Across from them, Lola shoved her ridiculously hip and impractical bangs out of her face and snorted into her whiskey soda. “Says the Tuesday client whisperer? Half your tips come from those lonely rich moms who think you’re their therapist.”
Alix gave a lazy shrug, sleeve of tattoos catching the dim light. A flaming skull winked beside a bouquet of roses, a scissor blade inked across her finger. She loved the way strangers’ eyes got stuck on the contradictions — brutal and delicate, beautiful and dumb. “I just like hearing about other people’s drama that has nothing to do with me.”
Oscar groaned. “You mean exploiting sad ladies for rent money.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
Her phone buzzed on the table. One glance at the screen, and her stomach did that stupid tilt thing she hated.
Kirstin
You up?
Of course. She tried to tamp down the simultaneous thrill and dread that accompanied seeing Kirstin’s name on her phone. Her former situationship that she just couldn’t seem to let slip into the past yet.
Lola leaned over before Alix could flip the phone face down. “Oh my God,” she said, eyes going wide. “Tell me that isnotwho I think it is.”
Alix tried her best deadpan. “Spam text. Probably about my car’s extended warranty.”
Oscar snorted, stealing the phone before she could snatch it back. He read the screen, slow and dramatic, then looked ather over the rim of his glasses. “You. Up. Alix, that’s not even original. I thought we staged an intervention. I thought we killed Kirstin off in season one.”
“She’s like a reboot.” Lola groaned. “Nobody asked for it, but there she is, back again, slightly worse than before.”
“First of all, ‘intervention’ is a strong word,” Alix muttered, reaching for her beer instead of the phone. “Second of all, it’s none of your business.”
“Oh, it’sourbusiness,” Lola said, slamming her whiskey down hard enough to splash. “I’ve had to listen to you complain about Kirstin for six months. Six! You said it was over.”
