She cleared her throat. “That’s cool that you’re into scars.”
“I don’t like it.” Nev’s accent was always so sexy.
It took Ronnie a moment to decipher what her friend had said.Liar,she thought.You wouldn’t look like that unless you did.Ronnie’s tongue separated from the roof of her mouth with a click and she exhaled through her nose. It was too dark to see Nev’s eyes.
Relaxing her arms, she let her weight hang from the ropes. She would have bruises on her wrists tomorrow.
Nev licked a line down the scar, tracing one end to the other. It tickled, followed by a cold line spreading horizontally.
Nev was not indifferent. She was doing the telltale hand thing, when someone’s hands got big and grippy and squeezed her like a meal.
Ronnie closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Hanging in a community theater passion play position, it was hard not to feel like she was being worshipped.
Something gave inside her.
Surprising herself, she stepped back up onto the broom and wriggled her wrists out of the rope, then threw herself on the leaves with Nev beneath her. The ground was pliant, springy with deep layers of leaf detritus and moss. Nev’s breath rushed out with an, “Oof!”
Ronnie groaned, straddling her friend and sinking her knees into the loam. “God, yes… I want leeches…” On impulse, she tossed fistfuls of dead leaves in the air, provoking a startled giggle.
High on freedom, she pressed her forehead to the ground and her arms around her tiny, androgynous, ageless, mercurial sprite who still suffered the misconception common among farmers that she could own something warm-blooded without it owning her back.
Nev chuckled. “Crushed by an angel…”
Ronnie let Nev hold her and touch her, and everything was soft and nothing hurt.
After, but not long after, lying pressed together in the circle of leaves inside the strangler fig, lights dancing inside Ronnie’s eyelids, Nev played “Because You Loved Me” by Celine Dion on her phone.
Ronnie winced in a good way, furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Yes! Slow it down, Celine! Preach!” She knew all the words and sang along, pretending Nev’s hand was a microphone.
Reunited with her shirt and phone after thorough inspection found zero leeches, singing under her breath and doing a little shimmy with her shoulders, Ronnie checked her messages. Thirty missed calls from Maude.
She swore and called her back.
Car crash. Had to be a car crash.
When Maude answered the phone, she sounded frantic. “She’s missing! She won’t answer me. She’ll answer you.”
“Right. Bye.”
Holding her breath, Ronnie dialed her daughter’s number. It rang.
The line picked up. “Hi.” It was Rainbow.
Ronnie sucked air into her lungs, then sank onto a nearby log. “Where are you, babe? At a mate’s?”
“I’m at Charlotte’s house.”
“You can’t go off grid like that. Your mama’s been worried sick about you.”
“Sorry.”
“She needs to know you’re okay. Call her.”
Ronnie called Maude to let her know Rainbow was at her friend’s house, then hugged Nev with a shaky laugh. “I’m buzzing. That was terrifying. Everything’s fine. Feel my heart racing. I’m shaking. I almost had to go looking for her. Can you imagine?” Nev would have gone with her. Total nightmare.
“Shh, it’s all right. Karma owes you a few good ones. Now you say it.”
“Karma owes you a few good ones.”
