Page 20 of Trick Knot Treat

Holly is silent for a long moment, then she starts laughing again. “Jealous?”

“No!” I grumble.

“You totally are. You big sook.”

I huff and start walking again, this time faster. “I’m not jealous, I’m just confused. She’s been creeping around in town for months, and I’ve never laid eyes on her. How is that possible? But now that I’ve seen her, I can’t unsee her, and I can’t stop thinking about her.”

She snickers.

“You are supposed to be my friend.”

“Oh, I am. I am devastated I’m not going to be sitting on the sidelines snacking and laughing in person.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Guilty, but it will be good for you. You can get them out of your system and then come join me, and we can conquer the world.”

I grin. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Good. I gotta go, I’ve got a little snack I need to get seconds of before I go to work.”

“Holly,” I whine. “TMI!”

She cackles. “Don’t turn into a pussy while I’m gone, McGowen. I’d hate to have to train you up again.”

“Yeah, yeah. You say that now, but who was the one who was too busy punching guys in the balls to notice her crush-”

“Nope! We are not trotting that story out.”

“She climbed into your bedroom, and you socked her in the mouth.”

“I was eleven, and she snuck into my damn bedroom, what was I supposed to do? I had older brothers. They might have been trying to kidnap me or tie me up to the light pole again.”

I chortle until I have to stop and wipe tears away. “She was so offended that she didn’t talk to you for five years.”

“Shut up. We don’t need to do this.”

“I think we do. You and I, Holls, are unlucky in love. So, get your fun in, the fact is, in a few weeks, we’ll be licking our wounds and crying into our pints.”

She goes quiet. “Yeah, all right, you have me there. But let’s shelve those thoughts until it happens. I want to go drown in this girl’s thighs. You can go choke on your brother’s dick.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Is that a metaphor?” Another voice I don’t recognise asks.

Laughter that I really need explodes out of me. I laugh until I’m crying.

Holly stutters and stumbles. “Stepbrother, they have a thing, well, it’s not a thing, but they want it to be a thing. Ugh, never mind.”

“Stepbrothers, huh? Hot.”

Holly squeaks in pure protest.

I snicker. “On that note, I need to go hunt down my matches and see if anyone will let me choke on their dicks. Tata!”

I hang up and put my phone back in my jeans pocket, feeling suddenly alone. The issue is that when I was a kid, I had dad. We were always together. On my first day of school, Holly came up to me and told me we were friends. We’ve been inseparable ever since, but not romantically, though a lot of people assume we are. Then Jace came along.

Now, she’s gone. Jace is mad at me, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I head up to my house, which is on the outer limits of town, in the hills. I have a great view, but it’s a bit of a walk, which I normally enjoy. Right now, I have too much time on my hands.