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“Another one?” Vi asked, sighing. “Have you been wearing that damn pheromone perfume again or something?” she continued, shaking her head.
“This one has been dropping off boxes full of x-rated ‘artwork’ of Billie as well as rambling stories about the less than consensual shit he wants to do to her.”
“Did you say dropping off?” Violet asked, tensing.
“I did.”
“You have no idea who it is?” Vi asked, looking at me.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. And I’d racked my brain while waiting for my dad to show up, and then process all the stuff in the boxes. “I cross paths with so many people every single day, though.”
“That’s true,” Vi agreed. “This is where being an anti-social bitch like me comes in handy. Not many people want to stalk someone who looks like they’d enjoy stabbing you in the eye with a teaspoon. So, you have a guard now?” Violet asked, looking at Rowe.
“So it seems. My dad is at the club with everyone trying to work out some sort of babysitting schedule. And then they are setting up a security camera here. Like I want my parents and uncles to know all my personal business.”
“I mean, the way I hear it, you’re getting worse than Hope with the lack of, ah, male visitors around here. So it should be fine.”
Ugh.
I didn’t exactly want everyone—and by ‘everyone’ I meant Rowe—to know about my dry spell. Especially because I’d traced said dry spell back to him. Not that he would know that, of course. But still. Just in case.
“It’s just the point,” I insisted. “What if I was having a party and they got all upset that they weren’t invited?”
“Honey,” Vi said, smirking, “none of these adults want to come to one of your parties. I mean last time, Antonio whipped out his dick to show everyone his brand new double Prince Albert piercing. They are all in their at-home-critiquing-HGTV phase of life. Not their seeing-random-stranger’s-cock-piercing stage. She has interesting friends,” Violet added, looking at Rowe.
“Naked potlucks,” Rowe agreed, nodding.
“You know, if you can get over all the dangling bits, the food is always fucking stellar,” Vi told him.
Violet and Hope were similar in a lot of ways. They were both badasses working in male-dominated fields. They were a little cooler and more detached. They definitely never needed a man a day in their lives. But where Hope had a strong, visceral dislike of random and unexpected nudity, Vi approached it all with a sort of resigned bemusement. I always got the ‘old soul’ vibe from Violet. She sort of had this ‘seen it all’ attitude toward all aspects of life. And maybe since she worked chasing skips all over the country, she had seen just about everything there was to see and long-since developed a sense of humor about it.
“Speaking of food…” Violet said, smiling because when it came to Vi, she was always thinking about food. I was pretty sure it came from working long hours where she was often on stakeouts and only had snacks to eat. When she was off work, she had this ravenous appetite all the time.
“We hadn’t discussed that yet,” I admitted. “I just got finished with an order,” I added.
“More melting come cock candles?” Violet asked, making me look over at Rowe to find his brows raised.
“Do I want to know?” he asked.
“Well, I got an order for—“
“No, you don’t,” Vi interrupted me. “Well, I am feeling pizza. What about you, Rowe? This one will order some monstrosity made of dough, olive oil, pasta sauce, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and fucking broccoli. So you and I have to come to an agreement on something else.”
So we ate.
And Violet mostly dominated the conversation with the story of her latest skip.
Before long, some of the guys had shown up to install my brand-spanking-new security system. And then everyone decided that Violet staying with me was good enough from a security standpoint since the woman slept with knives on her body and a gun under her pillow.
“Hey,” Vi called much later that night as I made my way out of the bathroom after a cool shower. “Did I interrupt something earlier?” she asked, watching me with keen eyes.
“What? Like my work?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“No, not like work,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It looked like I walked in after you tucked Rowe in on the couch.”
“You did,” I confirmed. “I tuck everyone in.”
“You tuck me in like five times a night.”
“Because you flail around in your sleep like you’re fighting demons,” I shot back.
“Come on, Bills. You can talk to me. You know it’s always in the vault.”
That was definitely true with Vi. It was partly because she was just trustworthy, and partly because she was rarely around anyone else for long enough to get to the gossiping stage.
