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“Swanky. That must be costing you a fortune though, those places aren’t cheap.”
Sure would be if she were paying for it. But no, in addition to letting her crash here for free, Vance had taken her to the good grocery store—Howard’s, which was the small one with all the organic food and the produce grown onsite and the owner with his curly grey hair and round glasses who wandered around in a worn apron but drove a late model Volvo—and put her name on his account there.
She was starting to feel like a kept woman which was squicky in a way but she wouldn’t have allowed it if she thought Vance would take it all back if she told him to keep his paws off her. No, she couldn’t see him doing that. Didn’t mean she shouldn’t try to get her act together before push came to shove and she had to test her theory. People were a constant disappointment—just ask Carey whose husband had promised her the world but had saddled her with a ton of debt and four extra mouths to feed.
“It would be if I were paying for it,” she conceded, winding her fingers in the fringe of one of the blankets she was curled under. “But I’m staying with a, um, friend, so you don’t have to worry.”
The thing about having known Carey for her entire twenty-eight years was that she could picture her sister’s exact narrow-eyed expression and it made her quail, same as it had when they were kids.
“Which one of your friends is ritzy enough to have a place at Mountain View? It’s not the off season anymore; rates started going up weeks ago.”
Sure had.
“You don’t know him.”
“Him?”
Ugh. Lilith had had enough of peeling this band-aid off. Yeah, it would be painful to face the lecture her sister was no doubt going to give her but it had to be better than this.
“Alright, alright, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” they both muttered, and the chasing laughter softened the tension if it didn’t quite break it.
“His name is Vance, he’s a lawyer from Clover City. This is his weekend place. I maybe jimmied the lock to get in and it’s possible he came up for the weekend and found me here. Our first meeting was a little awkward”—not surprising, given that she was trespassing—“but he’s actually a decent guy and he’s letting me stay here while I get my shit together.”
There was silence on the other end of the line and Lilith wanted to throw something.Just say it already, she wanted to tell Carey.
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you fucking?”
“Oh my god, Care, what kind of woman do you take me for?” she demanded with fake outrage. “Yes, of course we’re totally sleeping together and it’s really good.”
Carey snorted again and they both dissolved into giggles.
“Well, little sis, I’d like to lecture you but I don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Yeah, Doug had definitely gotten her knocked up which was part of the reason Carey hadn’t just walked away when she learned about some of Doug’s get-rich-quick schemes and the mountains of bills he had piling up from past endeavors. She should’ve walked away then though because it had only gotten worse. Way worse.
“Just…promise me you’re being careful. Double down on protection, and if there’s even a whiff of him getting abusive you get out of there. I know my couch is a shitty place to crash—nothing like those fancy cabins up at Mountain View—but better to wake up with a couple toddlers using you as a jungle gym than to go to bed with a black eye or worse.”
Lilith knew Carey loved her. Had loved her since she was born, had fucked up kids who dared tease her, had shot off her mouth at boyfriends who treated her bad, had shared anything and everything she had. But sometimes her sister’s love for her was so pure it made her eyes water.
“Thanks, Care-Bear. I love you too. I don’t actually think Vance would hurt a fly,” although he would—and had—consensually spanked the shit out of someone, “but I promise I’m outta here if that changes. I’ll text you a pic of his license just in case things go sideways.”
“Okay.”
Lilith could hear shrieking in the background which wasn’t unusual for a small house with six people in it, but when the squawks turned to wails, Carey sighed.
“I gotta go try to keep these kids from killing each other. But that death metal you listen to is going to sound like a lullaby if you ever keep something like this from me again, understood?”
Lilith rolled her eyes. “It’s called gothic rock, but yes ma’am, I got you.”
