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"I can't make myself puke, Jesse."
“Just stick your fingers down your throat.”
She shook her head. “Won’t work. Got no gag reflex.”
I heard Archer choking on his beer. I shot him a dirty look. His eyes got bigger, and he stared at me, innuendo all over his face.
I turned my attention back to her, urging, “Go try.”
She stared at me blankly.
“Try, G. You don’t wanna be sick.”
She got up and headed inside.
Archer leaned over. “No gag reflex?”
“Shut it,” I said.
“Put a fuckin’ ring on it, son.”
***
“Ma, she’s got Celiac. She’s allergic to gluten. She can’t eat these pieces of pie.”
“I’ll just eat the filling,” Gianna said. “Gimme that back.” She snatched the paper plate I’d confiscated.
“You’re allergic to gluten?” Ma gasped. “You ate my stuffing and Sharla’s homemade dinner rolls!”
“I let myself have a treat every once in a while,” Gianna shrugged. “It’s a holiday.”
“Bullshit. She didn’t wanna hurt your feelings,” I advised.
Gianna’s eyes narrowed on me for ratting her out. And fuck, it’d be cute if I wasn’t ticked at her.
“Snitches, stitches, and ditches, Jesse,” Gianna warned, shaking her fist at me.
“Shake that fist at me, G and I’ll type A hostage you,” I warned.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she volleyed.
Yeah, she caught my drift and was suggesting me binding and gagging her would be a good time despite that we both knew how she felt about confinement. Before I had a chance to respond, Summer called over, “There’s probably gluten in that beer you’re drinking, too.”
Gianna’s face went pink. And I could tell she knew that already. But Ma put a beer in her hand earlier, and instead of asking for something else, she’d been nursing it all day.
I took the can and checked. It was still nearly full.
“My pie filling has flour in it, too. I mix flour in with my apples,” Summer piped up again from the next table over.
“Does yours?” Archer asked the girl I assumed made the other pie. The dark-haired one that G had sat with on the stairs. She must be new; I didn’t know her.
“I don’t know,” she answered with a shrug.
“How do you not know?” Tiffany, Ma’s assistant manager, inquired.
“Didn’t read the side of the can.” The girl shrugged again.
Summer gasped. “Canned? Canned? Sacrilegious!”
A couple of other people laughed.
“Nah man,” she corrected, “A shortcut for a busy gal who was attached to a pole until one o’clock in the morning last night. Don’t send me to the gallows but it’s a frozen pre-made pie crust, too.”
“I think I should win by default,” Summer declared.
“It’s not really a victory if it’s by default,” the other girl reasoned.
“Don’t poison yourself on our account, girlfriend. Fuck sakes,” Ma said. “Do you need somethin’ for your stomach? You okay?”
“Need an epi-pen?” an older male neighbor called over, “I think Joan four doors over has one.”
“I’m all right.” Gianna waved her hand. “I won’t go into anaphylactic shock. It’s not like that. But thanks, anyways.”
“Did you puke?” I asked when my mother moved away to make more coffee.
“No.”
“Baby…” I muttered.
“Can’t. Told ya. I’ll be okay.” She waved dismissively.
And it dawned what I’d just called her. Slip of the tongue.
“What should you do after eating gluten? This happens sometimes, obviously. What do you do about it?”
“Suffer.” She shrugged.
“Serious, woman, what do you do?”
“Hydration. Tomorrow I should do a liquid fast and drink broth and smoothies. Flush it out. I have Pepto Bismol in my Caboodle and there’s a peppermint tea I buy sometimes if I accidentally get contaminated. Not sure if there’s any in my purse. I’ll check. Maybe we can stop on the way to the cabin. I’ll grab some digestive enzymes and some ginger, too.”
“I’ll go to the store now. Any kind of peppermint tea?”
“Don’t do that. Let’s see what I’ve got with me. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t do that again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Lord Captor.”
I shook my head and lifted the pie plate.
“I’m not done with that.”
“Yeah you are.”
She pouted. But she was teasing.
I took the beer away from her then, too, and downed it before going inside to grab her an electrolyte drink.
When I was coming out of the house, Summer stopped me on the deck. “How you doin’?” she asked.
“Fine, why?”
“Chelsea’s back in town.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t know she left town. Don’t live here, don’t care.”
“She moved up north for a job six months ago, but she got back about a month ago and asked me if you still worked at the club. Told her you moved to Aberdeen, joined an MC. She’s been thinkin’ about visiting you.”
“If you see her again, tell her don’t.”
Summer introduced me to Chelsea, her cousin, way back when. The fucker I beat the shit out of had also put his hands on Summer.
“Jesse. She-”
“Don’t,” I forced out between tight teeth. “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’ll give her the time of day. Believe that. Make her believe it if she brings me up again.”
