A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red (47 page)

“We all knew it would happen. It’s been happening for ten years, but did you have to do it like that? I thought you had class.”
 

“You’re the only one.” Something brushed against my leg. The cat. The cat was in again. He leapt up on the counter and stared his usual stare. That felt like my usual life, not a dream. Actually, Uncle Morty yelling at me was as real as life got. “I thought I was dreaming.”
 

“You’re not dreaming. You’re an idiot.”
 

I looked at the wine bottles in the trash can. “I can’t argue with that.”
 

“What are you going to say to him?” asked Uncle Morty.
 

I thought of Chuck in the other room. I had no idea what I was going to say.
 

“He walked out of here looking like he might jump off a bridge, Mercy. You gotta fix this or I’m gonna lose a kickass wizard.”
 

“Wait. Who…what are we talking about?” I asked.
 

“Pete. Who do you think?”
 

Oh my god.
 

“Why are we talking about Pete?”

“Why do you think? He saw the video. Half the western world saw the video. Hell, it’s on the DBD site. The fan boards are going batshit crazy.”
 

I was slack-jawed. Fan boards? Video? Stevie walked in, scratching his junk and looking at his phone. “Dude, you know how to kiss. This is like that famous war kiss.”
 

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked him. Uncle Morty heard and began a curse-laden rant.
 

Stevie held up his phone and there we were, me and Chuck kissing in the street. I saw what Stevie meant. We looked like that photo from the end of World War Two, the sailor kissing the nurse, except our kiss was no polite celebration. Ours was full on I-want-to-consume-you-passion.
 

I snatched the phone out of his hand. “Where’d you get that?”
 

“Chick I know sent it. She knows we’re good friends.”
 

“This is on the internet?”
 

“Duh. It’s everywhere. You’re trending on Twitter,” said Stevie.
 

I braced myself on the counter and started to have what I’d diagnosed in others, a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded.

Stevie took back his phone. “What’s up with you?”

“Pete,” I whispered. “I have a boyfriend.”
 

He snorted. “Not anymore.”
 

“I’m going to be sick.”
 

“It’s the wine.”
 

“It’s not the wine,” I said.
 

“What about me?” bellowed Uncle Morty out of my phone. I’d forgotten he was there, the bearer of bad news and inventive cursing.
 

I put my shaking hand over my eyes and asked, “What about you? I’ve just ruined my life, not yours.”
 

“I beg to differ. You broke up the perfect Dungeons and Dragons team. Pete’s going to dump us.”
 

“Why?” I asked, not caring one bit.
 

“Because we belong to you, idiot. You could’ve dumped him like a decent chick, but, oh no, you had to do it on the freaking internet.”
 

“I’m not breaking up with him.”
 

“Well, what the hell was that? A proposal of marriage?”
 

“I don’t know what it was. Alcohol. Stupidity.”
 

“It was lust, you common hussy.”
 

“Did you just call me a hussy?” I asked.
 

“Would you prefer slut?”
 

“I would not, and nothing happened.”
 

Uncle Morty snorted and cleared his throat, very phlegmy. “You can’t sell that. Least of all to Pete.”
 

“How is he?” I asked, wincing.
 

“Fuck if I know. The poor kid took off after three guys in Iron Man costumes showed him the video. Aaron followed him.”
 

“Good. Aaron’ll make it better.”
 

“Hell, no, he won’t. You can’t make this better. The bastard’s humiliated, Humiliated! And after all the time I put into breaking him in, molding him. Why I oughta—”

I hung up on him. There was only so much I could take. Not that I didn’t deserve it. I was a terrible person. The worst person. Certainly the worst girlfriend. I put my head down on the counter and counted to ten. It didn’t help. Why did I tell people to do that when they were panicking? It didn’t help. I checked my messages on the off-chance Pete had called. He hadn’t, of course. Mickey Stix of DBD called three times to tell me how he loved the video, their message boards were on fire, and he was putting the video in the headliner position on the website. Mickey thought this was good news. His news made me heave into the sink. The smell was atrocious, just like my behavior.
 

I drank water out of the tap and Stevie handed me a paper towel. I swallowed a considerable amount of bile and dialed Pete. I got his voicemail and, after a shuddering breath, left him a message.
 

“I am so sorry, Pete. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I really didn’t. There were all these glasses of wine and drinks and that’s no excuse, but it didn’t mean anything. Nothing happened. Chuck was just there and it happened. I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me, although I know I don’t deserve it.” I wiped my face with the paper towel and turned to Stevie, but it wasn’t Stevie. It was Chuck, looking at me like he’d never seen my face before in his life.
 

“It didn’t mean anything,” he said, flatly.
 

“I didn’t know you were standing there,” I said.
 

“Clearly.”
 

“I had to apologize. What I did was horrible. Everyone knows or will shortly.”
 

“Was it horrible?” he asked, stepping close and leaning over me and not in a good way.
 

“No. I mean, yes. It was horrible. I have a boyfriend. I did stuff I’m not supposed to do.”

“With me.”
 

“It’s got nothing to do with you. This is about Pete, what I did to Pete,” I said.
 

“With me.”
 

“Why do you keep saying that? Yes, with you. You of all people. You. My sleazy, horny, has dated half the female population of Missouri and Illinois, cousin. You!” I yelled.
 

“We’re not actually related!” he yelled back. “I thought you finally figured it out!”
 

“What? That I’m an idiot? I’ve known that since I set fire to the Bleds’ garage. You don’t need to remind me”

He slapped his hand down on the counter so hard the dishes in the rack rattled. “I’ve been waiting for you to see me the way you’re supposed to see me.”
 

I slapped the counter. Nothing rattled and it hurt my hand. “Who are you to tell me how I’m supposed to see you?”

“Because I love you!”
 

I sucked in a breath and stared up into his glaring eyes. That was not the look of love. That was more like the look of, I could kill you and make it look like an accident.
 

“No, you don’t. I’m just the one you can’t have,” I said.
 

“If that’s what you think, I’m done,” he said between clenched teeth and went for the door.
 

“Done with what?”
 

“You.” He banged through the kitchen door and I heard him go up the stairs, taking three at a time.
 

Stevie handed me my coffee cup. “Well, you screwed that up royally.”
 

“Oh, yeah? What did I screw up? There’s nothing between us. We’re like cousins. It’s practically creepy,” I said.
 

“Except it’s not.”
 

I banged my cup down on the counter, sloshing burning hot liquid over my fingers. “Yes, it is. Everybody’s going to think I humped my cousin. Oh my god. Mom is going to kill me. And don’t forget about Aunt Miriam. She thought my modeling shamed the family. This looks like we’re incest people. Welcome to
Deliverance
, it’s the Watts clan.”
 

“Except it’s not.”
 

“Argh! I’m going out,” I said in a rush.

“Where?” Stevie asked.
 

“I don’t know. I’m going to where people don’t have the internet.”
 

“1965?”
 

“Shut up!” I grabbed my purse and bolted out the back door.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I DIDN’T GO to 1965. No one would sell me a ticket. I ended up at Wink’s again, and Phoebe was there with new jazzy purple gauges in her ears. I walked up to the counter, trying to look like a girl who didn’t make out with her cousin by marriage or sleep in her clothes or forget to brush her nasty teeth before storming out of the house. Phoebe wasn’t buying it. She smiled so wide her blue lipstick cracked.
 

“You look familiar,” she said. “Latte?”
 

“Yes and a bunch of stuff with fat in it, like triple fat. Got any of that?” I asked.
 

“Cinnamon roll?”
 

“Sure.”
 

Phoebe went into the back and emerged a few minutes later with a celery-filled tall glass. “You need this more than a latte.”
 

“Bloody marys are on the menu?”

“Only for special customers.”
 

“Oh, I’m special alright. Specially screwed.”
 

She grinned. “I hope so.”
 

“That’s the kicker. The clothes stayed on.”
 

“It can be done that way.”
 

“Not well.”
 

Phoebe filled a bag with buttermilk drops and a cinnamon roll. “I’ll give you that.”
 

I paid her and then looked around at the half-filled little café, wishing there was a place to hide.
 

“Come this way.” She pointed to a door to the back.
 

I picked up my bag and my hangover cure and obeyed. Phoebe led me out to a little courtyard filled with rustic lawn furniture. “You can hide out for a while until things calm down.”
 

“That’ll take a couple of months, but thanks.” I sat on a rickety lounge chair and sipped the fiery bloody mary. Wow. That was hot.
 

“You know what? You look just like my bulldog after he ate an entire box of pralines and barfed in my closet,” said Phoebe.
 

“That’s how I feel.”
 

“Tall, dark, and built, not the one for you?”
 

“Well…”
 

“Oh, you have a boyfriend,” she said.
 

“Had a boyfriend would probably be more accurate,” I said.
 

She nodded and crossed her tattooed arms. “He sure looked like the one. That boyfriend must be uber hot.”
 

I screwed up my mouth and had to admit, “Not really. He’s more nerdy, but a great guy. I really screwed up.”

“So, he’s boring,” she said.
 

“Not boring. He’s normal, calm, trouble free,” I said.
 

“Give me trouble any day.”
 

“You don’t understand. Chuck bothers me.”
 

Phoebe nodded and stepped back into the building. “Stay as long as you want.” She went inside and then popped back out. “My parents have been married for thirty years. My dad bothers my mom every day. He says it’s his job.”
 

She closed the door and I stared after her. My dad bothered my mom senseless, too. Maybe it was a thing, but it wasn’t my thing. Pete was nice. He was…well…he was something. I couldn’t put my finger on it. No, it wasn’t boring. He had lightsabers, for crying out loud.
 

I choked down my drink and ate my cinnamon roll to ease the burning and then lay back to study the clouds. I’d lost Pete, that was certain, but a strange feeling settled in my chest, a familiar feeling and an uncomfortable one. I didn’t care. No. I cared that he was hurt and that I was the one who hurt him. But Pete wasn’t forever. He never was supposed to be forever. What did Uncle Morty say? That everybody knew this would happen. I sure didn’t. How did they? When I thought of Pete, I felt so sad, but not the right sad. Not like I’d lost the love of my life. Did I love him? If I did, shouldn’t it hurt more?
 

Chuck kept infiltrating my mind, the way he infiltrated my life, bothersome, sleazy, and forever there in the background. Could he possibly love me for real? It didn’t seem likely, but the thought kept coming back. I sat there for a couple of hours, snoozing and thinking. I hadn’t picked up my phone when I left, so I was blissfully unconnected. No one could get to me and it felt great. Eventually, a nagging thought settled into my mind. Chuck was upset and I’d upset him. I touched my lips, all bruised and raw from his beard, and my face got hot. My stomach twisted.