Page 51 of Making Choices

“It was a joke.”

“Jokes are supposed to be funny, not life-threatenin’. You’re tone deaf, Cherub… my ears are fuckin’ bleeding.”

Toker chuckles, relaxing his hold as he pretends like he’s going to let go. Shrieking, I lace my arms around his neck and squeeze tight. “If you drop me, I’ll make sure you come too.” My cousin wedges his fingers under my arm and tickles me. Reflexively, my hold on his neck loosens as I squirm to evade his probing digits. Even though I do my best not to let go, he could easily drop me if he wanted to. “I’ve got the upper hand here… you gonna keep that caterwaulin’ to yourself on the way back?”

I know I’m beaten, yet I can’t bring myself to admit it.

“A voice like mine should be shared.”

“You needa be locked in a padded room if you believe that.”

The arsehole feints like he’s going to drop me a second time.

“Mercy.” I cry, squeezing his neck in an anaconda grip. “Mercy.” A middle-aged couple stop on their way to the elevators and watch us with alarm on their faces. I scream at them, “Help me, please.”

My cousin’s shoulders shake after he swings away from the dumpster to face the spectators and they rush off like their arses are on fire. “Pussies.”

“It’s your cut,” I tell him. “They’re allergic to leather.”

“You’d be surprised how many civvies have that condition.”

Murmuring my agreement, I take advantage of his distraction to stick my hand down the front of his shirt and pinch his nipple. He howls and his arms involuntarily open. I drop, squealing as the concrete rears up to meet my backside. At the last second, Toker wraps his arms around my upper body and catches me. The combination of my weight and him already being off-balance gets the best of us, and he tumbles backward. Arms around his neck, I manage to stop his head from hitting the concrete while he keeps me from doing any further damage to myself.

“Fuck,” he grunts beneath me. “I don’t know how Venom does it.”

“Oh, screw you. I’m not heavy,” I declare.

Even so, I move off him and plonk down on my butt next to his head. When he stumbles back to his feet and holds out a hand to me, our eyes meet and we burst into uncontrollable laughter. Pulling me upright because I’m laughing too hard to stand by myself, Toker throws his arm over my shoulders and leans on me.

“That was your fault.” He’s breathing heavily, gasping while he cracks up at what just happened. “If anyone asks, we went dumpster divin’ and you slipped.”

“Nope,” I jab him in the ribs. “That was all on you… plus no one would believe I went dumpster diving with you.”

“I’ll tell them you spotted a bunch of your fancy shoes in there.”

I shake him off and roll my eyes. “They still won’t believe you. I don’t do smelly.”

“Bullshit.”

“They won’t,” I tell him after I hit the button to call the elevator.

“They will. Everyone knows you’re a slave to fashion.”

“A slave to fashion? You act like I spend thousands on clothes.”

“I’ve seen Venom’s bank statement… you’re an expensive little creature to keep around.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. I pay my own way.”

We banter back and forth during the elevator ride. I remind him that he told me I wasn’t a real girl back at the safe house. Toker denies he said such a thing. As we hurry down the hall toward Fret’s room, our mock argument trails off, and the reality of what we’re about to walk into starts to hit.

“He’s fine,” my cousin tells me in a low voice. “Slash’s been keepin’ him company.”

“What if he hates me?”

“He’s gonna be pissed. Probs give you a little lecture over you tryin’ to swap yourself for him ’cause he loves you to death. But it won’t be nothin’ you haven’t heard before.”

While Toker signs us in at the nurses station, I swipe at my burning eyes. Crying in front of Fret is a sure-fire way to make his tirade worse. In some ways, he’s bossier than Zeke, so I know Toker’s wrong about it being a “little lecture.” I could be here for hours as he details the myriad of ways I’ve screwed up over the past five years in his opinion.

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