Page 133 of Terms Of Un-Endearment
She hands me the smoothie, then drinks from her own. “No difference at all.”
My eyes drop from her back to my cup. Am I mental? Possibly, but I still don’t trust her. I also won’t let her win. If she wants to pretend there’s nothing sketchy happening here, I can pretend too.
I take a long sip of my smoothie, but before it’s halfway down my throat, I’m gagging. I make it back to the sink just in time for everything to come back up. The sight and smell of the green concoction make me gag again. Over the sound of my retching, I hear Piper laughing.
I twist off the lid, dump the rest of the smoothie down the drain before glaring at Piper.
“No difference at all?”
She shrugs. “Maybe yours had a little extra something.”
A thousand possibilities run through my mind, all of them requiring medical attention. “Did you poison me?”
Piper meets my glare with a meme-worthy eye roll. “Only if you’re allergic to ranch dressing mix.”
I don’t get what she means bymix, but I know there’s no bottle of ranch dressing in my fridge. I hate the stuff. Does she remember that?
Not the point right now.
I shake my head, clearing it of any other questions besides the most important one. “Are we even now?”
I expect Piper to meet my snort with a yes. What I get is a dark glower. She stands, keeping me trapped in her mesmerizing stare the entire time she walks toward me.
“I’m only getting started, Archie,” she growls before planting her hands on the counter opposite me and leaning closer, all while not breaking eye contact. “Sign that deed, so I don’t have to make your life miserable the way you have mine. You didn’t pay for this house. You have a dozen others you could live in, andMom deserves more than betrayal for putting up with Malcolm for ten years.”
Her eyes flicker with a searing amber that sends a prickle of heat over my skin. “I’m not signing the deed until I’m good and ready. I’m not scared of you, Piper.”
That last part is a complete and utter lie. Judging by the smirk on her face, she knows it.
“You should be.” She pushes away from the island and saunters past me. “If you think tampering with your smoothie is bad, you may want to consider carefully everything you do today. And tomorrow. And for the next eleven days. You should be very,veryscared.”
Her menacing voice simultaneously freezes me in place while also sending blood burning through my veins. Fear? Excitement? I’m not entirely sure. I can’t move until I hear her on the stairs. Even then, I wait until I’m sure she’s not coming back down before I dart to the table.
She’s left her smoothie behind, and I drink it down in two gulps. I look at the spot where she’d been standing and swipe the back of my hand across my mouth.
“Delicious.”
The smoothie is good, too.
Chapter 13
Piper
Tuesday morning, I board my bus with a smile on my face and a spring in my step. Not just a spring, a bounce. I’m bouncing. That’s apparently what holding back laughing hysterically does to a person. The look on Archie’s face when he drank the smoothie I’d made for him would have been enough to make me laugh. But picturing what’s coming next for him has me close to kicking my feet and giggling.
I take a seat next to an older woman who I recognize from yesterday. Like me, she waited for the replacement bus, then walked the block from the bus stop to Valente. She entered through a side door while I went in the main entrance. Today, to avoid another DJ Risky encounter, I take the seat next to her. And maybe it’s my good mood, but I’m feeling chatty, and she looks friendly.
“Hi,” I say as I sit. “You work at Valente, right?”
Her smile is like a warm hug. “Si. Yes.”
“I’m Piper. I started an internship in the design department.”
“Julia,” she says with a heavy accent.
Between my broken Spanish and her much-better English, we spend the next twenty minutes getting to know each other. She’s an accomplished seamstress who had her own shop inGuatemala before moving to LA almost twenty years ago. Now, she uses her skills to do piecework at Valente. Her eyes are warm and friendly, and when she pats my hand, I remember my grandma, who died when I was ten.
For the first time since being back in LA, I’m home again.
