Page 75 of Light in the Dark
"Do you know how to make pancakes?"
I poke her ribs, eliciting a giggle. "Why, yes I do. Why do you ask?"
She rolls her eyes at me. "Because I want pancakes, silly lady."
"Ohhhh. I see." I pretend to think really hard. "I can do that. But I have two conditions."
She eyes me warily. "I don't got any money."
I laugh. "No, I don't want money. The first condition is that you have to help me make 'em. Can you do that?”
“YES!” she screams.
I laugh and cover her mouth. “Hey, now, people are still sleeping.” I narrow my eyes at her. “The second condition…" I lean close to her and act like I have a secret. "This is the big one. You ready?"
She nods seriously. "Yes."
It's so hard not to laugh. "We have to make enough to share witheveryone."
She lets out a disgusted sigh. "Well, duh! You can't just makeonepancake. That's stupid!"
I dissolve into laughter, tickling her. "It is? Weird!"
I carry the howling, kicking Alaina back inside and we make a huge plate of thick, fluffy pancakes.
And we share them.
Even though Faye only nibbles at hers and then claims she needs to lie down, even though it's only eight in the morning.
Thirteen
FELIX
She's been gone for over a week. She sent me a text yesterday explaining that Faye isn't doing well and she needs to stay in LA for a bit longer. I tell her I understand and to do what she needs to do. I'm not going anywhere.
The boys—Riley, Cole, and Nyx—have decided to break me out of my funk by taking me out every night. I haven't drank this heavily since Amy left. I wake up with a sour stomach and woozy head, slug back some coffee and Tylenol, and get to work, stopping for a breakfast burrito from Larry's taco truck. A greasy lunch cures the stomach the rest of the way, and by the end of the day, I'm feeling back to normal…ish.
But then the guys show up and I end up in some dive bar somewhere, throwing back shots of Jameson and pints of Labatt like I'm twenty-one all over again.
They categorically disallow any mention of AmyorEmber. No pining, they tell me. Just dick and fart jokes, stories of our high school antics, and discussions of good lays from days gone by…
Dude stuff.
They're distracting me, and it works. Mostly.
Thirteen days after Ember took my FJ40 and headed for LA with an old lady she wasn't related to, I found myself colossally wasted with the guys. Cole was the DD for the night and we'd all driven here in his sheriff’s department SUV—we got a kick out of being locked in the back. Well, Nyx and I did. Riley sat in front with Cole, because being in the back would've given him nasty flashbacks, he said. Which is fair.
We're at a dive bar in the next county over, a place Nyx knows about. Dive is a nice term for the place. Shithole is closer. The floors are wood planks so old, sticky, and creaky, I'm worried my foot is gonna stick to one and then go through it. The ceiling is drop tile barely seven feet high—I can touch it if I go on my tiptoes and hop. The walls are covered in the requisite neon beer company paraphernalia, spotted, filmy whiskey brand mirrors, and holes from bar fights past. A band plays in the corner—good ol' boys with long gray beards playing rollicking bluegrass except the lead singer is rapping…about possums? I don't know. The bartender is a woman in her late thirties wearing ripped black jeans shorts so short her entire ass hangs out beneath the frayed hems and a black tank top that leaves her improbably gargantuan tits almost totally bare. For some reason, mixed drinks are popular. You know, the kind that require a lot of shaking of those silver cups.
Nyx is at the bar, ordering shot after shot and working his magic on the bartender. She's eating it up in a way that says they've probably gotten it on a few times.
Riley watches, snickering behind his hand. "Now I know why he wanted to come here."
Cole leans back in his chair, drinking beer straight from a pitcher. "Those two have been on and off for years. They go through a whole circus. He shows up, flirts with her, flashes that stupid grin of his, they hook up for a coupl'a months, and then he does or says somethin' stupid and she kicks his ass to the curb. He ignores her for a few months, but then he gets a hankering for those giant bazingas of hers, and off they go again."
I glance at him. "Thought you were the DD?"
He juts his chin at a uniformed deputy sitting by the door, sipping a bottle of water and reading a paperback thriller. "Called in a favor. Brian'll drive us. He's a teetotaler and he owes me."
