Page 62 of Riot Reunion
“That asshole sank my boat!”
Chase and Elodie share a despairing look. Within the blink of an eye, Chase turns a weird shade of grey, though, her face draining of color. “Oh, god,” she whispers, clutching her stomach. “I gotta—I think I’m gonna—I need to—”
“Gross.Pleasetell me she’s not about to puke all over the Carrera.”
“Shut the fuck up, Mercy,” Wren snaps.
Chase shoots a panicked look over at me, as though she thinks…fuck, I don’t know what she’s worried about. She’s freaking out. I grab her by the hand, leading her quickly through the living room, around the sunken couch, through the kitchen, toward the closest downstairs bathroom. As soon I’ve opened the door for her, Chase drops to her knees and heaves, the tiniest amount of vomit spattering into the toilet bowl. Rubbing her back, I try not to grimace as she wretches, her body spasming, trying to rid itself of something that isn’t there. After a while, she drops back onto her heels and then sinks sideways, resting her back up against the wall.
“Sorry. I know that’s disgusting,” she says breathlessly.
“How much have you been eating?”
Confusion draws Chase’s brows together. “What?”
“If you’re throwing up all of the time and not eating properly, then…you look fucking exhausted. You’re not eating properly. I can tell.”
“Feeling nauseous all of the time doesn’t really inspire a person toeat, Pax.” She chides me, like I have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant and be feeling like garbage all of the time. Which I don’t, of course. But Iwouldhave some idea of how she’s been feeling if she hadn’t hidden this from me. If she’d been honest with me from the get-go. Jesus. Bitterness gnaws at my bones, but I do my best to shove it aside. Resentment won’t help. I love this girl. I’ll love her no matter what. She’s fucking gutted me with this, though; I’m having trouble navigating all the feelings this massive pothole in the road has caused. If I allow my anger to fester, this will be an open wound between us for the rest of our relationship…which I doubt would last very long under that kind of stress.
I hold my hand out to her, exhaling steadily, forcing everything out of my head. There will be time to pick my way through all of this later, once she’s fallen asleep in my arms and I’m staring up at the ceiling in the dark, unable to find any rest of my own. Until then, I’ll show Chase nothing but a firm, steady, calm resolve. “On your feet, Presley Maria Witton Chase. I’m making you some soup.”
***
There are some people in this world that just need a good fucking spanking. Mercy Jacobi is one of them. I’ll admit, there was a time I would have fucked her. One hundred percent. But then three things happened. The first: Wren became a brother to me, which, byveryloose association, meant that Mercy was connected to me in a similar manner. Second: I experienced the horrifying realization that Mercy and Wren bore more than a passing resemblance to one another, them being twins and all, and that fucking Mercy would be tantamount to fucking Wren. And last but not least, thirdly, it dawned on me just how fucking poisonous the wretched girl was, and how badly I wanted to claw my own goddamn eyes out every time I was in her presence.
Like a succubus, she soaks all of the joy out of the kitchen, her frame poured over a chair in an artful, boneless way that even the most highly paid models I’ve worked with in the past struggle to emulate. Mercy accomplishes it with ease and manages to look bored at the same fucking time. “Staring at me like you’re picturing all of the ways you want to murder me isn’t going to help,” she purrs, inspecting her manicure. She’s talking to Wren, not me; I’m not the only one plotting her demise.
Jacobi looms over the kitchen island, arms folded across his chest, a look of pure frustration on his annoyingly handsome face. “Just spit it out, dude. You say you came here to tell me something. So tell me something.”
She pouts petulantly. “No.”
“Mercy!”
“As soon as I tell you, you’ll kick me out.”
“And?”
“And it’s the middle of the night if you hadn’t noticed. And I’m not some annoying dog. You can’t just use me like that and then discard me on the side of the road. Most brothers would want to spend time with their sister after not seeing her for months.”
“Most brothers don’t have to deal with their sisters creeping into their bedrooms while they’re in the middle of fucking their girlfriend,” Wren snarls. “Most brothers don’t have to put up with their sisters standing there and watching ’til they’re fucking done!”
Mercy makes a frustrated sound, mouth open, throwing up her hands. “What’s ruder, Wren? Interrupting a guy mid-coitus and giving him blue balls, or letting him finish the task at hand? You need to get some sun, by the way. Your ass cheeks are sowhite.”
Filled with malice, Wren’s eyes narrow down to slits. “You are afoulhuman being.”
“Can we please just agree that I did the right thing by letting you finish flailing around on top of Elodie Stillwater? Just look at you now. You’re in a despicable mood. You’d have been even grumpier if you hadn’t nutt—”
“Do NOT finish that sentence! For fuck’s sake!” Wren has gone the same ashen, waxy color that Chase did earlier. “You shouldn’t have been in my fucking bedroom in the first place!”
“I wasn’t in your room. You left the door open.Ijust had the misfortune of being able to see what was going on in there once I hit the landing.”
“I can’t eat this,” Chase says morosely, swirling her spoon around in the chicken noodle soup I heated up for her. I can’t say that I blame her—it came from the pantry, a pouch of chunky, thick slop that smelled highly suspect even to my nose when I squeezed it into the pan.
I take the bowl away, stooping briefly to kiss the top of Chase’s head before crossing the kitchen to dump the gelatinous mess into the sink. Wren and Mercy continue to glare at each other malevolently, both of them refusing to look away from the other. “There are plenty of hotels in town,” Wren spits.
“No, there aren’t,” Mercy counters.
“You can sleep at Cosgroves. There’s a cot in the office that Pat sleeps on when he’s too wasted to drive home. Shouldn’t be too uncomfortable for you there.”
