99 Percent Mine(37)

“No.” Truly shakes her head, eyes closed. “No connections. No Barrett savior. I’m doing it on my own.”

“Jamie would hardly be a savior if he gave your name to a colleague.”

“I meant you.”

“Me.” I laugh and reach over to the wine bottle. The dewy glass wets my hand and it makes me recoil. I can’t risk getting even a single cotton thread damp and screwing this up for Truly. I wipe my hand on my leg.

“You were my start-up capital, back in the day.”

“You paid me back for that.” I have a twinge of embarrassment in my stomach.

“You do all the photography and don’t charge. You sew on five hundred miniature anchors—”

“I’ve only done five.”

She won’t hear my protests. “You get my groceries and unbend my fingers. You’re the best.”

“I’m human flotsam.”

“You’re the best,” she repeats until I smile and I don’t need that wine bottle anymore. “So how’s Tom? Still a hot dork beefcake?”

“I have to put a muzzle on myself every time he walks past me.”

“Just like high school.” Truly sighs. “Your brother’s big shadow has always gotten you like that.”

“I thought I wasn’t that obvious. Well, here’s news. The wedding is off.” I count my stitches carefully. I wait for her exclamation of shock.

“I’m not completely surprised.”

“I was so surprised I pulled the cabinet doors off their hinges in my kitchen. They’re just in a big pile on the floor. Then I told him to get in my bed.”

“Ha,” Truly barks with her eyes shut.

“It’s not a joke. I told him to …” I trail off and swallow the big lump in my throat. “I told him to get in me.”

She’s shaking with laughter. Spluttering, she says, “Megan never seemed that into him. It was weird, because they’re both gorgeous. They were more like brother and sister. I bet she’s never once ordered him to”—she opens her eyes in a vivid green flash—“get in her.”

“She better not have,” I snarl.

“I bet she put it in her bullet journal. Saturday, six P.M. A special gold star sticker indicating sexual intercourse completed.” Truly drifts half-asleep again, emitting the occasional cackle.

In my diary, written in the little gaps of time where I let Tom sleep, I’d be writing, Sex, fucking, sucking, nearly dying, need sustenance—with smudged ink and a weak hand. Me and my romantic heart.

I will always defend him. “You can’t know what things are like for a couple when they’re alone.” I stretch and groan in misery. “I bet he’s absolutely spectacular in bed. He’s so … competent. She would have had zero complaints.”

“Did you ever, ever see them kiss? Even once? I thought it was weird. I would have liked to see them kiss.” Truly’s slurring. Milk and toast are obviously strong opiates.

“Maybe she didn’t want to when I was there.”

Because I’d probably plunder and stab and burn. I’d watch from a hillside as her village burned to the ground, the flames crackling in my Viking eyes. I mess up my current anchor, have to clip all the threads out and start again.

Truly’s a mind reader. “I’m so glad you’re on my team. You’d be a terrifying adversary.”

“You’re mixing me up with my brother.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“He’s like the boss you fight in the last level of a computer game. Anyway, I never did anything to break up Tom and Megan. I was so polite to her.”

“With your giant gray eyes staring at her during every Christmas dinner like she was flattened onto a microscope slide.”

“She’s so beautiful,” I groan, my needle sliding in and out on autopilot. “I think I was half in love with her myself. Her skin and hair are just … beautiful.” There’s no other word I can use for her.

“So are yours.”

“Hair?” I wave a hand at my bare neck. “What is this hair you speak of?”

“Darce,” Truly says like I am a pitiful dweeb, “you are one tough cookie, but gosh, what a pretty cookie. Anyway, what does it matter? He doesn’t care about looks.”

I pause, knot, and clip. “Tom is the best person. The ultimate human man. I was used to her having him. But now …” I drop the needle into the carpet and curse, scratching around for it. “He’s single and I think I need to shoot myself out of a cannon into space. I was sexually threatening to him just now.” I prick my finger and swear. “He was afraid of me.”

“Oh really.” She starts giggling, delirious. She walks to the bathroom, which is very close by in her tiny apartment. She audibly pees for ages.

“He lied and didn’t tell me. He was planning on telling me after the renovation was finished. He said it was safer.” The word just makes me cringe. “Safer. What am I going to do, maul him?” I think back to the kitchen. “Okay, fair point.”

Truly spits toothpaste into the sink. “Maybe he doesn’t trust himself.”

“That’s really not it.” I think back to the kitchen. I was so sure I’d felt one firm press on my stomach from the truthful part of Tom Valeska’s anatomy. “He wants to get the renovation done without me hanging around, trying to smell him. I’m just going to have to keep a lid on myself and get through these next couple of months. Can I stay here with you?”