Page 50 of With Spite

Especially with people she was just now meeting.

Kind of.

Though she’d met Heidi, Harvey, Hampton, and me months ago, it wasn’t like she was seeing any of us for any length of time. Or having long, drawn-out conversations about meaningful things. Most of the time it was “your mother wants you to do this.”

“So it goes like this,” Heidi sighed. “I was at a bachelorette party for a friend. We went to a bar, and I was drunk by eight thirty. I called my brother for a ride.” She looked at me pointedly. “And he sent Bells.”

Bells sighed.

“We get to my place, and I invite him in for a drink. He declines.” She scrunched up her nose. “But he does stay because my brother told him that I get crazy when I get drunk. I hated him being outside by himself, so I got him a drink.”

“Heidi makes mead,” Romina added. “She also makes beer, in case you’re curious.”

“Fascinating. What happened next?” Bernice pushed.

“Apparently, mead can make you euphoric.” Bells sighed. “I drank the mead. Then the next one she brought me. And the next. And before I knew it, I was acting like a fucking nut job. Couldn’t remember a damn thing other than I was really fucking happy. And Heidi was really fucking hot.”

“I drank mead, too.” Heidi sighed. “And we had the best sex of our lives.”

Bernice covered her mouth with a giggle.

“Apparently, my mead, which is really high in alcohol content, also gives Bells a sugar rush on top of everything else. He was like a kid on crack. And I was drunk myself. When we woke up the next morning, it was like we’d come down from a cocaine high. We were very aware of what we’d done. We also decided to have one more go for the road. But that one more go turned into all weekend. Then it turned into dating behind Hux’s back. Which he was offended by.”

Bernice looked over at me. “It’s not that I was offended that they were sleeping together. It’s a free country, you should be able to fuck who you want to. I was offended that they hid it. Like it was some dirty secret. I didn’t want my sister to be a dirty secret.”

Bernice smiled at me, and her heart was in her eyes as she did. “That’s sweet. Really sweet.”

“Don’t call him sweet,” Heidi said. “He’s really not.”

No, I was not.

If she only knew how obsessed with her I was.

Probably worse than her serial killer.

Though I didn’t want to kill her.

I wanted to fuck the life out of her.

But that was about it.

“Now, about this serial killer thing,” Romina said. “Tell us everything.”

Twelve

My idea of ‘help from above’ is a sniper on a roof.

—Bernice to Hux

Bernice

Huxley Hosea withdrawals were a real thing.

I didn’t know they were a real thing until I hadn’t seen him in five days.

He’d delivered some meat to Kalispell and had spent the night there stocking up on supplies and meeting an old friend.

I only knew he was there because I broke down and walked to The Mercantile for lunch hoping to run into him, and found Heidi instead who was more than willing to share Hux’s whereabouts.