Page 16 of Reckless Devotion
“Look, you don’t have to like me,” I throw over my shoulder in a carefully measured tone. “You just have to find the person we are looking for and then we go our separate ways.”
“Thank god.”
Ignoring her catty remark, I continue, “The least we can do is be civil.”
A few seconds stretch by and then I hear a small grunt-like noise followed by, “Fine.”
Chapter 8
Pepper:Is it wrong to fantasize about murder?
Sunny:I’m going to say yes.
Sunny:Big Turd Brian?
Pepper:Nope, worse. You painted his feet.
Sunny:He was cute!
Pepper:He would be cuter with a meat cleaver in his skull.
Sunny:That’s rather morbid of you.
Pepper:I’m ok with it.
Sunny:In less disturbing news, Rosie is bringing over Thai food tomorrow night.
Pepper:Tell her she’s an angel. I'll be back soon.
PEPPER
“What are you doing?”
I blow out a long breath, a piece of lint scurrying away from me across the scratchy carpet. Or at least, I hope it’s lint. It’s highly questionable to lay my cheek upon such a grimy and alien floor space, but I’m quite simply too exhausted to care. It’s been one of those days where all of my brain juice has been usedup for brain juice-squeezing work activities. So here I am, with only pulp inside my skull, lying on the floor of an extremely drab apartment thinking only that orange really is a very bizarre color choice for carpet.
“I’m in full salmon,” I murmur, sliding my gaze to shiny Italian leather shoes.
“What?” The deep timbre scales a note or two in confusion.
“I’m in full salmon,” I repeat, contemplating if I have the energy to roll my eyes or not. I seem to have entered the oh-no-I-stopped-for-a-moment-and-now-can’t-move stage of my day.
“Yeah, you can keep saying the words, but they still don’t make sense, Peppercorn.” The words are delivered with the kind of pitch that is usually accompanied by a frown.
A rude scoff leaves me. Like the kids at my high school didn’t already think of that one. It takes a real chump with two and a half brain cells to figure out that my name rushed together sounds like the seasoning you grind over soup.
“If you must know, I’ve flopped onto the floor belly first because it helps with brain fuzz.” I don’t care to look up to find out what condescending expression he no doubt wears. And I don’t care what he thinks. Sometimes a hard day just calls for lying on the floor to factory reset.
“Okay.” His tone is carefully measured like that of someone coaching a small child. “And why does that get called a full salmon?”
Despite myself and my self-imposed stormy demeanor in his presence, I smile softly to myself and close my eyes. “Because my sister pretends to flop around like a fish on land before she settles into it.”
I can picture her now, lying beside me belly down on my teenage bedroom floor, flopping around like a lunatic. I can hear the high-pitched giggle of her younger self as she did, too.Nostalgia and warmth flood my chest, giving me the feel-good fuzzies.God,I love that kid.
“Huh.” The slowly enunciated noise is so quiet I almost don’t catch it. Less a sound of confusion and more of surprise. I hear his footsteps move confidently closer, so close that I open my eyes in alarm just as… I pop my cheek up off the floor as he lies down next to me, on his back instead.
“I didn’t invite you to join me!” I watch appalled as he meshes his hands together and settles them on his torso. The small part of me that wants to linger on how big they are gets swiftly suffocated.
Chase Walker ignores my objection and closes his eyes, dusting tanned cheekbones with unfairly long lashes. It’s the kind of bronze glow rich people wear year-round. It screams private island in the Maldives and long weekends in Monaco for the Grand Prix.
