Page 29 of Dreadful

She snatches the glass back from me and takes a long, deliberate swallow. “I’m tired, and you’re deflecting.”

I roll my eyes and shift my body fully toward hers, knee pressing against her thigh. “No, we definitely weren’t doing… that.”

“Mm-hmm.” Her lips curve around the straw. “So what were you doing then, you dirty bird?”

“Sleeping. Jesus, Lola.”

“Bullshit,” she says, the word muffled around her straw. Her eyes drop to my neck, then back up. “Your face only gets that particular shade of flushed-pink after you get fucked.”

Heat blooms across my cheekbones. “You shouldn’t know that you know.”

“I’m observant.” She says it flatly, the same way she’d note the weather.

“Boundaries,” I press, snagging her iced coffee from her lax grip. The glass is slick with condensation. “Besides, you’re wrong. I did not fuck either one of them this morning.”

“You know what, hell yeah.” A low, impressed whistle escapes her. She raises her hand for a high five, fingers splayed. “Was it a two-for-one special, hm? Or more of a twenty-four-hour diner? Oh, I bet it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

I’m already shaking my head, batting her hand away before she can make contact. “Do I want to even know what that means?”

She twists fully on the couch to face me, tucking one bare foot beneath her opposite knee. She taps a considering finger against her chin. “I’m betting on the combo meal: french fries and a hot dog.” A pause. She tilts her head, peering at me over the top of her dark sunglasses. “Or maybe two hot dogs?”

Against my better judgment, a grin tugs at my lips. I hide it by taking a long sip of her bitter coffee, the straw between my teeth. “Nah,” I say after I swallow. “Someone finished before he got his dessert.”

Her laughter is sharp and sudden, a sound that cuts through the morning’s residual tension and eases the tightness coiled in my shoulders.

“I’m betting on Rafe.” She leans in conspiratorially. “Please tell me he didn’t last. That man deserves a few flaws to bring him down to earth a little.”

“It’s not a flaw to be so turned on from eating that they can’t last.” I flash her a grin and hitch one shoulder up. “And besides—it wasn’t Rafe.”

She goes completely motionless for a beat, then drags her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose with one finger. Her eyes find mine over the frames. “If you tell me it was Bishop, I swear to god I will stand up right now and do something. I don’t know what. But it’ll be loud.”

“Nope.”

Something shifts in her face—mouth parting slightly, head drawing back an inch. “Hold on.” She turns her body toward me, slow and deliberate. “It wasn’t Rafe like he wasn’t involved, or like he’s not the perpetrator of such a crime?”

I tsk, slurping the last dredges of her cold brew. “Could you be more dramatic?”

“Easily.” She says it without hesitation, nodding once like she’s confirming a fact. “Okay. Process of elimination. That leaves Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.” A short pause, finger tapping her chin. “My money’s on Dee.”

I squint at her. “I genuinely don’t know which one you think is which.” I press the empty glass back into her hand and push to my feet. “I’m going to go find Coco. You good?”

Her mouth drops open as she stares at me. “Babe.” She sets the glass down on the cushion beside her with exaggerated care, like she’s buying herself time. “I say because I love you: you are the last person who should be walking up to that woman right now. She just walked in on her sons’ bare asses. And fingers. And tongues⁠—”

“Stop.” I drop back down beside her and lean in close, cutting a quick look toward the hallway before I continue. “She walked in before anything actually happened. But still.” I exhale through my nose. “I got a weird vibe from her.”

Her whole posture changes—spine straightening, both feet finding the floor, the boneless morning slouch replaced by something sharper and more alert. When she speaks again, her voice has dropped to barely above a murmur. “You think she knows?”

“No. I talked to Rafe last night.”

“And you trust him?” she presses.

I press my thumbnail into the soft skin of my opposite palm. “He could’ve turned on us a hundred different times by now.”

Lola’s eyes cut toward the hallway, then the kitchen doorway, then back to me. “Maybe they’re biding their time.”

I’m already shaking my head. “No. I don’t think so. But we need a backup just in case.”

“On it,” she says, pushing to her feet before I can say anything else.