Page 48 of Darling Venom
“This baby fox is going to be the end of me. I’m the only bitch in the universe dumb enough to feed an urban fox,” she muttered.
Jonah and I exchanged looks. I bit down on my lip to suppress a laugh. Jonah straight-up howled. That was the other thing about Leah. She was wonderful. Genuinely good-hearted and sweet.
We heard her ascending the stairs. She appeared on the third floor, clad in a canary turtleneck that hid as much of her skin as possible and tight leather pants.
She held an empty container where she must’ve kept the food for that baby fox that had been roaming the park behind our building at night, searching for its mom.
She glanced between us, frowning. “You look like you’re up to something fishy. Jonah, you know I will make a purse out of your nut sack if you get my baby sister into trouble.”
Jonah snorted. “If anything, your baby sister will land my ass in trouble.”
Leah raised her good eyebrow. The right one was nonexistent because of the scar. She did a good job painting it on when she left the house. You could hardly tell.
“My sister is a nerd,” she said, with just enough malice. She loved me, but she didn’t like me. “Anyway, you’re too old for her. She’s only twenty-two. You’re what? Thirty?”
“Thirty-one. And you are twenty-seven,” he replied.
For some reason, I thought about Tate. He should be in his mid-thirties. Then I thought about how much Leah would hate the idea of my dating someone in his thirties.
Not that I would ever date Tate.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Leah scowled. Like her being single or female had nothing to do with our conversation.
“Figure it out yourself, Teacup.” He winked at her, looped his keys around his finger, and bolted down the stairway.
I turned to look at my sister. In the four years that had passed since I’d graduated from high school, we’d perfected the art of pretending we were okay. But deep inside, she would always resent me.
Resent me for making her take my parents’ place when she was only eighteen.
Resent me for walking through fire to save me.
Resent me for killing Mom and Dad.
For looking less than perfect when she could have had her pick of any guy in the world before the flames ate at her beauty. Before the fire consumed her.
Leah rummaged in her fringed shoulder bag for her pack of smokes, tucking a menthol cigarette between her lips as we poured into our apartment.
“Did you notice he called you Teacup?” I asked.
Leah shrugged as she swaggered to her room, returning with makeup removal wipes. Her face needed to be completely bare when the dermatologist assessed her. She applied a ton of medical creams each day to minimize the damage to her skin and prevent it from falling apart.
She started shedding the caked makeup, the cigarette dangling between her lips. “Not really.”
“I wonder why he’d call you that.”
“Because I drink six cups of tea a day,” Leah deadpanned. “Mystery solved. Leave the check in the mail.”
I put the kettle on, making her some tea to-go before we left. “But how would he know that? You don’t really hang out with him one-on-one, do you?”
“Maybe Row told him. We spend a lot of time with her.”
“Why would he ask Row?” I fought a stupid grin, my heart swelling in my chest. For the first time in forty-eight hours, I was able to concentrate on something that wasn’t Tate Marchetti. “I think Jonah’s into you.”
“I
think you’re high.” Her healthy eyebrow curled into a question mark. “He’s just being nice because he gets ten hours a week of free babysitting. The least he can do is be sweet and get takeout food.” She ambled deeper into the long, narrow kitchen and opened the trash cabinet, disposing the wipes she’d used. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Jonah. Let’s hit the road.”
The kettle whistled.
