Page 11 of Clubs

We were going on a year and a half now. We saw one another everyday. Took trips to the nearby forests. Read books on the couch together. Cuddled, and watched movies, and fucked each other’s brains out.

That all sounded so sweet. Like a rom-com. But it had taken nine months before she let me call her my girlfriend, and me, her boyfriend. More days ended in fights than not. But they usually lead to some great makeup sex, or hate sex, so I had to count my blessings there.

For a moment, as she pulled back, took my face in her hands, and looked between my eyes, it felt like we were really in this together. Like she cared as much about me as I did about her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be better once I get some nicotine.” I nodded to the car. “I’ve got a pack in the glove box, right?”

There went the loving look in her eyes.

This was a frequent fight. She hated that I smoked. But I guessed she figured I deserved a cigarette after having spent my night in jail because she nodded and said, “You can smoke while we drive. Let’s just get out of here.”

Smirking as she walked around the car to the driver’s side, I grabbed the handle. “You must’ve really missed me.”

“Or”—she shot me a glare, lowering herself to the driver’s seat—“I just really hate this place.”

“You missed me.” My smirk worked into a smile as I sat beside her. “You would make me smoke outside if you didn’t.”

Still glaring, she rolled down the passenger window. “You’re going to exhale every bit of that smoke outside of my car.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She heard my mocking tone and raised with a dramatic sigh. Shifting the car into drive and pulling into the roadway, she said, “You didn’t do this, right?”

There went my smile. “Yeah. Because I had time to kill some random girl while I was balls deep in your pussy.”

“I’m just making sure.”

“You think I just go around killing people, Brooke?”

“Neither of us are known pacifists.” She shot me a look, somewhere between annoyed and disappointed. As if I should’ve known she meant no harm. “I’m literally just checking. You don’t need to get defensive.”

Like she wouldn’t be defensive if I accused her of murder after spending four hours in an interrogation room. But she was right. This time, at least.

Lighting the cigarette, I took in a deep breath that gradually loosened my tight muscles and allowed me to relax into the cool spring breeze floating in from the open window. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”

“It’s okay.” Brooke’s eyes were gentle when they met mine before returning to the road. “But what happened? Do they have anything on you?”

“Not a damn thing.” I explained what had gone down, touched on why they’d seen this is the perfect opportunity to arrest me, and ended with, “I don’t know what happens next. But I know they’ll breathe down my neck until they find someone to hang for this.”

“Alicia Tanner,” Brooke murmured. “It sounds familiar, but just in passing. She’s not a member, is she?”

Shaking my head, I breathed in another hit. “Definitely not. Last name doesn’t ring any bells for me. I don’t even know if she was human.”

“Maybe I’ll go to the library and do some digging. You want to come with? Or you want me to drop you off at the house?”

Brooke was simply thinking of my well-being without raising an argument. A rare occurrence.

“You need some sleep too, ya know.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” She rolled her window down. “Which is probably gonna be soon with all this secondhand smoke you’re blowing at me.”

I held my arm further out the window. “There’s literally no way it’s blowing at you.”

“Well, it is.” Veering to the right, she merged into the turning lane. “And I don’t understand. Somebody kills this girl there, then calls the cops. Why would they do that?”

“Somebody who’s pissed at me? The cops trying to frame me? Hell if I know.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t had any beef with the cops recently, have you?”

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