Page 114 of Overcast

“Lay off, Tsarina,”I carp, glancing up at Stormi’s window from the front yard. “I am being nice.”

“Yeah, but our definitions are different,” she retorts. “I should’ve never—”

“I’d already bought the tickets to Italy, and she wasn’t going to go with you.” I roll my eyes before examining the height of the only branch Stormi could have lunged off of the night she took off. “I got this.”

Stormi is a damn idiot for jumping that high. It’s gotta be a good fourteen feet.

“Well...is she comfortable? You’re not a people-person.”

“We just went to Walmart yesterday, I let her pick out clothes, her own cereal, I picked out her underwear and—”

“You did what?!”

She could’ve broken her damn neck. Then I’d really never be able to live what I did to her down.

“Marty.”

“What?”

“You boughther underwear.”

My brows furrow, still studying the distance between the second-story window and the ground. “Yeah?”

“Marty,” Reagan exhorts. “You seriously didn’t.”

I squint my eyes at a broken branch above the one she must’ve used for support. “I seriouslydid.”

“Why would you pick out her fucking underwear! Do you think that would make her feel comfortable?”

“Is your brother buying that woman panties?” Wade asserts in the background like this is his dumbass conversation. I roll my eyes, not giving a shit what his opinion is.

“Yes,” my sister exposes. “Because he’s a freaking idiot.”

“I wouldn’t care if she bought me boxers,” I defend. “It’s not a big fucking deal.”

“It is a big fucking deal. It’s a huge fucking deal because you just don’t buy a stranger underwear unless you’re a fucking creep, and you’re getting there, Marty.”

Whatever.

“Are you done?” I seize. “I’m glad I called to make sure you were alive just to have this enlightening conversation.”

“Oh, we’re not done,” she assures me. “I’ll call you tonight to make sure you didn’t buy her a bra or cat slippers to—”

“Love you, Tsarina. Bye.” I hang up, her words slithering through my brain, and a growl leaves my chest.

I am a creep.

And a fucking moron.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, and a lot of other fucking things that have happened, my sister is right—I haven’t been with a woman exclusively in a long time.

But honestly, who fucking cares?

I’m not about to get married and spawn off a bunch of kids. Reagan has Huck and the new baby coming, it’ll do for any baby fix that my brain never has.

The closest thing I’ve had to a relationship was a redhead named Zoe in New Orleans three years ago.

I took her out to dinner, we went to the bar and the movies once. When I wasn’t hunting down the few terrorists who took up an interest in Mardi Gras with Bishop, she and I would fuck, drink and smoke.

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