Page 45 of Accidental Abduction

“And I pitched that god awful Joker costume—I’m assuming Viv left on your porch—into the dumpster at the shop.”

“The what?” There hadn’t been anything on my porch before I left for the bar on Friday.

“There was a garment bag from the costume shop in Butterfly Ridge sitting on your front door mat covered in a foot of snow. The jacket inside was trashed by the time I found it, so I threwit away.”

“She’s gonna lose her shit,” I groaned, wishing I could just forget the last four years. Now that I’d spent uninterrupted time away from her, it wasn’t hard to see how toxic staying with her had been.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “She’s gonna have to pay a two-hundred-dollar replacement fee too. Marcy at the shop doesn’t fuck around.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you know how much someone gets charged for a ruined costume rental.”

“Probably wise,” he agreed. “But the bitch deserves it for how she treated Charley and Hazel at the party. If she hadn’t left when I escorted her to the door,the second time,I would have had Mikey throw her ass out.”

“What did she do?” I asked between clenched teeth, the leather on the steering wheel creaking underneath my harsh grip.

“I’ll tell you once we get to your place. Don’t need you getting pissed and driving us off the road.”

The rest of the drive I fumed as I let myself imagine what Viv had said to my sister and my... I wasn’t sure what Charley was, but she was mine.

Charley hadn’t said a word when we’d talked about Viv, and part of me was pissed she hadn’t told me, but the other part respected that while she’d made her distaste for my ex known, she hadn’t tried to kick the rotting corpse of our long dead relationship. After the second time she’d been brought up, we’d never talked about her again.

As we drove to my house, Reid kept talking about other things that’d happened at the party after I left, spending a suspiciously long time criticizing thepretty boy baseball playerwho had apparently asked Hazel for her phone number and danced way too close to be respectful—in his opinion—to my baby sister all night.

“You seem kind ofroughthis morning, not gonna lie. Did things not go well after you guys got up there?”

“No. They went a little too well.”

“That good, huh? I told you that you were attracted to her. Seems like someone finally pulled their head out of their ass and tapped that hot piece of...”

“Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Geez, I didn’t even say anything bad,” he chuckled, knowing I’d get riled up by him baiting me. “What is going on with you?”

“I think I’m in love with her.”

He was quiet for a beat, his voice incredulous. “After three fucking days? Does she have a pot of gold hidden inside her vagina?”

“Reid,” I growled, pulling into my garage and turning off the engine.

“Okay, okay. Wrong holiday.”

“Fuck off. It’s not like I just met her three days ago. But now I feel like a piece of shit. She’s Haz’s best friend. What if I just fucked up their friendship? What if she realizes she doesn’t want me?”

“Do you think she feels the same way about you?”

Contemplating my answer as we walked into the house, I went straight for the kitchen and pulled out two beers, nodding toward the living room. We spent a lot of time shooting the shit on my covered deck that looked out at the woods, but it was covered with snow.

“I don’t know. I think so, but we never really made concrete plans for what happens next. I told her I’d come over after I got cleaned up, but we both have to work tonight. How am I going to spend an entire shift with her while I feel like this?”

He popped the top of his bottle, taking a swig before he responded. “You fuck her first, and then you fuck her again once you close tonight. The wall in the storeroom is pretty sturdy.”

“Fuck off, asshole. No more fucking in my bar,” I laughed.

“I didn’t do it again…Fridaynight.“ The scary thing was, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. The dude got off on fucking around in public places.

“No, you sick fuck. Not any night. Or I’m gonna come rub my balls all over your desk.”

“No, you’re not,” he laughed. “Cause you know my balls have been naked on that desk way too many times for me to give a fuck.”

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