Page 26 of Puck & Make Up

And I’d said…

Yes.

“Ugh,” I mutter, lifting the lid of the dumpster and tossing the bag of trash inside.

The beer bottles clink and I feel another twinge of guilt.

Sleep was a long time coming after listening to theclickof the front door closing, to Fox’s muffled voice through the wooden panel ordering me to lock up.

I had done just that, flicking the lever, securing the chain, but my mind had been strangely blank.

Same as it had been when I crossed the room and sank onto the couch. As it had been when I watched the end of the movie—and why there’s no way I can tell anyone how the troll was vanquished because while my gaze was trained on the TV’s screen, I wasn’t absorbing a damned thing.

Because all I could think—canthink—is?—

All you want from yours?

Once upon a time I’d wanted everything.

Now…I know better.

“Enough.” I exhale and turn for the bar, intending to find some task inside Monroe’s to keep me busy, but the moment I get close to the back door, I see my uncle standing there. Beard bushy, eyes tired, arms crossed.

“I told you not until Friday.”

“I know,” I mutter, trying to shift around him, to sneak my way inside. “I just need?—”

“Turn around, Dessie girl.”

“Uncle Roger,” I say, exasperated. “I got a full night’s rest”—ha—“and you didn’t. Let me get a bit ahead for you today so?—”

He pushes off the door, crosses to me, and grips the tops of my shoulders, giving me a light shove in the direction of the parking lot. “Go out, get a cup of coffee with your friends, take a walk, touch some fucking grass or something. Just don’t keep hanging around here.”

“I like it here,” I protest, shrugging off his hold and spinning to face him.

It’s home.

It’s comfortable.

More importantly, it’s safe.

“Honey,” he says on a sigh, wrapping his arm around my shoulders now and guiding—read: corralling—me toward the parking lot.

My stomach starts twisting.

I don’t like the way he says that, don’t like the thread of finality in his tone.

“What are you saying?” I rasp.

“I’ve let this go on far too long,” he says, drawing up next to my car and tugging at the handle, which unlocks because, unfortunately, he has my purse in his hand and my keys are inside and that means the doors automatically unlock when he pulls, and?—

“Let what go on for too long?” I ask, focusing on anything except the mess that is my head.

Sighing, he settles his hand on my shoulder again, presses down until I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. “You working at the bar.”

That twisting from before?

Well, it’s a fucking tornado now, whipping around and around in my stomach until I feel like I might puke. “What are you saying?”

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