Page 6 of Cheater Slicks

Obviously, if it took longer, Rollo might regret the invite to stay at Vi’s after I made myself at home in my old room. Oh well. He might think he was man of the house, but I had my own set of keys.

“Don’t be like that.” He traced a crease in his pants over his knee. “You would have come either way.”

Already, he was rewriting events to soothe his ego, telling himself he hadn’t come crawling but I begged to help him, and he let me out of the kindness of his heart. As if he had one. “For Vi? Of course.”

Silence fell between us, but I only waited on him, knowing he had sought me out for a reason.

“Mamaw says you died.” He continued studying the pattern in the fabric as if he might be considering a second profession as a tailor. “That you were reborn a goddess.”

“Demigoddess, but yeah.”

“How was death?”

I almost tore into him for being an insensitive ass before picking up on the subtle earnestness burning in his brown eyes and bit my tongue. “For me, it was like being drop-kicked onto the surface of the sun.”

Dis Pater had stood there while I burned in his radiance. As my flesh sizzled and organs cooked, muscles peeled and bones charred. He watched me die. No. He killed me with his indifference. My skin had regrown taut and new and strange, and I was still learning how to live in it.

“Believe it or not, I’m sorry to hear it. Everyone deserves a peaceful death and a short walk to the pearly gates.” He ducked his head, as if in prayer, but surely not for me. “What happens if Mamaw moves on?”

The tenor of his maudlin thoughts should have clued me in to what was on his mind, but I wasn’t used to reading more than stale malice from Rollo. His question required switching mental gears and facing hard truths that cut both ways. Anything I predicted for Vi might also come true for Matty, and I wasn’t sure if I could bear speaking against a full recovery for either of them, even if I knew in my heart we both ought to temper our expectations.

“We won’t let that happen.” I slung Matty’s duffle over my shoulder. “Vi and Matty will be fine.”

“Hmm.” A spark of his usual antagonistic self glinted in his eyes. “Are you saying that as a god or…?”

“Demi,” I corrected him again, glad to see him smoothing over the hairline cracks in his façade.

The fissures of vulnerability had been freaking me out a little, reminding me he was human underneath.

Done securing the apartment, I exited onto the landing and waited for Rollo and Badb to catch up to me.

“I should go.” Rollo tipped his head to one side. “See you when I see you.”

Swirling purple energies twisted his features, smudging his outline until nothing remained of him.

With a cracker in her mouth, stolen from Matty’s crow bribery stash, Badb ditched me to go snack.

I found Paco shooting the breeze with the last customer of the day, trading notes on the best local fishing holes. He spotted me, shook hands with Mr. Brawns, then ambled over as the GTO pulled out of the lot.

“Jefa.”He mashed the button to close the bay door with his elbow. “Going somewhere?”

I had been so eager to set eyes on my brother, I had forgotten I still carried his duffle over my shoulder.

“New Orleans.” I filled him in on our unexpected guest and the news he brought with him. “I hate to ask, with you guys already doing so much to help out with Matty, but I’m hoping a Suarez will come along for the ride. I want Matty’s body nearby, so there’s no delay in treatment.”

Much easier to think of it in terms of a medical condition. Treatable.Curable.

From the time I had spent running theotherfamily business, I knew how to care for a body sans soul. To request one of the Suarezes drop everything and come with us was a purely selfish ask. A big one. But I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m sure you’ll find a taker.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, failing to hide his smile. “Pascal for sure.”

“Can I trust him not to hijack Matty to go out drinking and dancing?”

“No.”

“Can he behave around that much good food?”

“No.”

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