Page 17 of Windlass

“Barring the fact that Lana is thedistraction, not the thing you need to be distractedfrom, please do. You’d be adorable in a pair of little coveralls with some wrenches.”

“You are thinking of that character fromAtlantis, aren’t you? Audrey, or whatever her name is.”

“Am I?” Stormy paused, considering. “Overalls, wrenches, great hair . . . Okay yes, maybe I am. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“I’m pretending I didn’t hear the rest of what you said, by the way,” Angie said.

“Oh, I know. But you know I’m right, right?”

“What? Did you say something?”

“Pretending not to hear me only works if you haven’t already confessed to pretense, girl.” Stormy poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it black. “But I would love to see you learn some healthier coping mechanisms. Lana sucks.”

“That does seem to be the consensus.” Angie gripped her mug, feeling for chips in the ceramic. “I don’t need anyone to like her.”

“Especially since you’re done with her, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It was true. She didn’t need her friends to like Lana. If she could have had it her way, none of them ever would have met Lana, but living with her best friends had made that difficult. Hearing how much they hated Lana, though, always hurt more than she let on. It would be a relief not to deal with that.

“Have you told her that you’re done with her?” asked Stormy.

“It’s not like we talk. She’s got other girls. She probably won’t even notice.”

“Uh huh.” Stormy, thankfully, didn’t voice her disagreement, because Angie really wasn’t up for much more of this conversation.

“I’ll just get a better vibrator,” she said.

“That’s my girl. You know you can always call me, right?”

“For sex?”

Stormy laughed. “I don’t think I could handle you. No, for emotional support.”

“I know.” The mug was annoyingly smooth beneath her fingertips. An imperfection would have given her something else to focus on. Swallowing past a lump, she asked the question she’d come here to ask. “Is it fair to ask Stevie for help?”

Stormy leaned her elbows on the bar, holding Angie’s eyes. Angie looked away.

“Are you ready to talk about that?”

“No.”

“Okay. Then, I think you know the boundaries of what is fair to ask her, and what isn’t. They depend entirely on what you’re both willing to give.”

She did know that. But could she trust herself to act on that knowledge, or was she setting herself up for disaster?

“I just don’t know what the endgame is,” she said instead.

“Learning to lean on your friends instead of bottling all your shit up? Developing healthy coping mechanisms so that you can have healthy romantic relationships?”

“Okay yeah, but—”

“You just said you didn’t want to talk about the other thing.”

True.

“Do you really want my opinion?” Stormy asked.

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