Page 51 of Cream and Punishment
“When you can hear them,” I muttered, still on-edge from the confrontation.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think she snorted a laugh before disappearing through the doors.
eighteen
“I’mnotsurewhichis more unbelievable,” Annie mused that night, swirling her straw through her Crash Bandicoot, “the whole donkey fursona thing or Lex waking up before six A.M. of her own free will and choice.”
“Hey!” Lex protested, abandoning her D.K. Ol’ Fashioned to glare at Annie. “I get up at odd hours all the time.”
“Not because you choose to,” Hattie chimed in.
Lex scowled for a second more before her expression relaxed. “Okay, fine. Not by my own choice. But that just goes to show you how much I love you, right?” She batted her eyelashes in my direction.
I blushed at the attention. “With how grumpy you were,lovedwasn’t the strongest emotion I felt at the time.”
A chorus of snickers rose up from the other three women.
“Okay, well,” Lex argued, raising her voice to be heard over the table of college students nearby, “how would you feel if you found out your sister had fallen and busted her ankle yet told her neighbor—yourcoworker—before you?”
Kris sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “She’s got ya there, Dekker.”
“Add in her infamoussunnydemeanor in the mornings, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster,” Hattie added.
“Not helpful,” I said to Kris at the exact same time Lex said it to Hattie.
Annie chuckled into her drink. “I love a good sibling squabble, so long as it isn’t mine.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hattie waved her off. “Has he kissed you yet?”
I recoiled, taken aback by the random question. Though, in retrospect, this was Hattie. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“What?” I squeaked. “No, of course not. Why would he?”
“You gave him some of my lasagna, didn’t you?”
“Well yeah, but—”
“Whoa, Hattie made you lasagna?” Lex butted in, her jaw hanging open. “I’d take a fur suit delivery any day if lasagna’s on the line.”
Annie and Kris, who hadn’t yet had the transcendental experience of tasting Hattie’s cooking, eyed Lex like she’d suggested we go outside and throw spoons at pigeons.
“You’re kidding, right?” Kris asked, her black bob swaying the two yellow bows pinned in it as she looked to us for sanity support. “She’s kidding, right?”
Lex shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the strangest dress-up I’ve done.”
She and Hattie exchanged knowing glances so quickly I nearly thought I’d imagined it. A digital melody sang out from one of the arcade games, indicating someone had just made it on the scoreboard. A ruckus by the Pac-Man machine all but confirmed that.
Annie stared at Lex for a few seconds, her brows raised dubiously before turning to me. “How’s your ankle feeling now? You need some ibuprofen?”
Despite my frayed nerves from my confrontation with Gale earlier today, I laughed. Annie had anything and everything in her purse, it seemed, but especially over-the-counter medicines. If the apocalypse were to happen tomorrow, I’d want Annie on my team. The girl wasprepared. “It’s a little sore, but I can walk normally now.”
She nodded, placated for the time being.
Kris, apparently, wasnot. “Why didn’t you tell us when it happened, Deks? You know we all would’ve been happy to help you with work.”
I focused intently on my Nacho Mama Fries so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact. I wasn’t sure why I felt guilty, since I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. Kind of like the moving discussion a few weeks ago. “It was my problem to deal with, I guess, and it was really late notice. I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
Annie sighed, her next words significant enough for her to abandon her straw’s trek around her glass. “Dekker, I’m only going to say this once, so listen up.”
